StapleCameroon
Fufu Corn
Maize flour beaten into a smooth stiff paste, eaten with njama njama or huckleberry greens in the north-west. The standard plate of the Anglophone highlands.
Serves 6 · 30 minutes
Bakossi
Farmers of the Bakossi mountains and the Muanenguba crater lakes in south-western Cameroon, whose forest holds more plant species than any comparable area in tropical Africa, and whose twin lakes are a shrine.
Identity
Population: Estimated 150,000 to 250,000
Location: The Bakossi mountains and Mount Muanenguba in the South-West region of Cameroon, around Tombel, Nguti and Bangem
Language: Akoose (Bakossi)
Language family: Niger-Congo → Bantu (A15)
Traditional governance: Village councils and clan heads with the mwaneppo and other titled positions; the Bakossi Cultural and Development Association; Cameroonian divisional administration.
Clans, Sections & Sub-groups (3)
Most African peoples are federations of named sub-groups (clans, sections, chiefdoms or sub-tribes), each with its own dialect, territory and traditions.
Bakossi of Bangem
The upland communities around Muanenguba.
Bakossi of Tombel
Lowland communities in the plantation belt.
Bakossi of Nguti and Mwambong
Western communities on the forest edge.
Culture
Clothing: Contemporary dress; the woven and appliquéd cloth and beaded regalia of titled elders; raffia and barkcloth in the older record.
Food: Cocoyam and plantain, cassava, egusi and ndolé, palm oil, bushmeat, river fish, and the palm wine that accompanies every meeting.
Ceremonies: Installation of titled elders; ancestral offerings; funerals with several days of dance; the Muanenguba lake rites; the mwankum and other masked societies.
Marriage customs: Patrilineal and clan-exogamous; bridewealth in goods and cash; the negotiation is staged and involves both lineages over an extended period.
Initiation rites: Boys' entry into the masked societies, graded and paid for; the older initiations reduced under mission influence.
Food & Recipes
Every dish the Atlas publishes for Cameroon, at national rather than community level — 12 in all: the staple a household eats daily, the dish the country names as its own, street food, what is cooked for a wedding or Eid, regional specialities and a drink. Quantities and method are given for every one, so these are recipes rather than descriptions, and each has a photograph from Wikimedia Commons. The Food page carries the whole continent, searchable by country and by ingredient.
StapleCameroon
Koki Beans
also Koki corn, Ekoki
Black-eyed beans ground to a paste with palm oil and spinach, wrapped in banana leaf and steamed into a savoury pudding. A Cameroonian street and household staple.
Serves 8 · 2 hours, plus overnight soaking
National dishCameroon
Ndolé
Bitterleaf boiled repeatedly to draw out the bitterness, then cooked with ground groundnuts, shrimp and meat. Cameroon's national dish, from the Douala coast.
Serves 8 · 2 hours
National dishCameroon
Mbongo Tchobi
also Black stew, Sauce noire
Fish or meat in a jet-black sauce made from burnt spices — mbongo seed, country onion and njangsa — from the Bassa country around Edéa. Smoky, bitter and unlike anything else in Africa.
Serves 6 · 1 hour 15 minutes
Street foodCameroon
Soya
Beef skewers rubbed in a groundnut and chilli spice mix and grilled over charcoal, sold from evening braziers across the north and in every Yaoundé quarter.
Serves Makes 12 · 40 minutes, plus 2 hours marinating
Festival & feastCameroon
Eru
Wild forest vine leaves shredded fine and cooked with waterleaf, palm oil and smoked fish, from the south-west. Made for celebrations and eaten with water fufu.
Serves 6 · 1 hour 15 minutes
Festival & feastCameroon
Achu Soup
also Yellow soup, Taro fufu and yellow soup
Pounded taro served with a bright yellow palm-oil soup coloured with limestone, the ceremonial dish of Cameroon's North West grassfields, eaten with the fingers from a shared bowl.
Serves 8 · 2 hours 30 minutes
Regional specialityCameroon
Poulet DG
Chicken with fried ripe plantain and vegetables, whose name stands for Directeur Général because it was originally what you served a man of importance.
Serves 6 · 1 hour 15 minutes
Regional specialityCameroon
Kondre
also Plantain and goat stew
Goat and unripe plantain stewed with country onion and njangsa until the plantain thickens the pot. A grassfields dish cooked for visitors and for the head of the household.
Serves 6 · 1 hour 45 minutes
Regional specialityCameroon
Sanga
also Maize and cassava leaf
Fresh maize kernels cooked with cassava leaf and palm oil into a thick green-and-gold porridge. A Beti and southern Cameroonian dish of the maize harvest.
Serves 6 · 1 hour 15 minutes
Drink & sweetCameroon
Foléré
Hibiscus juice with pineapple, ginger and mint, sold from freezers in the north and served cold at every celebration. Cameroon's name for what is bissap elsewhere.
Serves 8 · 30 minutes, plus chilling
Drink & sweetCameroon
Bil-Bil
also Millet beer, Bilibili
Sorghum beer of northern Cameroon, brewed by women in great clay pots and sold from the compound door. Sour, cloudy and drunk from a shared calabash.
Serves Makes about 8 litres · 1 hour active, plus 4 days germinating and 3 days fermenting
Stories & Oral Literature
The Richest ForestNatural heritage
The Bakossi mountains and the adjacent Kupe-Muanenguba forests hold over 2,400 recorded plant species, including more than eighty found nowhere else, in a botanical survey that established the area as the most species-rich for its size in tropical Africa. The Kew-led inventories of the 1990s and 2000s produced a Red Data book for the region. The forest sits on Bakossi customary land, and its protection has depended substantially on the sacred groves and prohibitions that predate any reserve.
The Twin LakesSacred geography
Mount Muanenguba's crater holds two lakes, one deep blue and one green, called the male and female lakes. They are shrine sites with strict prohibitions on approach and on what may be done there, and the annual rites at them are among the community's most important. The lakes have also become a walking destination, and the community has had to work out its own rules for what visitors may do at a place where local people themselves may not swim.
The Plantation BeltContemporary history
Tombel and the Bakossi lowlands lie in the Cameroon Development Corporation's plantation belt, which has drawn labour from across the country for a century and made the area demographically mixed and politically tense; the Tombel massacre of 1966, in which Bakossi killed Bamileke settlers after a period of escalating conflict, is a scar the region still carries. Since 2016 the South-West has been at the centre of Cameroon's anglophone conflict, and Bakossi villages have been burned, emptied and reoccupied repeatedly.
Proverbs
“The forest that was never cut is the one that is worth counting.”
On the sacred groves and the surveys.
“The two lakes have one mountain.”
On difference within a single community.
“The stranger who plants is a neighbour; the stranger who fences is a question.”
On settlement in the plantation belt.
Mythology & Spiritual Beliefs
Creation: Nyicha as the high god; the ancestors as the working powers; the crater lakes, named groves and mountain peaks carrying prohibitions and their own presences.
Beliefs: Lake and grove rites; ancestral offerings; masked societies with graded knowledge; Presbyterian, Catholic and Pentecostal Christianity now dominant, with the lake prohibitions still observed.
Ancestors: Ancestors are addressed at lineage sites and at the groves; the prohibitions attaching to those places are the reason the forest around them survives.
Gods, Goddesses & Spirits
Nyicha
The high god
Lake powers
The male and female lakes of Muanenguba, with strict prohibitions on approach
Ancestral spirits
Addressed at lineage sites for health, harvest and dispute
Architecture
Traditional settlements: Villages on the mountain slopes and in the valleys among cocoyam and plantain, with the meeting house and the chief's compound at the centre.
Building techniques: Pole and mud with thatch, now brick and iron sheet; raffia and bamboo construction; the meeting house built open-sided for assembly; palm-wine tapping equipment.
Village layout: Houses along a path with gardens behind, the meeting house and titled elders' compounds at the centre, and the sacred groves left uncleared on the ridges.
Artifacts
Muanenguba twin lakes
Heritage site
Male and female crater lakes, shrine sites with strict prohibitions.
Bakossi forest
Natural heritage
The most plant-species-rich forest for its size in tropical Africa, with over eighty endemics.
Masked society regalia
Masquerade
Costumes and masks of the graded men's societies.
Titled elders' insignia
Regalia
Cloth, beads and staffs marking rank within the village councils.
Historical Timeline
Pre-1800
Bantu-speaking communities settle the Bakossi mountains and the Muanenguba slopes.
1884–1916
German administration; plantations are established in the lowlands and labour is drawn from across the region.
1966
The Tombel massacre kills Bamileke settlers after escalating conflict in the plantation belt.
1990s–2000s
Kew-led botanical surveys establish the forest's exceptional species richness; a Red Data book is published.
2016–present
The anglophone conflict empties and burns villages across the South-West, including in Bakossi country.
Sources & Further Reading
Open sources
- Royal Botanic Gardens Kew — The Plants of Kupe, Mwanenguba and the Bakossi MountainsRoyal Botanic Gardens, Kew
- Institut National de la Statistique du CamerounGovernment of Cameroon
Premium & scholarly sources
- Ethnologue: AkooseSIL International