Pitfalls, ditches and a wall: territorial defence strategies of the Bamun of Foumban, Cameroon

ABSTRACT

When the Bamun arrived in the late sixteenth century in the Noun Division of the western part of Cameroon, many sedentary farming communities shared the lands between the Mbam and Noun Rivers. In order to control and preserve this territory, the Bamun used different strategies. This paper discusses how, using oral and historical sources, it has been possible to reconstruct the evolution of their concepts of acquisition and conservation of territory. This, in turn, allows a chronology to be established for the implementation of the structures resulting from these strategies. Archaeological surveys and targeted test-pitting have also located and studied this defensive architecture. This research has revealed the serious state of deterioration of such structures and raises the question of their preservation in order to enhance the material cultural heritage of this region of Cameroon.

RÉSUMÉ

Quand les Bamoun arrivent à la fin du seizième siècle dans la région du Noun, à l’ouest du Cameroun, de multiples communautés sédentaires et agricultrices se partagent les terres situées entre les rivières Mbam et Noun. Pour s’emparer du territoire et surtout le conserver, les Bamoun vont user de différentes stratégies. En employant des sources orales et historiques, il nous a été possible de reconstituer l’évolution de leurs concepts d’acquisition et de conservation du territoire, ce qui a permis d’établir une chronologie pour la mise en œuvre des structures résultant de ces stratégies. Par des prospections et des sondages archéologiques, on a également localisé et étudié cette architecture défensive. La redécouverte de ces témoins matériels historiques nous permet de constater leur état de dégradation fort avancé, ce qui soulève la question de leur conservation et de leur valorisation dans le patrimoine culturel matériel de cette région du Cameroun.

KEYWORDS:

• Defensive architecture
• fortifications
• historical archaeology
• Foumban
• Cameroon

Acknowledgments

I am deeply indebted to the resident populations of the ruins of the Foumban fortifications, who responded to nearly all of my questions. I would like to thank the teachers from the Archaeology Section of the University of Yaoundé I, especially Martin Elouga and Cyrille Tollo, who each in their own way, guided my first steps in this research that constituted my Masters thesis. I should also like to thank Eric Huysecom and Anne Mayor who encouraged me to write this paper and improved it with useful comments. Finally, I equally thank Becky Miller, of whom this was one of the last articles she translated before she untimely passed away, and David Glauser for the illustrations that accompany it.

Notes on contributor

Jacques Aymeric Nsangou is a doctoral candidate in African archaeology at the University of Geneva. His research focuses on technical changes and human population during the precolonial period in West Africa, specifically the role of endogenous military architecture and history of human settlement. Through the international research programme ‘Human Population and Palaeoenvironment in Africa’, his current doctoral research concerns precolonial fortifications and human populations along the Faleme River in eastern Senegal.

ORCID

Jacques Aymeric Nsangou http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4057-6285

Notes

1 Established on 14 March 1944 at the initiative of the mfon Njimoluh Seidou, this academy is an assembly whose main mission is the writing, preservation and transmission of the history, habits and customs of the kingdom (Loumpet-Galitzine 2006: 190).