BANGWA
FIG. 36 (above):
Page 3 of the June 11,
1899, letter from Gustav
Conrau in Fontem to
Felix von Luschan at the
Königlisches Museum für
Völkerkunde, Berlin.
Museum für Völkerkunde, Berlin.
111
FIG. 35 (left):
Lefem emblem, attributed to Ateu Atsa or his workshop.
Bangwa, Cameroon. 19th century. This sculpture appears as
object 4 in Conrau’s letter to von Luschan of June 11, 1899.
Wood. H: 121 cm.
Collected by Gustav Conrau, 1898 or 1899.
Ex Königlisches Museum für Völkerkunde, Berlin (1899); Alfred Speyer, Berlin
(acquired 1929); The Potter Museum, Brumber/Brighton/Arundel; Kevin Conru,
UK.
Collection of Javier Peres, Berlin.
Photo: Frédéric Dehaen, courtesy of Kevin Conru.
FIG. 34 (facing page, right):
Standing fi gure on a post.
Bangwa, Cameroon.
19th century. This sculpture
appears as object 6 in
Conrau’s letter to von
Luschen of June 11, 1899.
Wood. H: 111 cm.
Collected by Gustav Conrau, 1898
or 1899.
Museum für Völkerkunde, Berlin,
inv. III C 10545.
Photo © Ethnologisches Museum
der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin -
Preußischer Kulturbesitz.
Leone accompanied Zintgraff. The Barombi outpost
was used to observe the local Banyang groups and their
region and was intended to serve as a starting point for
explorations further inland. Due to a shortage of personnel,
this plan did not initially come to fruition. Zintgraff secured
the help of additional men brought in from Lagos in
Nigeria. With his numbers thusly strengthened, he crossed
Banyang country in January of 1889. He thus became the
fi rst European to reach the Northwestern Cameroonian
Grasslands from the south (Hoffmann 2007, 48).
10. Hutter 1902, 26.
11. In 1897, not long after his return to Cameroon, Zintgraff
withdrew from the colonial service. One reason was that
during his Africa expeditions he had come down with
tropical fever that he could not recover from. He died on
December 3, 1897, on Teneriffa island, where he had gone
to recuperate.
12. Chilver and Röschenthaler 2001, 9 f, pp. 31 and 141–146.
13. Hassert 1941, 5: “In the summer semester of 1899, I gave
a lecture in Tübingen about African research that I repeated
again in Colon and Dresden and to which I subsequently
made sweeping changes. The resulting book ... “
In his 1941 book, Kurt Hassert succinctly confi rms that
the expeditions into Cameroon’s interior that took place in
the fi rst twenty years of colonization were of a military and
political nature, rather than scientifi c. Hassert 1941, 71.
14. Hutter 1902, 139 & 140–141.
15. Zintgraff 1895, 417.
16. Zintgraff 1895, 391.
17. Conrau 1894, 99–104.
18. Conrau 1894a, 190.
19. Conrau 1894, 103.
20. A mail service that employed African postmen was active
at the time.
21. Conrau 1898/99, 12–13 & 24–25.
22. “Maybe, god willing, I’ll be able to go to Germany in
1901. The trip is long and expensive, and of course now
I have to pay for everything myself” (Ifl -Leipzig, Nachlass
Hassert, Conrau letter 201/46).
23. He wrote: “Hopefully I will again get a permit to shoot