embodied histories

Embodied histories

Royal investiture, masking and memory in Cameroon

Etymologies of masking

• kәkúm ~ a mask• kùm ~ to lock, touch, to be

adjacent• kәnkùm ~ a lock• kәnkùmten ~ a follower (in a

queue, hierarchy, or line of masks)

From language to performance

• Fulәŋgaŋ: the masked dance of the palace kwifon

society

• Mbכkә Nokan: the slave twins

• Kәkum Njaŋ: the procession of the fon, his wives, and the

‘things of the palace’

The Fulәŋgaŋ dance

• Polymorphous masks– Zoomorphic

headdresses– Pelt-covered

headdresses– Feather gowns – Red gowns– Cowry shell

embroidery

Performance and paranoia: Kwifon’s announcement • Someone has

brought poisoned gun powder to the palace

• The food of one of the women’s groups is poisoned

• Someone disguised as a mask is planning to commit a murder

Mabu, the mask driver

• The solo dance ~ ƒiεŋә• The group dance

– Mabu a third leader / captain– The other masks meek and browbeaten

The colonial caravan

During the whole length of the portage, certain elements try to drop behind, or to escape into the bush. Thanks to treating them regularly to the ‘twenty-five’, the majority of them nevertheless manage to remain in line…

Marie-Pauline Thorbecke, 1914.

Masking memories:

1. The slow shuffle of the masks ~ The hunger and exhaustion of the carriers

2. The stooped figure of the dancer ~ The porter staggering under his headload

3. The policing mask and ‘Captains’ essential to the village dances ~ The drivers and officers essential to slave caravans and colonial porters

Masking memories:

4. The closeness of the dancers to each other and their restricted movement ~ The practice of keeping slaves and porters in wooden fetters

5. Masks as both ‘that which locks / which is locked’, their cowry-embroidered gowns ‘bags’, their headdresses ‘heads’ ~ ‘bags’ and ‘heads’ were once the currency for slaves

Nokan

• Jesters– Parody of fulәŋgaŋ

• Corpses– Forest-dwelling

ghosts of slaves

• Spies / kidnappers

The Nokan’s procession

The Mboke Nokan

My Master did not pretend to sell me but kept me & pretended to be fond of me, did use me better than others had done, gave me plenty to eat (…) then the man carried me away again to another place, and there sold me for a piece of Cloth and a little salt to a Trader.

Josiah Nyamsey 1820.

Ankermann (1959) described fon Tam of Bum's grave house in the early 1900’s:

“On the grave, a large porcelain vase, a pith helmet and a broken earthenware dish. At the head of the grave... was a bench, and on and below it was a carved wooden stool of spider design and an old phonograph.”

Chilver (pers. comm. 1995) on the Bali and Big Babanki palaces in the 1950’s:

“In Bali I found Toby jugs (Staffordshire), red Bohemian glass carafes with gilt stoppers, and some … German Art Deco jardinières. The fon of Big Babanki showed me some very pretty blue-banded lusterware jugs ‘worth plenty slave’. At Bamali palm wine was being poured out of a very large brown-glazed teapot, lid missing.”

Aporia, overdetermination

• The three performances discussed –the Fulәŋgaŋ, Nokan, and Kәkumnjaŋ - – are all aporetic

• The reenactment of caravans, and the prominence of death in all three processions refer to more than one historical period

• The rites of investiture are overdetermined by the past

The postmodernity of slavery

• The historical memories embodied in the performances are inseparable: they occur at once

• There is no chronology to traumatic historical experience. History recurs belatedly

• Violent pasts engender a perpetual futurity: they are what will have been