FEATURE
112
40. Ndobegang and Bowie 2009, 97.
41. Local oral tradition indicates he might have been younger.
It should be noted that Conrau never states the chief’s
specifi c name, referring to him only as Fontem, but local
tradition holds that he consistently dealt with Assunganyi,
and the dates of the latter’s reign (1885–1911 and 1914–
1951) support this.
42. Acta/Afrika, vol. 20, Kamerun, February, 1899.
43. While it sounds as if the chief himself created these
objects, this could also be a misunderstanding or a mis-
interpretation. Later investigation showed that specialized
craftsmen (who had often come from other areas) were
commissioned to manufacture objects and that both
insignias and status pieces were traded with neighboring
groups.
44. Letter, Acta/Afrika, vol. 21, 11 June 99.
45. Völkerkundemuseum Berlin, letter, Acta/Afrika, vol. 21,
11 June 99.
46. Conrau 1899, 205.
47. See note 30.
48. Conrau 1899, 206.
49. Conrau 1899, 207.
50. Völkerkundemuseum Berlin, Acta/Africa, vol. 21; Victoria,
October 1, 1899.
51. Conrau 1899, 210.
52. Conrau 1899, 213.
53. Chilver 1967, 493; Dunstan 1965, 403–413.
54. Ifl -Leipzig, Nachlass Hassert, Conrau letter 201/46.
55. Acta/Africa, vol. 22, September 3, 1899.
56. Brief Acta /Africa, vol. 21, October 1, 1899.
57. Two letters to F. v. Luschan (Acta/Africa, vol. 22; Kamerun
(Douala) September 3, 1899, and Acta/Africa, vol. 21;
Victoria (Limbe); October 1, 1899) document his stay.
58. Von Puttkamer was a controversial fi gure on account of
the concessions to private companies he had made in 1898
and 1899, and he was forced to retire in 1907 due to his
autocratic style of governance.
59. In the course of the Anyang uprising (January 1904) in
the Cross River area, the Ossidinge outpost was completely
destroyed and its commander, Graf Pückler-Limpurg, was
killed.
60. Puttkamer 1900, 188.
61. Gebauer 1979, 47.
62. Puttkamer 1900, 188.
63. Deutsches Kolonialblatt (DKB) 1901, 314.
64. DKB 1900, 57.
65. Deutsche Kolonialzeitung (DKZ) 1900, 60.
66. Competition between ethnologists for “rarities” was
ferocious. The rushed punitive expedition against the
Bangwa was odious, because the circumstances surrounding
Conrau’s death were completely unclear at the time. In a
letter to the German administration in Cameroon, Professor
von Luschan wrote offi ciously: “We see on photographs
that in the meanwhile murdered Mr. G. Conrau sent us, that
the perpetrator of this crime, the Fontem of Bangwa, has a
most unusual house with posts of a type that is completely
elephants so that I won’t have any fi nancial diffi culties, so I
can continue to move E eastward and reach my savages.
Elephant hunting is at the moment my only source of
income and pays for everything” (Völkerkundemuseum,
Berlin, Acta/Afrika, vol. 20, February 18, 1899).
24. Conrau 1899, 209–210.
25. Dated correspondence sent to Felix von Luschan and to
Hassert from an address in Hamburg indicates he departed
from this city.
26. A letter to Hassert indicates that Ferdinand Wohltmann,
a university professor of agriculture and crop farming,
invited Conrau to Bonn on July 20, 1898. Soon after
Conrau’s visit to Germany, Hassert became a professor of
geography himself (Ifl -Leipzig, Nachlass Hassert, Conrau
letter 201/460). He subsequently visited Cameroon with
Thorbecke, after the interior had fi nally been pacifi ed.
27. Chilver and Röschenthaler 2001, xiii.
28. A letter alludes to an earlier discussion they had had (Berlin
Staatliche Museen, Abteilung Afrika, Acta/Afrika, vol. 19,
letter of April 7, 1898.
29. Zoologist, artist, anatomist, paleontologist, and taxonomist
Gustav Tonier (1859–1938) of the Berlin Museum of Natural
History named a dwarf gecko from Cameroon Lygodactylus
conraui (see Beolens, Watkins, Grayson 2011: 58 and 266).
A frog family is called Conraua nieden. Scientists identify six
species in this family, one of them being Conraua goliath,
that can reach 32 cm in length and inhabits the banks
of the large rivers of the Cameroonian interior. Conrau
collected specimens of Conraua robusta, which inhabits
the mountainous regions of Cameroon, himself (personal
communication, Prof. Annemarie Ohler, curator of reptiles
and amphibians in Paris).
30. “I have a complement of 9 men, most of whom are
from the interior. Only one is a Vai from Liberia—there are
otherwise 4 Bafo, 2 Bamesang and 2 Bani Bali men,” wrote
Conrau to Hassert from the Bangwa region on June 12, 1899
(Ifl -Leipzig, Nachlass Hassert, Conrau letter 201/46).
31. “The Bani lad about 15 years old that I took to Germany
is among the most spirited of them. He wants to go to
Germany again” (Ifl -Leipzig, Nachlass Hassert, Conrau
letter 201/46).
32. “The Negro is not unintelligent, but has no sense for
anything high-minded. He doesn’t think and brings a casual
attitude to everything he does. It doesn’t occur to him that
he might do something on a par with what whites do” (Ifl -
Leipzig, Nachlass Hassert, Conrau letter 201/46).
33. Ifl -Leipzig, Nachlass Hassert, Conrau letter 201/46.
34. Bangwa is not a cohesive culture but rather a geographic
collective of seven regional kingdoms that had been
grouped together by arbitrary colonial designation.
35. Conrau 1894, 103.
36. Conrau 1899, 201.
37. Conrau 1899, 205.
38. Conrau 1899, 204.
39. Völkerkundemuseum Berlin, Acta/Afrika, vol. 22, 10.
February 1900. See also note 66.