Ibrahim Njoya

Ibrahim Njoya (c. 1860–1933) was the seventeenth sultan of the Kingdom of Bamum, a monarchy in western Cameroon dating back to the fourteenth century. He succeeded his father Nsangu, and ruled from 1886 or 1887 until his death in 1933, when he was succeeded by his son, Seidou Njimoluh Njoya. He ruled from the ancient walled city of Fumban. Njoya was a neographer, having invented the Bamum syllabary and Shümom language.

Person and life

When Njoya was born, the Kingdom of Bamum was in external conflict with the Fulani and internal division amongst the royal family. His father, King Nsangu, was known in the region as a war wager and ultimately died in a battle against the Nso in 1888. Njoya's mother acted as regent and ruled the kingdom until he came of age and could ascend the throne in 1895. Njoya descended from a dynastic line going back to Mfon Ncharé, who founded Bamum in the year 1394. Ncharé was the son of the Tikar royals princess Yen and Mforifum also called Mvétam. Yen was a direct descendant of Prince Mbum of Ngan Ha as well as Essedi, a merchant who according to Njoya's historical written testimony was an Egyptian. Genealogical analysis shows that Essedi, the patriarch of Bamum, was the great grandson of Ajara who is the founder of the Mandara lineage. Numerous scholars have interpreted this literary narrative as a historical inference speaking to the roots of the Bamum and Tikar along the Nile River in what is now Sudan. Njoya also detailed a long history of political skirmishes between the Bamileke and Bamum. As a result of the military expeditions of Njoya's ancestor Ncharé, the founder of the Bamum, the majority of modern Bamiléké people have paternal ancestors who are Bamum. A study by Bird et al, which analyzed Central African populations, shows that the Bamun and the Bamileke have the lowest inferred within-group IBD sharing. This indicates a lack of endogamy. The Kingdom of Bamun was reported to be the largest in the Grassfields and known for both fighting and trading with neighboring groups. These interactions may have acted to reduce genetic isolation in the Bamun. Colonel Gorges of the British Army, who met Njoya in 1914, described him as "a fine upstanding man." He practised polygamy — Gorges reported that he had 600 wives and 149 children by 1915; it is thought that he had 177 children in all. Two other sources, including Images from Bamum. German Colonial Photography at the Court of King Njoya, Cameroon, West Africa, 1902-1915 by Christraud M. Geary and a text by Kristian Kristiansen and Michael Rowlands, cite that he had 1,200 wives and concubines and 350 children in total. Under the influence of a German missionary, Njoya converted to Christianity. He later created a new syncretistic religion based on Christianity and traditional Bamum religion before converting to Islam along with much of his court in 1916. He accepted the authority of the Sokoto Caliph, requesting the caliph to send him an emir's flag and Muslim teachers.

Rule

Njoya's mother, Njapdunke, acted as regent until he reached majority. His official rule was further delayed because his father's head was held by an old adversary, the Nso people. (By tradition the head or skull of an ancestor is of ceremonial importance to the Bamum.) The Germans helped him in recovering the head and this, along with their allowing him relative independence, caused him to have generally good relations with them. German legal scholar Christian Bommarius has refuted the claim that Mfon Njoya betrayed Rudolph Manga Bell's resistance proposal against the Germans. This claim originated from German colonial officials who sought to incriminate Manga Bell for resisting their attempts to seize Duala land. He greeted the Germans with great celebrations in his residence in Foumban, which soon brought him the title of an official figure-holder of the German colonial government. King Njoya tried to maintain a good relationship with the German Empire during his lifetime. On the birthday of Emperor Wilhelm II, he had given him the throne from the governor of Buea. This put Njoya in the Kaiser's favor, and enabled Felix von Luschan, director of the Berlin Museum of Ethnology, to exhibit the throne, which had been imprinted with dyed pearls in great skill. To this day the throne can still be seen in the Berlin Ethnological Museum. In return Wilhelm II sent for, as he put it, his königlichen Bruder (royal brother), a German Cuirassier uniform of the German Imperial Guard. Like an oil painting of Wilhelm II, the uniform is now exhibited in the Palace Museum at Foumban. Njoya set up schools in which the Bamun children extended their knowledge of their mother tongue, learned the Bamun script introduced by Njoya, and also passed on basic knowledge of the German language. Col. Gorges noted in 1914 that he held court or durbar daily outside the gatehouse for the dispensing of justice and receipt of tribute, and that all his people had access to him. There was a very well-defined code of court etiquette observed:

"Any courtier wishing to speak to him assumes a cringing attitude, removes his skull-cap, clasps his hands and, taking a chukker round behind the presence, finally arrives at the royal elbow. Here he averts his head and makes his request in a hoarse whisper. When the king coughs or clears his throat everyone present softly claps his hands." According to historian Stephanie Michel the relationship between the Bamum and the Germans is complex and does not neatly fit into a simplistic Africa-Europe, metropolis-periphery dichotomy. Njoya was not a subordinate in his dealings with the Germans. According to History and Customs of the Bamum:

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