Republic of (Fr. République du Cameroun).
Country in West Africa. It has an area of 475,440 km2 and a population of 15·13 million (2000 estimate). The national languages are French and English, reflecting colonial legacy. Cameroon was a German protectorate until 1916, after which time four-fifths of the territory became a French mandate, and the remainder formed a British mandate. The French administration granted the territory independence in 1960 and the British in 1961, forming a joint territory.
1. Ethnic groups, languages and historical background.
GERHARD KUBIK
Geographically, and in its ethnic and linguistic divisions, Cameroon is extremely varied. Dense tropical forests extend from the Atlantic coast to the south-eastern borders. The coastal and southern populations, for example the Duala, Beti, Bulu and Fang (Faŋ), and several ‘pygmy’ groups (notably in the area of Yokadouma), all speak Bantu languages. Among populations in the centre, from the Bamenda Highlands grassland in the west to Bétare Oya in the east, there is a patchwork of languages historically classified as ‘semi-Bantu’ or ‘bantoid’, but now grouped together with other Bantu languages as part of the greater Benue-Congo family. Further north, on the Adamawa plateau, long-established millet agriculturalists such as the Kutin (Peere), Chamba (Samba Leko) and others speak Adamawa-Eastern languages, as do the Gbaya on the eastern border. The FulBe (Fulɓe, Fulani or Fula) who migrated to the Adamawa area in the 19th century speak a West Atlantic language. Languages of the Chadic family in northernmost Cameroon are spoken by mountain dwellers such as the Matakam, and Saharan languages (e.g. Kanuri), are found among peoples living near Lake Chad in the north.
Biodiversity, long-term isolation of scattered ethnic groups in pre-colonial times and the impact of the 19th-century FulBe invasion are three factors that determined the contemporary cultural panorama of Cameroon. FulBe cultural and political influences reached as far south as the Kingdom of Bamum in the Cameroon grasslands, affecting populations such as the Tikar and the Vute. Conversely, aspects of southern Cameroon’s oldest population, the ‘pygmy’ hunter-gatherers, have influenced the music and dance of peoples settled in the tropical forests that once extended from the Sanaga river into Gabon and the Congo.
Cameroon can be broadly divided into five large music and dance style areas, somewhat analogous to language divisions. In each area there are specific instrumental resources and distinct social and religious situations.
Cameroon, §2: Main musical style areas
This area includes long-established ethnic groups such as the Duala and Bassa (Basaa) and the more recently settled ‘Pahouin’ peoples, including the Bulu, Beti, Fang, Eton (Etɔn) and Mvele. The ‘Pahouin’ group seems to have expanded from Gabon into southern Cameroon during the 18th century, and its musical style is characterized by the use of a hexa- to heptatonic tonal system; multi-part organization of vocal and some instrumental music in parallel thirds; the use of the ngkul (ŋkul) slit-drum for drum communication and/or dance drumming or both, as in the initiation dance called ozila; the importance of the mvet stick zither and the mendzang (mendzãŋ), gourd-resonated xylophone. Oral literature and music are inextricably intertwined in the chantefables studied by Eno-Belinga (1966; 1970), in the poetry of the mvet (Eno-Belinga, 1979) and the didactic songs for young women (bikud-si) (Awona, 1967).
The Mvet stick zither among the Beti and Bulu is known as ebenza among the Mvele and, in some parts of southernmost Cameroon, as ŋgɔmbi (a term that also refers to the harp of the Fang people of Gabon). The mvet is known in southern Cameroon, Gabon, Ecuatorial Guinea, and border areas in the northern Congo and south-western Central African Republic. Although its history is not known, it is probably an autochthonous instrument of the Bulu-Beti-Fang group of peoples, giving this culture area an unmistakable musical identity.
Ensembles of gourd-resonated xylophones called mendzang (or mεnjyãŋ) are also characteristic of southern Cameroon. These instruments are portable and have a built rail to position the keyboard away from the player’s body. Four such instruments are usually played together with an engis (plaited rattle) and quite often also a tall, single-headed drum. Xylophones were used in the past as processional instruments to accompany chiefs on visits to neighbouring villages.
Individual names vary from language to language. Recorded in 1970 by Kubik, Gaston Bayiege from Mbang (Mbãŋ) village near Ngelemenduka, used the following terminology: the 13-note olulong (olulɔŋ: ‘the whistle’) functions as the lead xylophone; the nine-note ebulu is used for playing basic patterns in octaves; the five-note ombɔk (ombɔk: ‘the one and only’), on which only one note at a time is played; and the four-note endum functions as the bass of the group (fig.1). The term for the latter is onomatopoeic, imitating the sound of bass notes: ndum ndum ndum.
The tuning of southern Cameroonian xylophones has been subject to considerable controversy. Ngumu provided intracultural evidence from the Beti as to the tuning process and its conceptualization (1975–6, pp.14–18), suggesting that tuning begins at the centre of the middle-range xylophone of a group. This central note is considered analogous to the ‘head of a family’. Tuning then proceeds in ascending order of pitch (fig.2). Octaves, sometimes referred to as ‘wives’, are then found for notes 4, 5 and 6. Ngumu suggests that the tuning was at one time hexatonic, but at some point musicians from an area known as ‘Etenga country’ began to introduce an additional note, 7 in fig.2, called esandi (‘the spoilsport’), and accepted only reluctantly by local musicians (Ngumu, 1975–6, p.15). Ngumu states that local xylophone tunings in southern Cameroon were variable, although cent-measurements of several older specimens indicate a predilection for ‘neutral 3rds’ between notes spaced one key apart, e.g. 1 and 3, 2 and 4, etc. The harmonic basis for both xylophone and voice in this southern Cameroonian style are 3rds and octaves.
Cameroon, §2: Main musical style areas
The south-eastern Bantu-language area of Cameroon, near the towns of Yokadouma and Moloundou, includes individual languages such as Mpompo and Mpiemo (Mpyεmo). Masking traditions and secret societies in south-eastern Cameroon demonstrate the proximity of the Congo and Gabon. Until recently, men participated in secret societies, called so (sɔ), devoted to a spirit who appeared as a mask. The doyombo (dɔyombo) mask that survives among the Mpiemo once belonged to a comparable secret society, but has now been reassigned to the level of teenage entertainment (Kubik, 1993, pp.40–41). But new secret societies form all the time. As recently as the 1960s, a female secret society called akulavye originated among the Bizami and, subsequently, became popular in the area east of Yokadouma among teenage girls.
A musical characteristic of this area is the presence of harmonic part-singing with a tendency, particularly in some sya chantefables among the Mpiemo, to use chord clusters shifted upwards by a semitone. Such predilections seem to originate with the agwong (agwõŋ) mouth bow that reinforces selectively partials 4–6 over two fundamentals a semitone apart. Mpiemo music is closely related to that of other peoples in the Republic of the Congo, such as the Pomo (Pol), Bakota (Kota) and Bongili, an area from which they migrated centuries ago. However, living close to the northern fringes of the tropical forest, they have also assimilated some traits from the Gbaya, a savanna population settled north of the Yokadouma-Nola axis who speak an Adamawa-Eastern language. Gbaya influence can be noted in songs with Gbaya texts and in the use of singing in parallel 4ths within a pentatonic framework.
A variety of musical instruments characterizes this area of dense forests; most of the instruments are shared with populations further south, in the Republic of the Congo and in the upper Sangha area in the Central African Republic. In a survey carried out on the Cameroonian side of the border in 1969, the following musical instruments were observed between the town of Yokadouma and Mgboe (Mgbɔɛ) village further east: mentsyang or mεntsyãŋ (mendzãŋ) gourd-resonated xylophones with 10–11 keys, usually played in pairs; kembe box- and gourd-resonated lamellophones brought by returning migrant workers from Brazzaville (Congo) in the 1920s; kuli (slit-drum) played with membranophones; log xylophones with a base of banana stems, also called mentsyang or mεntsyãŋ; kama, a plaited rattle used by women to accompany women’s songs and lullabies; and home-made acoustic guitars used in drinking and dance band parties.
Prior to the migration of early Bantu-language speakers from the so-called Bantu nucleus (an area encompassing parts of western Cameroon and eastern Nigeria) to west-central Africa c1000–c400 bce, the equatorial forest was inhabited by small groups of hunter-gatherers who were radically different from other speakers of Niger-Congo languages, namely the ‘pygmies’. The Bantu languages spoken by forest hunter-gatherers today are believed to be adaptations of earlier Bantu languages spoken by migrants with whom the ‘pygmies’ first came into contact. However, a pre-Bantu ‘pygmy’ musical (as opposed to linguistic) culture seems to survive tenaciously. A distinctive polyphonic singing style, often combined with a highly developed yodelling technique, is found among ‘pygmies’ in widely separated areas. The strength of ‘pygmy’ musical culture is demonstrated by the near universal adoption of ‘pygmy’-style polyphony. Two different ‘pygmy’ ethnic groups survive in south-east Cameroon who are still active as elephant hunters. Mpiemo women learnt to practise ‘pygmy’-style polyphony with enge (yodelling) from ‘pygmies’, in contrast to the parallel harmonic singing used in most of their vocal music.
Cameroon, §2: Main musical style areas
The Kingdom of Bamum was established in the 16th century by Prince Nshare Yen. It gradually assimilated neighbouring peoples, rising to a powerful centralized state during the 19th century. Under the Sultan Njoya (c1876–1933), spectacular forms of court music were developed in Fumban, the capital. Princes belonging to the ngürri secret society played flutes, rattles and elaborately carved drums. A masquerade formed one of the highlights. Nguon was an important festivity that took place for the last time in 1924. It included nguon (friction drums), flutes and other instruments (Geary, 1983). The mbansie secret society of Bamum originated in the 19th century with membership open to anyone who had fought with distinction against the Muslim FulBe. Tall double bells were used during public performances of the society, as were rattles and drums. During Njoya’s reign, large slit-drums stood in the market-place of Fumban, to be used for summoning people to the palace. These drums were suppressed by the French administration after World War I, but in 1976 Sultan Seidou Njimoluh Njoya reconstructed one and had it consecrated a year later.
Bamum and western Cameroon are important areas for masked dancing. Masks appear in the tso and kuosi secret societies of the Bamileke. Among the Mankon of western Cameroon, masks are employed in dances such as mambang, accompanied by a 17-key log xylophone. Masks were worn only by males of the royal line, and membership of the secret society was open only to males of a certain standing (Njob, 1967). Masks have also been documented among the western Tikar (Koloss, 1985). The Cameroon grasslands is a traditional area of metal-working in bronze (produced with the lost-wax technique) and iron. It is an important distribution area of both single- and double-flange welded iron bells, the latter usually with a bow-grip.
More surprising and historically significant is that, by contrast, the manufacture of lamellophones, the other significant iron-age development in African musical instruments in this area, is strictly from plant materials as it is in south-eastern Nigeria. Two or three split raffia tubes are joined to form a resonating chamber; raffia needles (obtained from a raffia stem’s hard surface) are placed within crosswise to reinforce the structure. A triangular or crescent-shaped soundhole is then cut into the soundboard. Lamellae obtained from the hard surface of the raffia stem leaf are then attached to the soundboard with a pressure bar placed between bridge and backrest. Lamellae are tuned by adjusting their position over the bridge and/or attaching lumps of black wax to their undersides (fig.3). A remarkable device is the use of vibration needles, also cut from the surface of a raffia stem leaf, attached lengthways with the help of black wax on top of many lamellae. Their pointed lower ends are raised, and as soon as the musician depresses a lamella, the vibration induces a sympathetic vibration of the needle, resulting in amplification and prolongation of the sound.
Mbø ong (toŋ) and mbø enggo (ŋgo) are Tikar names for the rafia lamellophone. They have 12–18 lamellae, and Tikar players use their thumbs and the index fingers of both hands in a pincer grip to sound the notes. An esoteric lamellophone used by the Tikar at Ngambe is known as mbø menjang (mεnjãŋ or mendzãŋ). It has an oval bowl-shaped resonator and is used during sacrificial ceremonies for dead Tikar chiefs. The mbø menjang is played inside shrines in groups of three to four, accompanied by a cylindrical drum played in a horizontal position (fig.4).
At Ngambe, in Tikarland, a small pygmy group has long been employed as court musicians, performing the nan (nã) dance, and occasionally performing for Sultan Njoya in Bamum; they are the northernmost pygmy group known in Africa. Pygmy-influenced polyphony is evident in Tikar ngbãnya dance songs and in nswe (nswe) hunting songs.
Today the most popular instrument among the Vute people, located east of the Bamum kingdom, is the timbrh lamellophone (fig.5). Older specimens found in museums are made entirely of raffia, while those dating from the mid-20th century tend to have rectangular box resonators made from light wood. The lamellae are broad, arranged with their ends in a straight line and are tuned in octave pairs. Vibration needles create a buzzing sound.
The timbrh is tuned pentatonically. Smaller versions are used as solo instruments on long journeys (see Kubik, 1989, pp.52–3). Larger specimens are combined to form a timbrh ensemble of three or four instruments of different sizes, often with an accompanying flat seed-shell rattle (kara). Unlike the older playing styles, the performing technique of the timbrh since the 1950s has been based on the use of alternate thumb strokes, creating an interlocking pattern between left- and right-hand thumbs. Each thumb strikes simultaneously two adjacent lamellae tuned an octave apart. The result is a music in interlocking tone-rows of paired octaves. The themes are short and all based on cycle number 12 or 24. Timbrh ensembles generate an amazing swing and the vocal line is developed over a rhythmic-melodic foundation that is constantly reshuffled. Many song texts praise the chief and his retinue.
Cameroon, §2: Main musical style areas
The peoples of northern Cameroon use a pentatonic tonal system, and in some cultures, notably the Chamba, this pentatonicism is combined with two-part singing in parallel 4ths and 5ths. In music, older structural principles survive; the maintenance of a multiple main beat within interlocking patterns is just such an example. These concepts survive, despite the effects on many of these cultures since the 19th century of cultural imports along the Hausa trading network, and by dominant FulBe settlers. The Kutin people perform a secret dance with composite end-blown gourd horns called fang (fãŋ) kure, which are held by the musicians in their left hands while the right hand shakes a sahare (plaited rattle). These musicians perform a circle dance, moving anticlockwise while blowing their horns. Normally the horns are hidden in a house in the bush, taken out only for funeral rites and for commemorating the dead.
Double bells such as the tong (toŋ) senwa and tong (toŋ) deni are found in this area and further north. René Gardi (1969) noted their use in funeral ceremonies among the Doayo (Doyayo), a small mountain-dwelling people south of the Benue river. The presence of bells in northern Cameroon is testimony to the antiquity of highly developed iron-smelting and iron-working metallurgy in this part of Africa. Gardi also documented the use of music by blacksmiths among the Matakam in the Mandara mountains who play five-string ganzavar harps. The ganzavar’s resonator is covered with the skin of a varanus lizard. Soundholes cut into the skin may be covered with a mirliton from a spider’s cocoon, giving the ganzavar its characteristic buzzing sound. In contrast to other harps of this type, the bridge is visible, appearing on the surface of the skin, so that the strings can be easily attached (fig.6). Harps were played among the Matakam to entertain blacksmiths at the furnace. While one man worked the bellows, another would play the harp. Harp music was thought to provide magical powers, since the extraction of iron was controlled by the local deity called dzikile.
Hausa traders and minstrels have been active along the major trade routes for centuries. They still play the garaya, a two-string lute played with a plectrum (Kubik, 1989, pp.80–81). A piece of sheet iron with rattle rings is usually attached to the neck of the lute. Hausa lutists, dependent on neighbouring FulBe courts, often recite praise-poetry for the lamido. Amadou Meigogue Garoua, a Hausa musician, was recorded with his goge (gogé or one-string bowed lute) by Kubik in 1964. His goge had a gourd resonator covered with the skin of a varanus lizard, and the string of the lute and the bow was horsetail. The quality of his voice, his use of melisma and the melodic lines of his pentatonic accompaniment have been compared to North American blues.
FulBe immigrants who settled in northern Cameroon introduced court music and dance forms such as nyawala, bonsuwe and chalawa. During these performances, several female lead singers perform praise-poetry for the lamido and other important members of the court in a highly declamatory style with a thin and raspy tone. The response is sung by a chorus of men, singing in unison, some playing ganga double-headed snare drums covered with red or brown cloth, and carried on a strap around the musician’s shoulders.
FulBe courts, with their musical traditions, have survived Western colonialism and continue to exist in the Adamawa region. The FulBe invaded the area at the beginning of the 19th century, and their court music is closely related to Hausa court music. FulBe court music also includes the use of algaita (algeita) (oboes) and gagashi (a metal long trumpet up to four metres in length), used particularly in a music called ganjal. Alfons M. Dauer (1985) has traced this instrumental combination back to the Sudanic cultures of the Middle Ages, with remote origins in Central Asia.
Despite segregationist policies, some processes of transculturation between the FulBe and autochthonous populations have taken place. Veit Erlmann emphasized that most of the professional musicians among the FulBe of northern Cameroon were of Kanuri or Mandara origins until the early 20th century. The ciidal end-blown flute, which is known in the area of Lake Chad, is an example of such assimilation of local traditions.
Colonialism, mass media technology of the 20th century and the migration of Cameroonian intellectuals to Europe, notably France, have allowed Cameroon to participate in cultural exchanges with other parts of Africa and overseas on a much greater scale than in previous centuries. In the late 19th century European musical instruments began to appear in the towns of Douala, Yaoundé and other emerging urban centres, as soon as the presence of missionaries, German administrators and army personnel was established. A letter written in German by a Cameroonian schoolboy in 1908 to a friendly missionary expected to return from Europe gives testimony to the popularity at that time among youths of a type of mouth organ called Junker Kai Mundharmonika. Another boy is known to have asked his priest for ‘eine Harmonika welche zwei Töne hat’, which probably describes a chromatic type of harmonica. Equally popular were military brass and reed instruments used for marching in parades. The American banjo was brought to Cameroon in the 1930s via contacts with dance musics already established along the West African coast, particularly in Ghana and Nigeria. By the 1960s, individual song styles with solo acoustic banjo and guitar accompaniment sung in Ewondo or French had developed in the south.
The availability of dance music from West Africa and the Congo on shellac discs in the 1950s caused a wave of new developments. Those who had access to guitars, accordions and saxophones formed groups with these new instruments. Some excellent accordion performers, such as the architect Raphael Nomo Etogo (stage name Oro Lux de Nkometou II; fig.7), decided, however, to avoid the limelight, playing Merengue music privately for their own children while pursuing a non-musical profession.
Music played with traditional instruments was also affected. Among the Vute of central Cameroon, compositions for timbrh lamellophones were often referred to by their performers as marenge, contre-banjo and cha-cha. Merengue from the Dominican Republic had the strongest impact on southern and central Cameroonian traditions in the late 1950s and early 60s. Early merengue was played with accordions and guitars, but also with the long-established mendzang (mendzãŋ) gourd-resonated xylophones. A famous group of ‘modern’ xylophone players that emerged in the 1960s was the Richard Band de Zoe Tele led by Richard Nze. This band recorded several albums, and appeared at the first Pan African Cultural Festival held in Algiers in 1969. Xylophone ensembles modelled after Richard Nze’s played all over southern Cameroon at village dance parties for youths at one time. Groups such as the Roddy Band de Mengbwa recorded in the Ebolowa area, typically performing merengue, rumba, rumba boucher, cha cha cha and an adaptation of a local dance in a fast 12-pulse rhythm called elak. Most song texts were in either Bulu or French. Another, more urban-based group was the Miami Bar Band in Douala, playing with box-resonated xylophones in the town’s red-light district. Their repertory was strongly based on Cuban dance rhythms, with some songs sung in Spanish.
The Catholic Church began to promote a more indigenized liturgical music in the 1950s, and one of the major exponents of these trends was the priest, church music composer and musicologist Pie-Claude Ngumu and his ensemble, La Maîtrise des Chanteurs à la Croix D’ebène. Ngumu’s ensemble included a choir, four xylophones, double-bell, slit-drum, rattle, membrane drum and stick zither. His goal was the adaptation of Christian liturgy to the African spirit. He recruited xylophone performers from village communities to perform in his ensemble. La Maîtrise appeared successfully at the Premier Festival des Arts Nègres de Dakar in 1966. Ngumu also composed a well-known mass, the Messe Ewondo (see also Bebey, Francis).
Anthropological and ethnomusicological research in Cameroon began soon after the establishment of the German Kamerun Protectorate in 1884 by the diplomat Gustav Nachtigal. The German administration established early contacts with the Kingdom of Bamum during the rule of the eminent Sultan Njoya (c1876–1933). Njoya is remembered for his promotion of court music and the modernization of traditional script. Bernhard Ankermann made the earliest sound recordings on wax cylinders in Foumban, the capital of Bamum, in 1909. His photographs show the use of magnificent drums, bells and other instruments in the sultan’s palace. In the south, Günter Tessmann published an ethnography of the Fang, Die Pangwe, that included a chapter on music by the distinguished scholar Erich Moritz von Hornbostel (1913). German sources on music in Cameroon prior to World War I include travellers’, administrators’ and missionaries’ reports.
and other resources
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J. Sieber: Die Wute: Lebenshaltung, Kultur und religiöse Weltanschauung eines afrikanischen Volksstammes (Berlin, 1925)
M. Schneider: ‘Zur Trommelsprache der Duala’, Anthropos, xlvii (1952), 235–43
E. Mohammadou: L’histoire de Tibati, chefferie Foulbé du Cameroun (Yaoundé, 1965)
S. Awona: ‘La guerre d’Akoma Mba contre Abo Mama’, Abbia, nos.9–10 (1965), 180–214; nos.12–13 (1966), 109–210
M.S. Eno-Belinga: Littérature et musique populaire en Afrique Noire (Paris, 1966)
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Danses et chants bamoun, rec. 27 July 1957, OCORA SOR 3 (c1975)
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