bakwerirama

Bakweri Industry and Handicraft in the Early 1900s

By CARL JACOB BENDER (Culled from Twenty Years Among African Negroes (Halderman-Julius Company, 1925)

The following excerpt is from one of the numerous publications on the Bakweri by Carl Bender, a German Missionary who settled on the Cameroon coast toward the end of the 19th century, and lived among the Bakweri for about 25 years. One cannot help but sadly agree with Mr. Bender’s century-old observation that pre-colonial Bakweri culture was dealt a fatal blow when it came in contact with European “civilization”. Read on:

Introducing Max Sako Lyonga: The Man with the Golden Brush

By Dibussi Tande

In October 2004, Cameroonian painter Max Sako Lyonga captured the imagination of the country and made headline news with a breathtaking and grandiose exhibition at the Blaise Cendrars French Cultural Center in Douala. The exhibition, which was titled “Letter to anyboby”, drew thousands of visitors and again confirmed, if need be, that Max Lyonga was without doubt one of the greatest Cameroonian painters of his generation, if not of all times.

According to a World Bank portrait of the artist, “[Max Lyonga’s] native Bakweri culture, the environment, social aspects of life, and intimate scenes and feelings dominate his artistic works which he expresses through abstraction and figurative works.”

Max Sako Lyonga in Images

Click the thumbnails below for a sample of Max Lyonga's paintings

Click here to visit the ARNET website to purchase paintings by Max Lyonga

Did Traditional "Mokpwe" Houses Have Windows?

By Mola Mbua Ndoko

Did traditional Mokpwe houses have windows?

Mokpwe traditional houses as I knew them before I started going to school at the age of eight had no windows. The walls were constructed with "vee-ye", "ngonja", "vekaka", "meyowo me mae", "meyoli me wanga/likomba". The "veyee" were planted on the ground like a fence.

"Ngonja", or "vekaka" or "meyowo me mae" were tied neatly and firmly, using "meyoli", on the skeleton wall. Sun light entered the house through the entrance to the house, while air and smoke circulated through openings between the walls and the roof, through the several holes that were created by the "meyoli" that were tied on the skeleton walls, and through the entrance to the house.

Bakweri Shorthorn Cattle

Chapter 11 D of Cattle breeds, an encyclopedia

Bordering Nigeria, in the most southwestern tip of Cameroon, at the foot of Mount Cameroon, between Buea and Victoria in the South-West Province the Bakwiri tribe raises the same type of cattle as the Nigerian Forest Muturu. In 1978 Bakwiri cattle numbered only several hundred animals. Their numbers were estimated between 800 and 1,300 in 1992.

The Bakweri shorthorn dwarf cattle are a vanishing breed. Raises many questions: Who still raises them? What are the facts and details of Bakweri herding culture? Any photographs? Conservation efforts? What is the proper (traditional) name of the breed? Who owns a herd? Any historical facts, speculation or educated guesses about how the Bakweris became a cattle-rearing culture?

A Traditional Bakweri Dwelling in the 19th Century

Culled from Thomson, E. Honeyman. Memoir of George Thomson (Edinburg: A Elliot, 1881)

15th July 1872: It may be as well to give you a description of the house in which we were lodged, being an average specimen of those inhabited by the Bakwelis, the peoples living up the mountain.

Like all those houses which I have as yet seen in Africa, it is rectangular and oblong, and is much better than the houses built by some tribes, but not so good as those of others. This one is much larger than the generality of African houses, being as near as I can guess forty feet by twenty, the side walls about eight or nine feet high, with a pretty high-pitched roof. the roof is supported on runners fastened to the upright posts of thewalls, and by a strong ridge-pole supported at each end in the gables, and by two intervening posts or pillars in the interior.

Bakweri Traditional Attire

The traditional attire of the Bakweri is similar to that of most, if not all, the coastal ethnic groups of Cameroon such as the Duala. It consists of the Sanja for the men and the Kabba for women. While the exact origin of this attire is unknown, we can assume that it appeared with the advent of European traders on the Cameroon coast who exchanged loin clothes for food stuffs.

At the turn of the 19th century, Carl Bender noted that: “In towns near the coast, where European traders offer their wares in exchange for cocoa beans, kernels and palm oil, the loin cloth, or lapalap, a piece of colored punt or sateen about two yards long, is coming more and more into use”. According to Bender, the Bakweri did in fact have a traditional attire that was worn before the arrival of Europeans.