2025/10/18 by Bonny Duala-M’bedy, Leopold Joseph
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #African history #African history and culture studies #Bamoun #Bamoun writing #Colonialism, slavery, and trade #Njoya #Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies
paper · doi:10.82319/vtr.v11i2.441
openalex publication_date 2025/10/18 · openalex created_date 2025/11/08 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/07
The life and work of King/Sultan Njoya (c.1876-1933), ruler of Bamum in Cameroon is considered in the round, using a wide variety of archival and early published sources from the German period before WW1. A detailed ethnographic overview of the Bamum is provided. This includes their language and history, as well as their relationships to neighbouring groups. Their political organisation and the history of the dynasty is given along with some discussion of prehistory in relation to the Sao of north Cameroon. Bamum art is also discussed. This leads to a summary of the life of Njoya and his works. The way he reformed the political organisation of Bamum is described as are his activities as an inventor. Paramount among these is the invention of the Bamum writing system. Detail is given of the development of the writing system for the Mum language, its different iterations and the major works that Njoya wrote in the final version of the script. These are The Book of the Bamum Kings (including what is, in effect, Njoya’s autobiography) the Customs of the Bamum and the book describing his own new religion.