FEATURE THE VUVI: A LITTLE-KNOWN PEOPLE Early Contact The first mention of the Vuvi in European records was made by explorer Paul Du Chaillu in 1863 in his work Voyages 94 et Aventures dans l’Afrique Equatoriale. His two expeditions through the heart of the equatorial forest encountered peoples such as the Shira, the Punu, the Tsogo, and the Sangu. He was the first to have noted the cultural interactions that testified to a permeability between neighboring populations of the region, and it was Remandji, “King of the Apinji,” who identified certain tribes to him, among them the “Npovis” (Du Chaillu, 1863: 515). In 1890, Jules Berton, who was leading a general inspection of outposts and stations in the French Congo, came into contact with a number of peoples, including the “Poubis and the Ba-Poubis.” He stated, “I affirm that the different enumerated tribe names cited are rigorously correct” (1895: 215). In 1899–1900, cavalry officer and explorer René Avelot, who participated in an expedition to the Ogooue Basin, mentions the Okande family of cultures, which includes the “Okande-Apinji-Ichogo-Mpovi group,” in an article about migrations in the Ogooue and the adjacent coastal area. Referring to information obtained from natives by Alfred Marche, he cites the villages of the “Ba-Pobi” (Avelot, 1905: 372–390). Abbot André Raponda-Walker, the first Gabonese priest of Mpongwe origin and an eminent linguist, uses the designations Poubi, Pubi, Pobé, Pové, and Bavové without differentiation (the prefix “Ba” being the indication of the plural and the vowel “u” being often omitted). He attributes them to the Okande group, along with the Tsogo, the Apindji, the Simba, the Okande, and the Eveia. In a 1924 article titled “Les Tribus du Gabon” (“The Tribes of Gabon”), the existence of the Vuvi or the Bapoubi appears to have been long recognized: “They are people of the interior— between the Lolo and its confluent the Wagna— and seem to be of a different race than the Simbas-Kona, perhaps of Ishogo or Ndjavi origin” (Raponda-Walker, 1924: 79). In a note at the bottom of the same page, he adds, “Another Bapoubi group is located near the headwaters of the Ngounie and the Louambitchi, a confluent of the Nyanga.” Governor Hubert Deschamps, who was the first to study certain aspects of Gabonese culture, interviewed elders on the subject of original traditions. In 1962 he wrote that Gabon included some forty peoples, “each with a distinct name, but with the feeling of having a common origin and characteristics,” which were further divided into clans (Deschamps, 1962: 40). He states that researchers’ classification of these peoples is based on linguistics. The Vuvi are placed in the central group along with the Tsogo, the Apindji, the Shimba, and the Okande. According to his informant, “they are usually called the Bapoubi or Bapouvi. But their real name is Pove.” The Vuvi are “related” to the Tsogo, the Okande, and the Apindj, and the Masango-Eshira “accompanied them” in their migrations. They crossed the Ogooue and established themselves in the Lolo valley, where they encountered the Nzabi and settled in the village of Belongo. Tradition says that the first inhabitant was the old man Koulamoutou and that the second was called Diminou Bounda. At the time of European penetration, the Vuvi allied themselves with the Nzabi and established matrimonial relations with the Masango. In 1987, Anselme Moïse Orendo Sossa wrote Contribution à l’histoire des Pové des origines à 1912 (Contribution to the History of the Pove from Their Origins through 1912), a master’s thesis in history in Libreville. In the first FIG. 3 (above): Letter with drawings (including the mask in fig. 4) annotated and signed by Pierre Vérité and Emile Chambon, Paris, February 18, 1936. © Archives of the city of Geneva, 350.C.9. FIG. 4 (right): Mask, mokuyi. Vuvi, Gabon. Wood, vegetal fibers, leather, iron, kaolin. H: 25 cm. Ex Pierre Vérité, France; Émile Chambon, Switzerland. © Musée d’ethnographie de Genève, inv. ETHAF 044357, donated by Émile Chambon, 1981. Photo: Johnathan Watts. Published: Wastiau et al., 2008, p. 37.
I-IVCoverE_CoverF Vuvi
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