The strongest autonomous chieftaincies were often the ones to resist German colonization. For example, only after German soldiers had set fire to the chief’s palace during the rule of Kamdem III, in 1905 did Baham submit to German rule. After the fire Kamdem III, who had successfully extended the territory of Baham to the north, west, and south during his reign through three well-waged wars, paid a per capita tribute to the Germans and supplied them with laborers to build a road to the coast. Other Grassfields chieftaincies fought to preserve their lepue status in the face of foreign domination. Bafoussam, Baleng, Batie, Bamougoum, Fodjomekwet, and Batcha, chieftaincies that had refused to recognize German authority, were burned by the German military, while Bameka, Bansoa, and Bamougoum formed an unsuccessful alliance of resistance against the invaders.
It took some time for the Germans to completely occupy the Grassfields; not until 1910 did they penetrate to Bana in the present-day Nde Department, where they established a military post.19 Yet not every chieftaincy resisted foreign rule. During the German occupation of the Grassfields, in the early twentieth century, some chieftaincies allied with the European invaders in a strategy to maintain or regain their dominance in the region. Baham’s rival, Bandjoun, submitted willingly to German rule and became a supporter of European rule, reaping the benefits of allegiance to the state throughout the colonial period and beyond. Whether with the Fulani in the eighteenth century, Bamun and Bali in the nineteenth, the Germans in 1905, or the French and British in 1915, Grassfields chiefs were historically skilled at leveraging greater regional standing by either resisting or negotiating with powerful foreign invaders.
By the twentieth century and into the colonial period, dealing with external challenges to political autonomy was part and parcel of Grassfields politics. Certainly, the three or four decades of European rule in the Grassfields region were insufficient to erase the concept of lepue from the collective memory. There had been a long precedent of acquiring lepue status through violent conflict and great sacrifice. And so it is not surprising that this ideal figured in the slogans and songs of Bamileke nationalists in the era of the quest for independence from European administration. By this time, gung appeared in nationalist discourse in another form, mfingung, usually to denote traitors as “sellers of the country.” While the meaning of lepue and gung had shifted by the 1950s to speak for contemporary political concerns and define the place of chieftaincy in the independent nation-to-be, remnant memories of nineteenth-century meanings conjured independence and nationhood in the imaginary of Grassfielders fighting for freedom from colonial rule.
That lepue survived as an ideal until the nationalist era shows that it remained important during the half century of European rule. A historical analysis of Grassfields political power and governance will help to contextualize the strategies devised by Bamileke chieftaincies to maintain as much autonomy as possible during the colonial, mandate, and trusteeship periods in Cameroon. Because this chapter examines traditional political power and practice for the purpose of understanding how UPC nationalists later vernacularized the movement’s political platform, rendering it legible in terms of Grassfields political culture, the focus here remains on the structure, philosophy, and practice of governance itself, more than on the ways in which shifts in traditional power prompted by European rule acted on ordinary Grassfielders during the colonial, mandate, and trusteeship periods.
The fo was the figurehead of the Grassfields chieftaincy, but his power was more symbolic than absolute. Certainly, he made no decisions alone. The fo governed in concert and in consultation with ancestors: his “cabinet” of wala (Bamileke scholars today most often translate this term as ministers); his governing council (kamveu); secret regulatory associations, such as the powerful and dangerous kungang; and notables, district heads, and spiritualists. Although the figurehead, and thus the most visible representative of power in gung, the fo was not the most powerful component of chieftaincy governance. At the moment of a young fo’s succession, the elder notables of gung shaped him into a respected and authoritative ruler.20 Officeholders in his father’s government were essential to the rite of succession and remained influential throughout his reign.
The balance of power at the highest echelons of government was revealed to a new fo during his period of initiation, during which he was secluded in a provisional shelter, the la’akam, for nine months.21 During this period, members of the kamveu, the government council, offered extensive counsel to the neophyte, while members of the kungang secret society officiated over religious rites. During the la’akam, notables challenged the fo emotionally and physically, questioning his ability to rule, subjecting him to severe beatings, and threatening to kill him should he try to escape. In this transitional phase, the fo’s strength, courage, and commitment to rule were tested. It is probable that the fo-to-be developed resentments toward the elders who stripped him of his subjectivity and sought to convince him that he was merely an instrument of their power. But surely one of the reasons for the ordeal was to teach the neophyte the self-control necessary to master his resentment and demonstrate deference and submission to elder, more powerful notables. Upon leaving the la’akam, the fo took up the challenge of establishing his authority—vis-à-vis that of his notables—as supreme governor of the polity. It was a task that took a lifetime, and certainly not every fo succeeded. The uneasy balance of power between notables and fo explains, in part, the tense political atmosphere surrounding a fo’s succession, and the historical frequency with which districts of a given chieftaincy seceded or attempted to do so.
During his isolation in the la’akam, the fo learned that he depended on associations of his elders to rule. The most powerful were kamveu and kungang. Oral accounts describe the members of kamveu as descendants of the nine cofounders of the chieftaincy.22 The reigning fo selected his successor with the help of the kamveu council, and upon the ruler’s death, it was kamveu who placed the legitimate successor in the chief’s palace. Although inhabitants knew who belonged to the kamveu council, the identities of the members of the kungang—the secret association of diviners, healers, and guardians of chieftaincy protocol—were concealed from everyone except the most powerful notables of the chieftaincy.23 Kungang assisted in the installation of the fo in power by carrying out the initiation rites, ensuring his spiritual protection, and bestowing on him the mystical powers necessary to govern.
Governing institutions such as kamveu and kungang ensured the fo’s dependence on his elders and minimized the likelihood that the figurehead would govern as a despot by counterbalancing the fo’s power. They could accuse the fo or other notables of crimes or treachery, oppose the fo mystically or physically (leading to his displacement), and in the event of his death without a successor, select the new fo.24 If kungang questioned a successor’s legitimacy, they could simply omit essential parts of the secret rituals necessary to complete the initiation, leaving the new fo unprotected against unseen, mystical forces threatening to an imposter.25 Without the support of kamveu and kungang—the powerful associations through which he was imbued with political and spiritual legitimacy—the successor could not be “made” a fo.
A fo succeeded his predecessor under the yoke of the chieftaincy’s past history, since the power structure in place rested on the notables, each with his or her own title, rank, role, and particular relationship with the chief’s palace. A fo had to be well versed in chieftaincy history in order to know which members of the nobility had remained loyal to the palace for generations and which might be prone to plotting its overthrow. Nobility positions were hereditary, but the number of nobility titles increased as each successive fo granted new titles during his reign. Titles were both earned and purchased; one had first to earn the title and then to express gratitude for the entitlement with a gift to the fo. The entitlement process was a primary source of revenue for the chief’s palace, before, during, and after colonization.26
Spatially,