Leopards and Leaders

Constitutional Politics among a Cross River People

Malcolm Ruel

• Publisher: Routledge
• Edition: 1
• Year: 2020
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Print ISBN:
  9781032810294
  9780415330022
• Subtopic: Politics
• eBook ISBN:
  9781136533600
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This study of politics and government among a West African people, the Banyang of the Upper Cross River, covers the end of the period of Colonial administration. The book: · Shows the inter-relationship between the structure of the small forest communities and the highly autonomous processes by which they were governed · Analyses the relationship between residence and common descent as principles of corporate grouping · Includes a case study of the political struggle involved in one community's claims to independence. Originally published in 1969.

1
Introductory: The Banyang People

Banyang homeland lies in the central area of the basin of the upper Cross River. It is hilly, forested country with many rivers and streams. Most of the rivers rise in the arc of highland which surrounds Banyang country in the north-east, east, and south, and flow through it, converging on to the main stream of the Cross River, which is formed by the junction of the Mainyu and Bali rivers at Mamfe. At the time this study was carried out, this area formed part of the Mamfe Division of the Southern Camer-oons, which was then administered under British Trusteeship. With the coming of independence in 1916, the Southern Cameroons chose to join with the former French Cameroons, and Banyang country within Mamfe Division now forms part of the Western State of the Federal Republic of Cameroon.¹ In 1953 the population of Banyang within their homeland was approximately 18,000, but many others (estimated at 4,000-5,000 persons) were living and working away from their home communities, the large majority in the plantations and towns of the southern coastal area.

Before they became subject to Colonial rule, Banyang were not politically united as a people. Scattered through the forest in many separate small settlements, the largest recognized political groupings are unlikely to have included more than 2,000 people and in many cases certainly fewer. There is an absence, too, of any tradition of common descent or of any story of a common origin. What unites Banyang and distinguishes them from other peoples are the qualities and attributes of ‘Kenyang’, the language they speak and the culture or (in pidgin English) the ‘fashion’ they follow. Even this unity, however, is not unqualified and relates them in varying degrees of closeness to those who are their neighbours.

¹ In February 1969 the names of Divisions in West Cameroon were changed, Mamfe Division becoming Cross River Division (HQ Mamfe). At the same time Victoria Division was renamed Fako, and Kumba Division was renamed Meme.

Different writers have variously classified the Kenyang language as ‘semi-Bantu’, ‘Bantu’, and ‘Bantoid’.¹ Ittmann, in his early grammar, notes the uncertain and wavering connections between Kenyang and Bantu;² similarly Richardson, following his investigation of the Bantu borderland, speaks of the uncertainty of relationship between Kenyang and the broader language groups.³ Part of the paradox of linguistic classifications has been the tendency to align Banyang with their ‘Bantu’ southern neighbours and thus to dissociate them from their eastern and northern neighbours, the Ejagham (or ‘Ekoi’) and Anyang, with whom they themselves claim closest cultural affinity.⁴ More recently, however, Crabb, working on the ‘Ekoid’ languages, has sought to demonstrate that these languages can themselves be classed as Bantu, thus moving the Bantu borderline well to the west of Banyang and re-establishing the relationship between Kenyang and Ejagham within the wider category, although presumably Kenyang’s distinguishing element of affinity with the other Bantu languages to the south and south-east has still to be recognized.⁵

¹ P. A. Talbot, The Peoples of Southern Nigeria, Vol. IV, p. 88; Westermann, Languages of West Africa, p. 114; Greenberg, ‘Studies in African Linguistic Classification: III The Position of Bantu’, Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, Vol. 5, p. 309 (a statement later revised); Richardson in Linguistic Survey of the Northern Bantu Borderland (International African Institute), Vol. I, p. 39.

² ‘Kenyang, die Sprache der Nyang’, Zeitschrift fur Eingeborenen-Sprachen, Band XXVI, p. 19.

³ Op. cit., p. 39.

⁴ E.g. Westermann’s statement ‘The speech of the Banyangi is… a Bantu language, while that of the Anyang ... appears to belong to the Ekai cluster’ (loc. cit.).

⁵ Ekoid Bantu Languages of Ogoja, Eastern Nigeria, 1965.

Within Banyang country - which is itself termed ‘Kenyang’ - a broad distinction is made between ‘Upper’ and ‘Lower’ Banyang. Taking its orientation from the flow of the rivers, this distinction is relative, and the dialectal and cultural differences which are associated with it are gradual. The differences between Upper and Lower Kenyang, moreover, reflect the differences between the cultures lying beyond the borders of the Upper and Lower areas. Thus it is the language and cultural forms of Lower Kenyang which have greater prestige and which are in fact closer to those of the eastern Ejagham (the ‘Keaka’), whom Banyang admire and from whom they have acquired many of their institutions, especially associations such as Ngbe and Basinjom, and cult-agencies such as Mfam. Except for that created by successive administrations (which has varied over time), there is indeed no clearly defined boundary between the area of Kenyang culture and Ksyaka (the qualitative heterm which for Banyang describes Ejagham language, culture, and homeland, and which was used by the German, and later the British, administration to describe more specifically the eastern Ejagham or ‘Keaka’):¹ in the borderland area there is a high degree of miscegenation; most people are bilingual, and in two villages (Ossing and Ntenako) the dominant language varies between parts of the same village.² This alignment of Lower Banyang with Ejagham (‘Keyaka’) is recognized both by themselves - who sometimes refer to ‘Kenyang’ as the area of Banyang country to the east which excludes them - and by Upper Banyang, for whom the terms Kenyan anten (Lower Kenyang) and Keyaka (Ejagham) are often synonymous. Upper Banyang, on the other hand, are associated by Lower Banyang with the culturally dissimilar highland peoples (Kefiet) situated beyond their borders. It was from this area that slaves were obtained in the past, and Upper Banyang are still sometimes spoken of derogatively as ‘slaves’ (basent) or as having a large proportion of people with ‘slave’ or highland descent in their population. In fact no one is more conscious of the distinction between persons of ‘slave’ and ‘free-born’ descent than Upper Banyang. In the past, marriages between Upper Banyang and Bangwa are reported to have been common ‘because Bangwa women were cheaply obtained and such Bangwa relationships also led to greater facilities for obtaining slaves’. By 1930, however, such marriages no longer took place,³ and other signs of Bangwa influence were disappearing. Even the ‘Bangwa robes worn by some Eastern Banyang Chiefs’ which were then noted as the remaining evidence of that influence⁴ had by the 1950s disappeared.

¹ The term keyaka is in fact cognate with the term ejayam used by the people from the borders of Calabar to the boundary with Banyang to describe themselves: ke- is a class prefix; the changing of j to y and the elision of the final consonant are both common features of dialectal changes within Kenyang between Lower and Upper dialects.

² It is commonly believed in the extreme Lower Banyang villages that the language of their forebears was Ejagham, a belief supported by the fact that certain village and ancestral names are Ejagham, e.g. Etemεtεk, bo Mfotek. The...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Frontispiece
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Table of Contents
• Illustrations
• Preface
• 1 Introductory: The Banyang People
• Part I: The Morphology of the Complex Community
• Part II: Processes of Government
• Part III: The Role of the Associations
• Part IV: Processes of Group Formation
• Appendix A
• Appendix B
• Bibliography
• Index