Bafut people

Last updated
Bafut women (1960) COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Het haar van een van de senior vrouwen van de Fon van Bafut wordt gekapt TMnr 20012967.jpg
Bafut women (1960)

Bafutpeople, also known as Fut or Bufu people are a Grassfields ethnic group located in the Bafut Subdivision of the North West Province, Cameroon.

Contents

Language and Literacy

Aroun 134 000 Bafut people speak the Bafut language, an Eastern Grassfields language of the Niger-Congo languages. [1] Thirty percent of the Fut people read and write the language. Expanding Literacy in Fut language is supported by ten schools and thirty churches. [2]

Bafut people were once multilingual. Most of the upper Bafut can speak the Bafut language and Cameroonian Pidgin English. Also, in a minor degree, they can speak local languages such as Mankon, Meta', or Mungaka. [3]

Religion

Christianity is the predominant religion between Bafut people, accounting for 74% [1] to 95% of the population. A minor group still follows their ancestral religion. Bafut Christians divide between Roman Catholic, Protestants, and other independent churches. [2]

The New Testament has been translated to the Bafut language and gospel recordings can be also heard. [2]

History

Fondom of Bafut, north of Bamenda. The main courtyard with the women's houses on the right, covered with tiles, the sacred forest in the background. Cam4327a Bafut.jpg
Fondom of Bafut, north of Bamenda. The main courtyard with the women's houses on the right, covered with tiles, the sacred forest in the background.

According to local ethnohistories collected by British colonial administrators, Bafut people arrived around 300 years ago from the area to the east-northeast of their present site.  However, some researchers consider that the Bafut people area a composite community of several groups of different places. [3]

At the end of the nineteenth century, Bafut fought against Germans and their allies in the Bafut wars. [3]

Social organization

The Fon of Bafut is appointed directly by the prime minister of the Republic of Cameroon, and it's considered a civil servant. Bafut people divide traditionally between the court and the commoners. The fon, their wives, the princes, and the princesses made up the court and they concentrated in the fon quarter. Main families of commoners participate in the management of polity to counterbalance fon's potentially absolute power. [3]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bamenda</span> Place in Northwest, Cameroon

Bamenda, also known as Abakwa and Mankon Town, is a city in northwestern Cameroon and capital of the Northwest Region. The city has a population of about 2 million people and is located 366 km (227 mi) north-west of the Cameroonian capital, Yaoundé. Bamenda is known for its cool climate and scenic hilly location.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bamileke people</span> Central west African ethnic group of the Grassfields of Cameroon

The Bamileke are a Central African people who inhabit the Western High Plateau of Cameroon.

Articles related to Cameroon include:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bafut, Cameroon</span> Place in Northwest Province, Cameroon

Bafut is a town located in a modern commune in Cameroon, it is also a traditional fondom. It is located in the Mezam Department, which in turn is located in the Northwest Province.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mankon</span>

Mankon is a geo-historic community constituting a large part of Bamenda in Cameroon, formed as an amalgamation of about five different ethnic groups. The Mankon fondom (kingdom) represents one of the oldest monarchies of the grassfield people of the Northwest Province. The fondom is ruled by a fon (king) with rights to kinghood acquired by birth. The crowned fon is usually a designated son of the deceased king, a child who was born only during his reign.

The Fon of Bafut is the fon or Mfor of the town of Bafut and its adjoining areas in the Northwest Province, Cameroon, which comprise the erstwhile Fondom of Bafut. At present, the Fon of Bafut is still a local ruler, but under the jurisdiction of the Government of Cameroon, and a board of Fons. Bafut is one of the largest villages in the North West Province.

The Fondom of Bafut political system centred on the Fon or Mfor who was the fount of the political and religious life of the people.

Founded in 1800, the Kom are one of the 250 ethnic groups that are located in the grasslands of Cameroon within the Boyo Division of Africa. Kom includes most of Boyo division, including such towns as Fundong, Belo, Njinikom and Mbingo. The area can be reached from Bamenda on the so-called Ring Road.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Culture of Cameroon</span> Overview of the culture of Cameroon

Cameroon has a rich and diverse culture made up of a mix of about 250 indigenous populations and just as many languages and customs. The country is nicknamed "Little Africa" as geographically, Cameroon consists of coastline, mountains, grass plains, forest, rainforest and desert, all of the geographical regions in Africa in one country. This also contributes to its cultural diversity as ways of life and traditional food dishes and traditions vary from geographical region to geographical region.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tikar people</span> Ethnic group in Cameroon

The Tikar are a central African people who inhabit the Western High Plateau and Bamenda in Cameroon. They are known as great artists, artisans and storytellers. Once a nomadic people, some oral traditions trace the origin of the Tikar people to the Nile River Valley in present-day Sudan. Such ethnic groups were referred to in the 1969 official statistics as "Semi-Bantus" and "Sudanese Negroes." They speak a Northern Bantoid language called Tikar. One of the few African people who practiced a monotheistic traditional religion, the Tikar refer to God the Creator by the name Nyuy. They also have an extensive spiritual system of ancestral reverence.

The Nso people are from the Bamenda grass fields Northwest Region of Cameroon. Their traditional language is Lamnso and their capital is Kumbo – where the Palace of the Fon is found.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Languages of Cameroon</span> Languages spoken in Cameroon

Cameroon is home to at least 250 languages. However, some accounts report around 600 languages. These include 55 Afro-Asiatic languages, two Nilo-Saharan languages, four Ubangian languages, and 169 Niger–Congo languages. This latter group comprises one Senegambian language (Fulfulde), 28 Adamawa languages, and 142 Benue–Congo languages . French and English are official languages, a heritage of Cameroon's colonial past as a colony of both France and the United Kingdom from 1916 to 1961. Eight out of the ten regions of Cameroon are primarily francophone, representing 83% of the country's population, and two are anglophone, representing 17%. The anglophone proportion of the country is in constant regression, having decreased from 21% in 1976 to 20% in 1987 and to 17% in 2005, and is estimated at 16% in 2015.

The Bafut Subdivision or the Kingdom/Chiefdom/Fondom of Bafut is a commune in the Mezam Department of Northwest Province, Cameroon. It is located in the Western Grassfields region - a name for the Northwest Province and surrounding grassland areas. Bafut is the most powerful of the traditional kingdoms of the Grassfields, now divided into 26 wards along a 10 kilometre stretch of the "Ring Road" that trails along a ridge above the Menchum Valley.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beboid languages</span> Language groups spoken in Cameroon and Nigeria

The Beboid languages are any of several groups of languages spoken principally in southwest Cameroon, although two languages are spoken over the border in Nigeria. They are probably not most closely related to each other. The Eastern Beboid languages may be most closely related to the Tivoid and Momo groups, though some of the geographical Western Beboid grouping may be closer to Ekoid and Bantu.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roman Catholic Diocese of Kumbo</span> Roman Catholic diocese in Cameroon

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Kumbo is a Roman Catholic diocese in the Ecclesiastical Province of Bamenda in Cameroon. The first German settlers were Missionaries of the Sacred Heart who arrived in 1912 and established their mission in 1913. The Diocese of Kumbo was erected by Pope John Paul II on Thursday, 18 March 1982, with territory taken from the then Diocese of Bamenda. It is a suffragan diocese of the Metropolitan See of Bamenda along with the Roman Catholic Dioceses of Buea, Kumba, and Mamfe.

The Chamba are a significant ethnic group in the north eastern Nigeria. The Chamba are located between present day Nigeria and Cameroon. The closest Chamba neighbours are the Mumuye, the Jukun and Kutep people. In Cameroon, the successors of Leko and chamba speakers are divided into several states: Bali Nyonga, Bali Kumbat, Bali-Gham, Bali-Gangsin, and Bali-Gashu. The are two ethnic groups in Ghana and Togo also called Chamba, but they are ethnically distinct. The Chamba are identified through their own language, beliefs, culture, and art.

The Widikum people are an ethnic group of Cameroon and are one of the largest ethnic groups of the North-West Region of Cameroon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Babanki language</span> Grassfields Bantoid language of Cameroon

Babanki, or Kejom, is the traditional language of the Kejom people of the Western Highlands of Cameroon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Operation Free Bafut</span> Part of the Anglophone Crisis in Cameroon

Operation Free Bafut was a week-long Cameroonian military operation against the Seven Karta militia in and around Bafut that resulted in the deaths of two separatist generals.

References

  1. 1 2 Project, Joshua. "Fut, Bafut in Cameroon". joshuaproject.net. Retrieved 2021-04-14.
  2. 1 2 3 "Missionary Atlas Project, Africa, Cameroon" (PDF). World Map. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2021-04-14.
  3. 1 2 3 4 De Carlo, Pierpaolo; Neba, Ayun'wi N. (15 January 2020). "The So-called Royal Register of Bafut within the Bafut Language Ecology". In De Carlo, Pierpaolo; Good, Jeff (eds.). African Multilingualisms: Rural Linguistic and Cultural Diversity. pp. 33–34. ISBN   9781498588966.