Bamun Art Worlds:

Integration and Innovation in Grassland Cameroon from 1700 to the Present

Director: Professor Suzanne Preston Blier

Telephone: 617.495.0781

Email: blier@fas.harvard.edu

This project looks at the arts of the Bamun and its neighbors in the grasslands of Cameroon (West Africa) from the vantage of invention, appropriation, and retranslation of local and foreign artistic and cultural elements from 1700 to the present. The construction and reconstruction of artistic identity―individual as well as social―is examined historically as well as cross-culturally. The critical interface between colonialism, royal prerogative, individual life-histories, social mores and an explosion of artistic creativity will be examined against both notions of constructing a specific artistic ÒWeltanshaungÓ and an ongoing interest in reshaping cultural identity through visual form. The rich and diverse textual archives and artistic forms housed in the Museum of Foumban (the former palace of Bamun King Njoya, himself a key figure in this project) offer a unique opportunity to examine anew the extraordinary art history of this area.

Many of the art works we will be examining (and the issues around them) relate to the vital period of early colonialism and the striking ways that Islam, Christianity, German and French, to say nothing of other grasslands Cameroon cultures, were involved in the creation and promotion of art. King Njoya was particularly brilliant in this regard.  Assuming the throne officially between 1892 and 1896, Njoya understood his crucial position at BamunÕs cultural and temporal crossroads, and helped to usher in great changes through art among other ways. Converting at various times to Islam, while also maintaining close ties with the new European Christian missions in the area, Njoya also created his own religious doctrine drawn from both foreign and indigenous rituals. The written language that Njoya invented similarly drew on Arabic and Western forms, as well as perhaps local divination signs. This new writing system was promoted by Njoya as a means to document pre-colonial Bamun history, medicinal knowledge, religious practice, and valued forms of court etiquette. In order to educate his people better, Njoya established a school where his invented script was taught along with drawing, history, and other subjects. In clothing, Njoya made use of an array of foreign fashions (in particular Islamic and German) in refashioning the court to reflect changing allegiances and influences (Christraud Geary has documented these changes and issues of royal self-fashioning along with an array of other photographic concerns).  Njoya also created several extraordinary palaces. A great patron of the arts, he also introduced new technologies in metalworking and textile manufacturing. His aesthetic interests also extended to the invention of new design motifs, which were displayed on the palace walls as models for court artists.

The participants in this project represent key African scholars working on this and related art materials from fields as diverse as anthropology, archaeology, cultural history, and art and architectural history. This group includes Christraud Geary of the Musuem of Fine Arts, Boston; British anthropologist Michael Rowlands; archaeologist Germain Loumpet, a Bamun native and a specialist in ceramics and African pre-history; Alexandra Loumpet-Galitzine, archaeologist of French and Russian heritage with a specialty in the Bamun system of writing and related forms; American art historian Steven Nelson, a specialist on architecture of northern Cameroon; and Suzanne Preston Blier, a specialist in African art and architecture who in the past has worked primarily in Togo, Benin, and Nigeria.