Cameroon grasslands
As grasslands of Cameroon is since the time of the German colony of Cameroon , the vast savannah region of volcanic high plateau on the West Cameroon in the provinces of North West and West called lies.
topography
The altitude of these plateaus is between 1000 and 1800 meters, in the extension of the Cameroon Mountain . They are dominated by mountain peaks such as Bamboutos, Mont Manengouba and Okuberg with a summit height of 2000 meters.
history
During the colonization at the end of the 19th century, the Cameroon grasslands became internationally known. The German Africa explorer Eugen Zintgraff led an expedition around 1890 from the coast of Cameroon through the jungle belt into the Cameroon grasslands. At Bali he put on the station Baliburg .
Culture
The area is heavily populated: a third of the total population of Cameroon lives here, a total of 5 million people. Several chiefdoms in the region have created works of art here that have gained worldwide attention.
In the Cameroon grasslands, various bantoid languages are spoken that do not belong to the Bantu languages and are therefore called Semibantu : the grassland languages .
A limnic eruption around Lake Nyos took place in this region in 1986 . This gas explosion claimed 1700 victims in the surrounding villages.
Kurt Strümpell's ethnological collection from 1902
Kurt Strümpell belonged to the German protection force in Cameroon and in 1901 was station chief in Tinto . On his home leave in 1902, he donated his ethnological collection to the Braunschweig Municipal Museum . It consisted for the most part of objects from the Cameroon grasslands; There were also some objects from the Cameroon woodland. The objects that Kurt Strümpell brought with him encompass the entire material sphere of life of the inhabitants of the Cameroon grasslands at the time: ritual objects, status symbols, jewelry, clothing, bags, weapons, tobacco pipes, musical instruments, etc. The archive materials, i.e. also the documents on the acquisition history of objects , are located in the Braunschweig Castle in the Braunschweig City Archives .
Agriculture
The earth is fertile. In the context of intensive agriculture, the production of coffee , cocoa and tea is favored , depending on the different food cultures as the population increases. The natural fauna and the primeval forest were pushed back in the course of the expansion.
literature
- The grasslands of Cameroon
- Art Trade in Traditional Africa: The Grasslands of Cameroon. In: Art? Handicrafts in Africa in transition . Museum für Völkerkunde, Frankfurt / Main 1975, pp. 62–71
- Wolfgang Lauber: Palaces and homesteads in the grasslands of Cameroon: Traditional wooden architecture of a West African country . Karl Krämer, Zurich 1990, p. 84, ISBN 3-7828-1494-0
- Michaela Pelican: Women's and Men's Friendships in the Cameroon Grasslands: A Comparative Approach. Afrika Spectrum 39, 2004, pp. 63-93
- A. Rein-Wuhrmann: Four years in the grasslands of Cameroon . Basel 1917
- Ethnological collection by Kurt Strümpell from the grasslands of Cameroon from 1902
- Dorothea Hecht: Catalog of the African collection in the Braunschweig Municipal Museum. Braunschweig Werkstücke No. 37. Orphanage printing and publishing house, Braunschweig 1968.
- Evelin Haase: Guide through the ethnology department. Work reports. Publications from the Städtisches Museum Braunschweig. Volume 62, Braunschweig 1992. Page 71ff, in particular pages 84-91.
- Map of Cameroon in the small colonial atlas
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Irad ( Memento of the original from April 28, 2011) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Art of the Cameroon Grasslands
Coordinates: 6 ° 30 ' N , 10 ° 30' E