• 1 O. G. S. Crawford (1935) reprints Labouret’s article in translation.
• 2 According to K. Tuchscherer (2007: 49) by the 1990s only one person, a traditional healer, was stil (...)
• 3 Recent examples of claims that the French took overt action against Njoya’s schools and alphabet in (...)

1According to tradition, in the mid-1890s Sultan Ibrahima Njoya of the Bamum people in northwestern Cameroon had a dream in which he was ordered to draw a picture of a hand on a slate, wash it, and then drink the water (Debarge 1928-1931: 244; Labouret 1935: 127)1. Inspired by his dream, on awakening he convened his advisors and ordered them to spend the next month drawing symbols for objects they encountered on a daily basis. The resulting pictographs were then compiled and turned into the earliest written form of the Bamum language which the sultan soon began using to record the history of his people and communicate with palace officials. Njoya spent the next two decades refining his script and teaching it to the Bamum, eventually spreading literacy to over 1,000 of his subjects by 1916. Despite this promising start, usage of Njoya’s alphabet plummeted during the interwar years as Cameroon shifted from German to French control, eventually leading to its near extinction in the mid-1990s2. Contrary to conventional wisdom, however, the reason for this precipitous decline was not because the French outlawed his script or forced the closure of Njoya’s schools3. Rather, it was an unintended consequence of local inter-war politics and the sultan’s clashes with the French colonial administration.

• 4 M. Chimoun (2007) provides an overview of early scholarship on Bamum writing.

2The precise inspiration for Njoya’s dream and his alphabet is a matter of some debate. Many scholars (Göhring 1907: 68; van Gennep 1908: 12-130; Debarge 1928-1931: 243-244; Eyongetah Mbuagbaw, Brain & Palmer 1987: 34; Geary 1988: 59) argue for a connection to written Arabic due to the activities of Hausa merchants and the presence in the palace at Foumban of several copies of the Koran and other Arabic books purchased at great expense by Njoya’s father4. Arabic influence is also strongly suggested by the image in Njoya’s dream of drinking water used to wash a slate, something which mimics Islamic practices. Some scholars (Dubié 1957: 344-345) also posit an European connection to Njoya’s alphabet. Although the Bamum had no direct contact with Europeans until the German arrival in their capital of Fumban in 1902, all accounts agree that Njoya was well aware of both their trading activities on the coast and their possession of written language. More recently Tuchscherer (2007: 48-49) has made the case that traveling members of the Vai tribe from Sierra Leone might have inspired Njoya to develop his alphabet by exposing him to their own syllabary through their involvement in the slave trade and as contract laborers for Europeans in West Africa seeking porters, soldiers, and negotiators.

• 5 Sous-Lieutenant Sartous, Commandant de la Subdivision [de Foumban], “Étude sur le Bamoum”, March 1, (...)

3Regardless of from whence Njoya drew his inspiration, there is scholarly agreement that his alphabet was an independent innovation developed between 1895-1900, thus predating the German arrival in Bamum, and was driven by equal measures of intellectual curiosity and political necessity (Tardits 1980: 38-39, 57-58; Geary 1988: 59-60). Even his worst detractors describe Njoya as a highly innovative renaissance man possessed of great intelligence and eager to modernize his kingdom (Dippold 1973; Tardits 1990b; Temgoua 2011). As for political necessity, Njoya’s hold on the throne was tenuous at the beginning of his reign. Bamum’s expansion in the early 19^th century created an atmosphere of intrigue and rebellion as nobles constantly jockeyed for power and position5. During one such episode, Njoya’s father, Nsangu, was assassinated by his own brothers some time between 1885 and 1887. Since Njoya was only an adolescent at the time, his mother and a royal advisor named Gbetngnkom Ndombuo formed a regency and faced down several challenges to his right to the throne from the young king’s cousins, uncles and brothers. Gebetngnkom’s efforts to usurp royal powers after Njoya came to maturity and began ruling in his own right triggered a long running civil war in the mid 1890s which was only crushed with the aid of Bamum’s traditional Fulani enemies in the north. Njoya was so impressed by the assistance provided by Lamdio Umaro of Banyo that he adopted Fulani style cavalry for his own army, built a mosque, and converted to Islam.

• 6 According to K. Tuchscherer (2007: 47) while Njoya is rightfully credited with inventing the new sc (...)
• 7 For a more detailed discussion of the many revisions, see I. Dugast and M. D. W. Jeffreys (1950). W (...)

5After charging his nobles and palace officials with drafting icons to portray material objects and convey abstract meanings (Delafosse 1922: 14), Njoya worked closely with a handful of royal advisors to vet and refine their submissions, eventually resulting in the creation of a pictographic system of writing composed of more than 1,000 symbols6. Shortly thereafter the sultan began personally instructing his nobles and palace officials in its use as a medium of correspondence. As he did so, however, it became increasingly clear that the current system was impractical. In addition to including too many symbols for users to remember, the new script also contained several confusing homonyms (Tardits 1990a: 230). Worse yet, many of the symbols used were quite complicated and difficult to reproduce. Eager to overcome these problems, Njoya spent the next two decades overseeing a series of revisions to reduce the number and complexity of signs used (Delafosse 1922: 16-17; Debarge 1928-1931: 244; Labouret 1935: 127), eventually converting them from pictographs to symbols representing spoken syllables7. Although Njoya continued to tinker with his invention for years, the most important changes came in 1910 during the sixth revision which produced the A ka u ku script by reducing the alphabet [technically a syllabary] down to 80 symbols, simplifying their graphics, and imposing a cursive format that made them easier to write and reproduce.

• 8 P. Dubié (1957: 347-348) and A. Njiassé-Njoya et al. (1984: 31) argue that the number of pupils in (...)

9Although Njoya had already been privately tutoring Bamum notables in his script for several years before the arrival of the bm, he was impressed by the growing success of the mission’s schools and opted to build his own (Göhring 1907: 69; van Gennep 1908: 130; Heißenbüttel 2006). To that end, he purchased 66 slates from Göhring and began offering formal classes in Bamum history and the A ka u ku script to an ever increasing pool of students, both male and female, drawn from leading Bamum families. As these pupils became more adept in the use of Njoya’s script, they were tasked with helping to spread it further by teaching in the growing number of Bamum schools (often referred to as maison des livres) established around the kingdom (Delafosse 1922: 15; Tardits 1990a: 235). The best known of these institutions was the palace school, known in German as the Bamum Schule des Häuptlings Njoya, which opened in 1910 to offer courses to local adults. Over the next several years Njoya’s educational system grew so rapidly (Dugast & Jeffreys 1950: 9; Paré 1966: 224) that by 1918 he had 20 different schools scattered around his kingdom serving more than 300 pupils, some of whom had been actively recruited from neighboring Grassfields states8. This expansion bore steady fruit, increasing the number of A ka u ku literate Bamum from 600 in 1907 to over 1,000 by the early 1920s (Göhring 1907: 69; Delafosse 1922: 16).

• 9 M. Delafosse (1922: 18) and I. Dugast (1950: 232-233) both argue that the BM missionary, Anna Wuhrm (...)

11Shortly before the outbreak of wwi, Njoya began worrying that the success of these ventures had robbed his script of its very purpose since it was now widespread enough that it could no longer serve as a secret and secure form of communication (Tardits 1992: 52). His solution to this dilemma was to develop a secret language for the exclusive use of palace officials. The result, dubbed Shümom, employed a random mix of words in English, French, and German which Njoya had phonetically transcribed into A ka u ku9. Each word was then randomly assigned a new meaning to create a secret language or code which only the sultan’s inner circle knew. In an effort to make the written form of his secret language even harder for the uninitiated to understand, in 1918 Njoya tried to simplify A ka u ku yet again by cutting off or omitting portions of lines in the graphics of his script (Delafosse 1922: 19; Tardits 1990a: 234-235).

• 10 “Circonscription de Foumban, Rapport politique pour la période du 1^er au 31 mai 1916”, Cameroon Nat (...)

12The Great War and its aftermath led to dramatic changes inside Cameroon that soon impacted Njoya and his alphabet in unexpected ways. After a successful invasion, in 1916 Anglo-French forces seized the last remaining enemy outposts and expelled the Germans, missionaries included, from the colony (Digre 1990: 25; Strachan 2004: chap. 4). Although Njoya had provided material aid to the Germans early in the war, ever the pragmatist, once it became clear that they were losing, he quickly reached out to British forces marching on Fumban, providing them with guides and supplies to facilitate their advance (Jeffreys 1947; Tardits 2004: 52). The British were quite pleased by this turn of events and often spoke highly of him, especially after he expressed a strong desire for his kingdom to remain under British control. Despite this, Njoya adapted easily when subsequent Anglo-French territorial agreements shifted his kingdom into the French occupation zone at the end of 191610.

• 11 Sous-Lieutenant Sartous, “Étude sur le Bamoum”, CAOM SG Togo-Cameroun 31/318; “Voyage d’Inspection (...)

13Like their German and British counterparts, the French were initially quite taken with Njoya, describing him in positive terms and opting to let him rule over local affairs free of interference11. Above all, the French were impressed by his interest in economic matters and frequently held up his religious toleration and the invention of his alphabet as evidence of his progressive nature. During a visit to Foumban in 1918 Governor Lucien Fourneau made a point of visiting Njoya’s schools where he approvingly observed lessons making use of the A ka u ku script (Delafosse 1922: 19; Tardits 2004: 53). The following year Njoya was decorated by the local administrator in gratitude for his welcome of French troops during the war and his subsequent prompt payment of taxes (Tardits 1980: 242). Even as late as the 1930s some French observers in the metropole continued to speak highly of Njoya’s intelligence and his many reforms, particularly the invention and spread of his alphabet among the Bamum people (Chazelas 1931: 35; Labouret 1935: 127).

• 12 Cameroon has more than 200 different indigenous languages (Binam Bikoi 2012: 61).

14Inside Cameroon, however, attitudes towards the sultan and his activities took a sudden and dramatic turn for the worse in 1919. France not only received a provisional mandate over the territory that year from the League of Nations, but also dispatched a new Governor in the form of Jules Carde who was determined to Gallicize Cameroon as quickly as possible for a combination of practical, philosophical, and geo-political reasons (Orosz 2008: 192-197). Carde understood that the lack of resources in the aftermath of the war meant he would have to govern cheaply with limited personnel. His administration therefore could not afford to waste time and resources training French officials in Cameroon’s many different indigenous languages12. The obvious solution, which was also in keeping with the long French tradition of direct rule, was to impose French as the lingua franca. Doing so would also facilitate the economic development (mise en valeur) of Cameroon and prove France worthy of the mandate granted her by engaging in the cultural uplift of native peoples. Underlying this, however, was a less high minded principal. The French were determined to retain Cameroon permanently as territorial compensation for wartime losses. Since the League had only granted a provisional mandate which could theoretically be reassigned, the French were determined to Gallicize Cameroon as quickly as possible so as to render it ungovernable by any other power. In this context the spread of the French language therefore became a form of insurance policy for their long term geo-political goals.

• 13 Njoya, King of the Bamum to the Great All-Powerful King of All the English [No date], Public Record (...)
• 14 [Governor Jules] Carde to Commandant Martin, 14 November 1919, CNAY APA 10006/G, <http://condor.dep (...)
• 15 Ibid; Inspector General of Colonies Maurice Meray to Minister of Colonies, 20 April 1920, CAOM 1Aff (...)

15For the Carde administration anything which threatened these goals was to be viewed with hostility and suspicion. Increasingly this included both Njoya and his linguistic endeavors. According to Carde and his officials Njoya was already suspect (Geary 1988: 127) given his long history of close ties to the Germans and his stated preference for British rule in 191513. His invention of a secret language written in an unfamiliar alphabet only deepened their suspicion since it appeared to be a perfect vehicle for subversive activities. Some officials even went so far as to accuse Njoya of having deliberately invented Shümom “[…] to prevent the diffusion of a European language”14. The same could presumably have been said of the A ka u ku script. In fact, the more that Carde and his officials looked at Njoya, the more convinced they became that he was an impediment to progress and threatened the very success of the mandate. For example, local administrators increasingly began making the case, incorrectly, that Njoya was an absolute ruler who owned all the goods and people inside his kingdom and thus posed an obstacle to the implementation of mise en valeur15. What they did not understand was that by custom and tradition the kings of Bamum neither owned nor exploited community assets; instead they merely served as guardians of royal lands and either used tribute for charitable purposes or stockpiled it for use in case of famine.

• 16 Chef de Bataillon Martin to Lieutenant-Colonel Commandant du Corps d’Occupation du Cameroun, 27 Dec (...)
• 17 Njoya’s actions stemmed from his concern about the rapid growth of Christianity in his kingdom —the (...)
• 18 For a discussion of the Paris Mission’s takeover of BM stations, see R. Blanc, J. Blocher and E. Kr (...)

16These misunderstandings soon came to a head in the form of repeated clashes with Lt. Prestat, the newly appointed Chef de la subdivision in Fumban. Since the war was now over, the French were eager to resume their traditional form of direct rule, hence Prestat was charged with the task of limiting royal power in Bamum (Njiassé-Njoya et al. 1984: 50-51). Since he was young, ambitious, and eager to make a name for himself, Prestat often acted precipitously and provoked unnecessary clashes with Njoya when carrying out his orders16. Adding more fuel to the fire was his decision to hire Mosé Yeyap, a royal cousin with a long history of grievances against Njoya, as his interpreter (Dubié 1957: 367; Tardits 1990b: 311). At various points in his life Yeyap, a descendant of one of the assassins who had killed Njoya’s father Nsangu in the mid-1880s, reopened the question of the royal succession and challenged Njoya’s claim to the throne. Furthermore, as a devout Christian and former monitor at the bm school in Foumban (Tardits 1992: 53; Loumpet-Galitzine 2006: 143-144), Yeyap bitterly resented Njoya’s decision to abandon religious toleration and his 1916 decree forcing Bamum Christians to convert to Islam17. When members of the Paris Mission, which had been charged with taking over the work of the ousted bm, visited Fumban the following year, Yeyap returned with them to Douala to enroll in their school and learn French18. On his return to Fumban in 1919, he was hired by the French administration and quickly began spewing his hostility towards Njoya into Prestat’s willing ears (Tardits 1980: 245-246).

• 19 Martin to Commandant du Corps d’Occupation du Cameroun, 27 December 1919, CNAY APA 10006/G; Rapport (...)
• 20 [Ripert], “Instructions”, 22 October 1923, CNAY APA 11919/A. Also see A. Njiassé-Njoya et al. (1984 (...)

18Not content with these actions, a few weeks later Prestat accused Njoya of the twin crimes of instigating a plot to murder him and of hiding modern weaponry left by the Germans or possibly the British in preparation for a potential rebellion against French control19. Although the official enquiry into these allegations soon exonerated the sultan on all counts, rather than replace Prestat, the government opted instead to impose a new round of reforms on Njoya that further reduced his political power. In addition to ordering an immediate end to the “persecution” of Christians, these reforms slashed the annual tribute paid to the palace in half and enforced Prestat’s earlier demands that Njoya begin paying the laborers on his farms and dismiss all but 200 of his wives and 100 of his servants20.

• 21 Ripert, Chef de la Circonscription de Dschang, to Commissaire de la République [Marchand], 23 Octob (...)

19Over the next several years French officials, from Prestat up to Governor Carde, increasingly portrayed Njoya as a capricious, vengeful tyrant who extorted tribute from his people and squandered it on an extravagant court life21. They also repeatedly encouraged the sultan’s subjects to sue him in government run courts on the grounds that they were being oppressed and underpaid by the palace (Tardits 1980: 247-252). The final indignity came when Prestat began encouraging Njoya’s male subjects to take royal wives as mistresses.

• 22 Ripert to Commissaire de la République [Marchand], 23 October 1923, CNAY APA 11919/A.

20As intended, these “reforms” humiliated Njoya and seriously eroded royal power in Bamum. The decision to enforce French anti-slavery statutes not only flew in the face of Bamum history and custom which had long accepted the premise that conquered enemies were required to work the land for the benefit of their new overlords, it also cut into royal finances and weakened the palace by limiting its ability to dispense patronage. Requiring the sultan to police his subordinates and ensure that they paid their agricultural laborers naturally cut into his popularity among the nobles and further weakened support for the palace. Similarly, forcing Njoya to give up many of his wives, most of whom were only nominally married to him in de jure political arrangements, cut deeply into the traditional network of marriage alliances on which much of royal power was based. Convinced that the monarchy was being brought to its knees, some of Njoya’s subjects, including several of his own sons (Njiassé-Njoya et al. 1984: 51), began openly heckling the sultan, turned their backs on him in public, and showed other signs of disrespect22.

• 23 Capitaine [Hercule] Paulignan, Commandant de la Circonscription de Foumban, to Commissaire de la Ré (...)
• 24 Njoli Mbaliwa et al. to Commissaire de la République française, July 22, [1925], CNAY APA 10006/C, (...)

22The situation came to a head in 1924 after the French opted to reorganize the local administrative structure by dividing Bamum into 15 cantons under chefs de région overseen by a chef supérieur, all of whom were appointed by the government23. This cut into royal power by disrupting the traditional Bamum political system under which the sultan drew advisors or tchindas from lineage chiefs [akin to clan leaders] who wielded economic, military and judicial authority over members of their extended family network. Traditionally, sultans presided over this arrangement both by heading the most important lineage and by marrying into the others. Under the new system, however, instead of answering to Njoya, chefs de région and chefs supérieurs were loyal and responded only to the government that appointed them. Moreover, sensing the growing weakness of the palace, the newly appointed chefs de région and chefs supérieurs, many of whom were longstanding Njoya opponents, began encroaching on traditional royal powers such as dispensing land to those in need. Horrified by the latest attacks on the sultan, which they blamed on the machinations of Mosé Yeyap, thousands of armed pro-monarch Bamum gathered in Fumban in mid-May to demand the troublesome interpreter’s removal24. Responding to what it saw as a riot, the government ordered the crowd to disperse, arrested several of the ringleaders, and took additional actions against Njoya. Over the next several days French officials refused to recognize his authority over anything but the palace, forced him to dismiss more servants, and banned the collection of the traditional tribute owed to the sultan (Tardits 1980: 255; Eloundou & Ngapna 2011: 29-30). In its place Njoya was given an allowance of 18,000 francs payable in monthly installments.

• 25 Marchand to Minister of Colonies, 16 April 1931, CAOM SG Togo-Cameroun 30/26. Also see A. Njiassé-N (...)

24Although Njoya often retreated to his plantations in Mantoum, a small farm village a few kilometers from Foumban, for long periods in the aftermath of the 1924 crisis, he did not renounce his political role within the kingdom and repeatedly contested the powers and boundaries assigned to the newly created chefs de région and chefs supérieurs (Tardits 1980: 257, 260; Eloundou & Ngapna 2011: 30-39). As the local Bamum power struggle deepened, the more ambitious chiefs, with Mosé Yeyap’s guidance and assistance, used the occasion of Governor Marchand’s visit to Foumban in March 1931 to lodge a series of complaints alleging that Njoya frequently obstructed the completion of their official duties25. In response to these allegations, Marchand ordered Njoya to withdraw from political life and stay in Mantoum under a form of house arrest for the next six months. When the sultan refused to comply and instead solicited thousands of his supporters to demonstrate in protest Marchand had him arrested and sent into exile in Yaoundé where he died two years later on May 30, 1933.

• 26 For additional examples, see A. Ndam Njoya (1977: 101-102), M. Harbsmeier (1988: 270), and National (...)
• 27 JOC 1916-1936; and Rapport annuel 1921-1939.

25Given the colonial regime’s hostility to Njoya and the onset of its Gallicization campaign, it is understandable why so many people conclude that the French must have abolished his alphabet and closed his schools26. There is, however, no evidence to support this in the historical record. The French published all their laws and decrees in the Journal officiel du Cameroun and reprinted them in their annual reports to the League of Nations, yet nowhere on their pages are there any references to either a ban on Njoya’s alphabet or enforced closures of his maison des livres27. Moreover, as part of their inter-war campaign to regain their colonies the Germans kept close watch on French activities in Cameroon and maintained a vocal press campaign regarding any actions they felt overstepped the boundaries of the mandate (Joseph 1975; Orosz 2008: 295). Given their high regard for Njoya and their eagerness to denounce French policies in Cameroon, the Germans would have eagerly seized upon the opportunity to publicize and vilify any effort to outlaw indigenous alphabets and suppress African run schools. The fact that no such claims were aired in the German press strongly indicates that no such activities ever took place.

• 28 Labouret (1935: 129) called on him in 1935 to donate examples of his father’s alphabet to western a (...)

33Given the nature of the succession crisis, Njimoluh was fully aware that he had to proceed cautiously. Moreover, since he had long served as his father’s secretary and interpreter, having become literate in both French and A ka u ku due to his schooling in the palace and mission schools in Foumban, he personally witnessed what Njoya had gone through at the hands of the French and was determined to avoid the same fate (Tardits 2004: 57). As a result, he spent the first several decades of his reign working to assert the legitimacy of his claim to the throne and prove his loyalty to the French. To that end he began negotiating for the return of the royal regalia which Njoya had dispersed among his loyal followers. This process culminated in 1948 when Moussa returned to Fumban and acknowledged him as the rightful heir to the throne (Abwa 1999; Njiassé-Njoya 1999; Eloundou & Ngapna 2011: 74-77). At the same time, Njimoluh also worked constantly to prove his loyalty to the French so as to ensure the survival of the monarchy. Hence, in 1938 when local administrators organized Francophile natives into the jeunesse camerounaise française to combat German agitation for the return of their colonies, Njimoluh joined immediately. Similarly, during wwii, he actively supported the Free French cause and even raised an army in Foumban to assist with the war effort. The French rewarded his demonstrations of loyalty by supporting his efforts to reassert control over the chefs de région and chefs supérieurs, eventually ordering his inclusion in the local administrative hierarchy. After the war Njimoluh launched a political career in which he served as the elected mayor of Foumban and as a member of the newly created Assemblée représentative du Cameroun where he worked with other political leaders to secure a peaceful transition to independence that retained close ties to France. His father’s script clearly had no place in any of this and was thus allowed to languish inside Bamum for the remainder of the French presence in Cameroon28.

• 29 Ibrahim Mbombo Njoya became sultan on the death of his father Njimoluh in 1992 (Tardits 1992: 54). (...)

34After independence was granted in 1960 Njimoluh became a government official and had to continue walking a tightrope to preserve the existence of his kingdom within the Republic of Cameroon (Tardits 2004: 57-62; Heißenbüttel 2006: 8). As a result, use of Njoya’s script nearly became extinct as elderly A ka u ku literate Bamum died off. Today the alphabet remains alive only because Njimoluh opened a new school in 1985 to teach his father’s script and because the us Embassy funded a project launched in 2005 with the cooperation of the current sultan, Ibrahim Mbombo Njoya, to preserve and eventually digitize records kept in the palace archive and private hands29.