Mundang (people)
The Mundang , also Moundang , are an ethnic group living in northeast Cameroon and western Chad , whose language Mundang belongs to the Niger-Congo language family . Traditionally, the Mundang belong to a kingdom that was founded two centuries ago.
Social organization and economy
The Mundang are sedentary farmers and ranchers. They keep cattle, chickens, ducks, goats and sheep. Their agricultural cultivation consists mainly of cotton, peanuts (also called Cameroon nuts) and sorghum millet , from which they also brew their traditional beer, which is called Bilbil . The name Bilbil is also partly used for the Sudanese millet beer Merisa , the production from baked millet pancakes that are fermented with water is similar.
Its largest cities are Léré in Chad and Kaélé in Cameroon. Léré is still the capital of the country of the Mundang, which can therefore be identified with the Kingdom of Léré. The kings of the other cities and villages of this kingdom are subordinate to the Gong Léré (King of Léré). Today, many Mundang have adapted to the modern age and work for companies, are civil servants or serve in the army of the Republic of Cameroon.
history
The history of the Mundang is deeply connected to the general history of Sudan ( Greater Sudan ). In central Sudan, especially around Lake Chad , powerful kingdoms emerged from pre-Christian times, such as the Sao kingdom (approx. 200 BC-800 AD), the thousand-year empire Kanem-Bornu (approx. 900 AD). -ca. 1900), the empire of the Mandara, and the Sultanate of Baguirmi .
These empires owed their wealth mainly to the slave trade. The farming and hunting peoples of the Sudan were therefore constantly exposed to raids by the slave-hunting mounted armies of the strong northern empires. From the 9th century AD, these empires expanded their territories. As a result, arable farming peoples migrated to the south. In the various waves of migration of this time, the Mundang also came to their current settlement area, possibly from the north-west.
In the middle of the 18th century the kingdom of Léré was established , it was an independent state of the Mundang, which covered about 2,000 km² and was ruled from Léré. Nowadays it has lost influence and its political and military independence. The king is called gong, he is ascribed superhuman powers, for example he is revered as a rainmaker.
In the 19th century the kingdom was threatened by the holy war ( jihad ) of the Muslim Fulani , who conquered what is now northern Cameroon and parts of western Chad from the Nigerian Yola . The state was not subjugated, but some regions of the Mundang country in northern Cameroon, such as Boboyo and Lara, were physically separated from the core of the kingdom. The Lamidat (Kingdom of the Fulbe) of Binder is today an exclave of the Fulbe in the land of the Mundang. In Tréné (Mundang village in Chad), the remains of the mud wall can still be seen today (2007), with the help of which the Fulbe armies could be stopped. In contrast to most of their neighbors, the Mundang already had a cavalry at the time of the Fulbe invasion, which was also a reason for their successful defense against the conquerors. With a few exceptions, the entire north and geographical center of Cameroon came under the rule of the Fulbe in the middle of the 19th century. The resisting peoples had to retreat into areas inaccessible to the Fulbe cavalry, such as swamps and mountains.
The situation changed with the arrival of the Europeans. The Lamidate of the north of Cameroon such as Maroua , Diamare, Binder, Mindif, Bibemi etc. were in a state of decadence. The peoples they displaced, on the other hand, had recovered and reorganized in their areas of retreat and were now moving towards reconquest. This is how the colonial rulers saved the northern Lamidate from collapse. German expedition troops liberated z. B. the capital of the Lamidat of Binder from an acute state of threat from the armies of the reconquering Tupuri and Mundang. The Guiziga and Guider were also in the process of regaining their territories.
architecture
The traditional buildings in the Mundang settlements are mainly made of clay. Each courtyard consists of a wall, inside which are the stable, the granary, the kitchen and the family huts. This means that courtyards built close together resemble fortresses. It is built with piles of clay and adobe bricks that are either burned with cow dung and palm fruits or air dried.
The huts are generally of two different shapes, there are round and rectangular houses. The former have a round, pointed thatched roof (see picture of the houses in Boboyo), while the latter have a flat roof made of clay (see picture of the house in Tréné).
language
The Mundang language is one of over 250 languages in Cameroon, it belongs to the Niger-Congo language family . There are around 200,000 speakers for the Mundang. The mundang has its own alphabet, but its base is made up of Latin letters.
Religion and tradition
The Mundang do not have a single religion. Among them are animists, Christians (Catholics and Lutherans) and Muslims. In a sense, animism can be understood as their original religion, as this was practiced by this people before the introduction of Christianity and Islam. In their traditional customs, the initiation of the young and the relationship with millet play a central role. At the time of the Fulbe invasion, the Mundang practiced their traditional religion almost exclusively and were called by the Fulbe Kirdi ("unbelievers" in Fulfulde ), as the Fulbe called the non-Islamic locals.
A leitmotif in mundang customs is the periodicity of life and death. This motif appears both in connection with agriculture (sowing and harvesting millet) as well as with general fertility. In order to ensure the well-being of the community, a collective circumcision ceremony of boys is organized around every 7 years. This event was traditionally held after the death of the king by his heir to the throne at the beginning of his reign. Immediately after circumcision, those who were circumcised seven years earlier are initiated into masculinity through a secret initiation ritual.
In order for this event to take place every seven years, Gong Léré (the King of Léré) had to die in the seven years after he took office. If he did not die during this time, he was ritually killed at the end of this time. His successor was chosen from among the boys who had been circumcised seven years earlier. The future king was not initiated into manhood with his circumcision colleagues, so he could never become a “complete man” during his lifetime. He then began his own seven-year reign organizing the next collective circumcision, which began the countdown to the last seven years of his life. After his death he was symbolically initiated into masculinity.
Every seven years there was a royal death, an enthronement, a collective circumcision and initiations into masculinity in order to ensure the well-being of the community. The sacrifice of the king was practiced by several African peoples until the arrival of the Europeans, e. B. with the Chamba from Nigeria, who have a sacred kingship.
literature
- Alfred Adler : La mort est le masque du roi, La royauté sacrée des Moundang du Tchad. Payot, Paris 1982 ( book review , French)
- Alfred Adler : Le royaume moundang de Léré au XIXe siècle. In: C. Tardits (Ed.): Contribution de la recherche ethnologique à l'histoire des civilizations du Cameroun. Colloques internationaux du CNRS, Paris 1981
- German Colonial Lexicon. 1920, Volume II, p. 599 ( online )
- Peter Fuchs: Sudan. Landscape, people, cultures between Niger and Nile. Schroll Vienna / Munich 1977
- Rainer Chr. Hennig: Fulbe History, Rise and Fall of the Adamawa Emirates. 1993 ( introduction at afrol.com )
- Jean-Claude Muller: Circoncision et régicide, Thème et variations chez les Dììs, les Chamba et les Moundang des confins de la Bénoué et du Tchad. 1997
Web links
- Kees signs: Local Rulers in North Cameroon. The Interplay of Politics and Conversion. (PDF file; 1.47 MB) Africa Focus, Vol. 9, No. 1–2, pp. 43–72
- Chad Mundang-Tupuri-Mbum. photius.com (English)