BANGWA
On the morning after the reception, Assunganyi
appeared at the place Conrau was staying
and expressed interest in his breech-loading guns.
Together they drank a mixture of drops of their
blood and water to seal their agreements and to establish
a permanent bond. Conrau then wanted to
see the forge and the chief’s other “wonders.” The
latter led him through many huts and courtyards,
where there was an abundance of interesting “fetishes”
to be seen.49 The chief visited him at his
place of residence again in the late evening of December
14, 1898, shortly after an interpreter had
told Conrau that Assunganyi had made known his
desire that he should arrange for an outpost to be
opened in Azi.
103
FIG. 17 (below left):
Barombi Station under
construction, 1888. Photo
by Eugen Zintgraff.
From Rochus Schmidt, Deutschlands
Kolonien, vol. 2, Berlin: Verlag des
Vereins der Bücherfreunde Schall &
Grund, 1898.
FIG. 18 (below right):
Baliburg. Photo by Eugen
Zintgraff, c. 1891.
From Rochus Schmidt, Deutschlands
Kolonien, vol. 2, Berlin: Verlag des
Vereins der Bücherfreunde Schall &
Grund, 1898.
Though his account of this fi rst visit to Lebang
in “Im Lande der Bangwa” is generally positive,
Conrau’s last letter to von Luschan, dated October
1, 1899, and sent from Victoria on the Cameroonian
coast, expresses a suffi ciently different perspective
to cause one to wonder if that report was
not perhaps edited or embellished by its publishers.
He wrote:
The Bangwa are not a large group. They have no real
villages and live spread out in individual hamlets in
the mountains. Their most powerful and feared
chief is called Fontem. He is surrounded almost exclusively
by slaves. He is a major slave dealer and
acts as a middleman in the slave trade between the
northern tribes and those of the forest areas. He sells
or kills anyone who gets in his way and weakens his
people in this way. He is … ruthless and greedy,
but cunning and not unintelligent.50
later that the Bangwa’s brass objects were actually
imported from Bagam.44 The beadwork, however,
was executed in the Bangwa area. It later came
up that the chief did not want to allow Conrau
to go to Bagam: “Unfortunately, I could not get
to Bagam from here. … When I expressed a desire
to go there, I was nearly assassinated.”45 He
informed von Luschan that iron objects, including
double bells, lamps, and weapons, were produced
by the Bangwa themselves.
During this fi rst meeting, Conrau asked the chief
if he “would like to send some of his people to
the coast to work there,”46 and the chief agreed
on the spot. Conrau told him that he hoped they
would be friends. The chief extended his hand to
him. While Assunganyi may not have been aware
of the ramifi cations and consequences of his decision,
and he ultimately changed his mind, it can
be assumed that the young chief’s willingness to
comply with the visitor’s request stemmed from
his own belief that such an association would help
guarantee him a position of power in trade and an
advantage over the Banyang.
Also on the day of this fi rst encounter, Conrau
and the men he traveled with, among them Bali
and Bafo47 individuals, were offered nourishment
and palm wine, which they partook until they “became
tired.” When Assunganyi retired as evening
fell, the people who had been sitting around rapid-
ly dispersed. Although they strove to be near their
chief, they also feared him and were awed by his
presence. “Anyone who addressed the chief spoke
into his cupped hands, so that his sacred person
would not whiff the air of his breath,” wrote Conrau
in his report.48