The Mbum ethnic group on the Nkambe Plateau in the contemporary administrative area of Donga Mantung in Cameroon were amongst the conquered people who fell under German colonial hegemony in what became known as German Kamerun. Their first contact with the Germans was in 1902 through the German expansionist policy aimed at exploring, discovering, and conquering ethnic groups and tribes within the interior and the peripheries and amalgamating them into a single colonial entity. A crucial part of their domination was to advance their colonial interest. Within that framework, they not only stripped the Mbum people of their rights to freedom, but they exploited them both economically and socially and looted some of their finest royal and spiritual artifacts that clearly welded them together and connected them to their utmost spirituality. This research paper, therefore, seeks to disinter the untold truth behind this translocation of the spiritual, royal, and cultural identity of the Mbum people within the framework of German colonial exigencies and rights. It further highlights the relationship between the past and the current quest to restore the Mbum people’s lost history and heritage and the need to establish a framework that covers all forms of repair by the Germans to the people of Mbum.
By Ndzi Gilbert
Publication coming soon.
