By Matengo Chwanya
What is a king to do, when he feels there is a need to preserve his nation’s rich history? The one who has read takes it upon himself to ensure that his people can write down their history, and can be able to read later on.
The decision to introduce literacy upon his people is what makes Ibrahim Njoya (1860-1933), 17thKing of the Bamum, really stand out.
King Njoya, leading a nation located within what is now western Cameroon, came up with an alphabet that could be used to write down the rich history of the Bamum, a people living on grasslands sandwiched between the impenetrable equatorial rainforests in the south and imposing mountains to the north.
His alphabet started out as hundreds of pictograms and ideograms, but gradually whittled down to about 70 characters that were syncretized from Arabic and Vai scripts. The Vai are a Liberian ethnic group that came up with a written script in the early 1800s.
To ensure the written language was widely adopted, he established schools which were directed to use it in instruction, and the language was to be used in all levels of government. The script he helped birth is called the A-ka-u-ku, and has better preserved the rich traditions of the Bamum than the oral narratives that existed before. 8,000 well preserved records in a Cameroonian museum celebrating the kingdom bear testimony to this.
King Njoya was a man of great intellect, and testament to this comes in the form of a corn grinder that he invented. It is also believed that he was also rather accessible, holding court every evening to hear people’s problems and collect his tribute. Eyewitness accounts state that all that was required to secure an audience with the king was a symbolic supplication and you could whisper (literally) your problems to him.
King Njoya reigned from 1886 to 1933, and in this time came into contact with German and French colonists. He managed to keep everything friendly with the Germans, but when the French took over German territories after World War I, they were not so friendly. As a ruler opposed to French rule, he was exiled to Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, where he died in 1933. Following his death, his greatest legacy, the new script, fell into disuse after it was banned by the French who also plundered the capital city of the kingdom, Fumban.
Fumban still stands today, but the current sultan, Ibrahim Mbombo Njoya, the grandson of King Njoya, plays a ceremonial role. The palace built by his grandfather stands to date, and serves as a museum to foster an understanding of the Bamum, who are estimated to number about 200,000 today.
A-ka-u-ku is being retaught in classes there; who knows, it could become as prominent as Ge’ez is in Ethiopia and Eritrea.
Africa Global News Publication
