101 of Alfred Marche and the Marquis de Compiègne’s visit to the area, business was prosperous and they gave him the name “Sun-King,” an allusion to his indigenous name (nkombe means sun) as well as to the top hat he wore, which was encircled by a wide band decorated with a sun. Nkombe was the fi rst to understand that he could become wealthy by cooperating with the Whites, and in August of 1873 he signed a treaty with Admiral du Quilio that ceded the Galwa territory to France. Nkombe was also intractable and merciless. He introduced talionic law (okundako), which stated in part that whosoever killed by the spear would die by it, and whosoever killed with the staff would be beaten to death. He did not spare even his family, and when his wife, Maya, wanted a divorce, he had her decapitated and her head thrown into the Ogooué. He also had his nephew, Mokeyi, suffocated with a press over a murder dispute. Nkombe’s sister, Iwenga, Mokeyi’s mother, took revenge and poisoned him with a bottle of fermented honey. He died on December 29, 1873, while Alfred Marche and the Marquis de Compiègne were there. His reign had lasted thirteen years, from 1860 to 1873. In 1874, the Galwa no longer wished to obey their new chief and abandoned Adolinanongo when the Fang arrived.
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