Cameroon Grassland Art: Ninety Kingdoms, One Common Ancestor, and a King Who Could Become an Elephant
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Most entries in this book follow a single named people. The Grassland of western Cameroon asks for a wider lens: the savannas here are home to three ethnic groups with ancestors in common, the one million Bamileke spread across the southwestern plateaus, the 500,000 Bamenda-Tikar to the north, and the 80,000 Bamum in the northwest, together once divided into ninety separate kingdoms, each with its own fon, or king. That structure, a shared ancestry splintered into ninety independent courts, each producing its own royal art while drawing on the same underlying beliefs about kingship and the animal world, is the throughline worth carrying through this piece. At the center of nearly every kingdom’s art sits the fon, once believed capable of transforming into an elephant, leopard, or buffalo to protect his people.
Three Peoples, One Common Ancestor
The northern part of Cameroon was Islamized and has no sculptural tradition; the savannas of the west, the Grassland, tell a different story. The Bamileke, Bamenda-Tikar, and Bamum share ancestors in common despite their different territories and population sizes. The Bamileke, notably, resisted slave raids with suicide or rebellion, and as a result contributed very little to the Black population of the New World, a detail that marks them apart from many coastal peoples whose art and history were shaped more directly by the Atlantic trade.
The Fon: A King Who Could Become an Elephant
The Grassland was divided into ninety kingdoms, each governed by a fon supported by non-secret societies. The fon was believed to be endowed with supernatural powers allowing him to change into an animal, an elephant, leopard, or buffalo, and in that form to ensure the protection of his people and guarantee the fertility of the fields and the fecundity of the women. He was responsible for rituals of planting and harvesting, for the annual dry-season festival, for opening the collective royal hunt, and for expeditions of war. A fon was appointed by his predecessor, chosen from among his direct heirs but excluding the eldest.
Art objects functioned as symbols of position within this hierarchy: their number, the materials from which they were made, and their iconography changed progressively as a person descended or ascended the social ladder. Sculpture’s central goal was to commemorate and celebrate the royal ancestors of the present fon, and competition among sculptors was often intense, since the artist’s position was not hereditary. In the fon’s palace, alongside ancestral figures and masks, one would find headdresses, beaded thrones, bracelets, necklaces, pipes, leopard skins, elephant tusks, swords, commanders’ sticks, fans, dishware, horns, and terracotta bowls.
The N’kang Mask and the Animals of Royal Power
In Bamileke territories, the fon entrusted guardianship of the sculptures to certain members, since spreading portions of the treasury around the community was insurance against the frequent fires. Masks that elicit fear and apprehension were the work of societies responsible for repression. Despite ethnic and stylistic variation across the Grassland, similar mask types recur: buffalo, stag, elephant, and bird masks, along with masks presenting male and female human heads. These were worn during state ceremonies such as the funeral of an important dignitary or during annual festivities, when the leading dancer wore an n’kang mask bearing a false beard and a coiffure split into two symmetrical parts, often covered in royal paraphernalia such as cowrie shells and beads. The n’kang mask was followed by other masks representing a woman, a man, or an animal. The buffalo and elephant masks represented strength and power, and the spider mask represented intelligence, though most of these specific meanings are now lost.
Bamum and Bangwa: Two Styles Within One Region
Bamum social life was oriented toward the conquest of surrounding chieftaincies, with forays made into neighboring lands; from this history stems a warrior mythology and an abundance of material symbols of strength. The Bamum produced large figures encrusted with beads and cowries, along with elephant heads notably cast in bronze, dance masks shaped as a long head on a high neck, animal-head masks, and footstools and thrones decorated and supported by animal or human figures. In the small kingdom of Bangwa, by contrast, the heads of statues and masks feature distinctive puffed-out cheeks, reaching their apogee in depictions of a horn-player wearing a tiara-shaped headgear, with a heavy double arc of eyebrows and a mouth treated in blocky relief beneath a well-shaped nose.
Grassland masks were often not fully hollowed out, since the mask did not cover the wearer’s face but instead topped a bamboo cage surrounded by a tufted collar of palm fibers that concealed the head entirely. These masks, instruments of societies with political, administrative, judicial, or theatrical functions, were kept in special storage houses and brought out at the season’s first rainfall, when the king himself would appear masked and dancing. The buffalo joins the leopard, elephant, and two-headed python as a recurring image of royal power across the region’s decorative arts, alongside large house-posts, carved door and window frames, thrones, stools, tables, carved horns for royal feasts, and anthropomorphic terracotta and bronze pipes.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which peoples make up the Cameroon Grassland?
The Bamileke, Bamenda-Tikar, and Bamum, three ethnic groups with common ancestors, once organized into roughly ninety separate kingdoms across the western Cameroon savannas.
What powers was a Grassland fon believed to have?
A fon was believed capable of transforming into an elephant, leopard, or buffalo, in that form protecting his people and guaranteeing the fertility of the fields and the fecundity of the women.
What is the n’kang mask?
The n’kang is the mask worn by the leading dancer during Grassland state ceremonies, bearing a false beard and a coiffure split into two symmetrical parts, often covered in royal paraphernalia such as cowrie shells and beads.
How does Bamum art differ from Bangwa art?
Bamum art reflects a warrior mythology, including large bead-and-cowrie-encrusted figures and bronze elephant heads, while Bangwa sculpture is marked by puffed-out cheeks, reaching its height in depictions of a horn-player wearing tiara-shaped headgear.
See also: Chamba Masks: A Skull-Shaped Helmet and the Girl Who Was Really a Buffalo · African Masks by Region and Tribe
