Ngonnso´: Founding Mother of the Nso

Ngonnso´ is the ancestral mother of the Nso in the grasslands of Cameroon. At the beginning of the 20th century, an important sculpture of this figure came to Germany.

Text: Maria Ellendorff (zur deutschen Fassung)

The Nso‘, who live in the grasslands in the northwest of present-day Cameroon, consider Ngonnso‘ their ancestral mother. The founding myths in this region revolve around three siblings. Because of power disputes, Ngonnso‘ is said to have left her father’s court in the historic city of Rifem in the Tikar region with her brothers Nchare Yen and Nditam. They moved south and west and founded the powerful empires of Nso‘, Bamum and Mbam. Ngonnso’s son is said to have been the first fon of the Nso‘ people in the late 14th century. Since the leaders in this region are called fon, it is more appropriate to speak of fondom than kingdom.

During the German colonial rule in Cameroon from 1885 to 1916, numerous cultural belongings were appropriated – some of them by the use of force – and brought to Germany. A recent study conducted by the Université de Dschang and the Technical University of Berlin shows that there are still 40,000 elements of material culture from Cameroon in German museums. Among these is a figure of the ancestral mother Ngonnso‘.

Before its appropriation by the Germans, this figure of the ancestor mother is said to have been in the kikav ke wong (a vault for ritual objects) in the Nso’ capital of Kumbo. While the exact circumstances of Colonel Curt von Pavel’s acquisition of the Ngonnso’ figure are not clear. Von Pavel was no stranger in the region. He used to be the commander of the so-called Schutztruppe, a German military colonial troop, consisting of german military staff and local mercenaries. In 1901, he led a military expedition against the insurgent Bafut, a neighboring community in the Grasslands, which killed over 1,000 Bafut (R1001/3350, 41). During a second such operation in 1902, during which he presumably also appropriated the Ngonnso’ figure, the ”effect of the punishment of the Bafut […] also made itself felt here” (Pavel 1902: 238).

1903 von Pavel was removed from office in Cameroon by the then Governor in Cameroon, Jesko von Puttkamer for disobeying direct orders. At that time the Ngonnso‘ figure was in Curt von Pavel’s private possession. In the same year he donated the figure as well as other cultural belongings of the Nso‘ to the museum in Berlin after being urged to by the head of the Africa Department Felix von Luschan.

In Cameroon, however, the memory of the statue and the ancestral mother Ngonnso‘ lived on. Since the 1970s, various civil society initiatives have been established to commemorate the ancestor and the statue in and around Kumbo. Today, her image can be found on clothing, posters and calendars even an oversized replica has been placed in the palace’s courtyard in 2008, and a regular festival is held in her honor.

In 2021, for the first time, a joint workshop with representatives of the Nso‘ community, together with museum representatives and scholars from Germany, discussed the events and began a reappraisal. From the meeting it became clear that von Pavel’s presence in Kumbo was as an expression of colonial power and force even without the active use of violence in that situation.

After several years of contact between representatives of the Nso‘, the government of Cameroon and the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz it was decided in June 2022 to return the figure. Ngonnso‘ will no longer be exhibited publicly until it is returned to Cameroon.