The Head ( part 4)

If I am not exemplary or act in an exemplary manner, that is, by waking up to read the bible and pray with my parents, my younger brothers and sisters won’t and my father in particular, will be sad to read the bible all alone. And that day, he will go to work without singing or whistling as he always does, whenever he is happy. I will be sad, my father, my brothers and sisters will also be sad. Why? The reason is simply because, we all love our parents. And whenever we fail to wake up, my father accuses my mother of spoiling us. I have always questioned why my father felt that, if we were refusing to wake up, it was the fault of my or our mother. But as I grew up, I began to understand that, as Bassa-badems, mothers are the central shaft of the family. This did not or has not changed even though we are Christians.

And Christianity puts the man as head of the family and prime law maker. In the Cameroons, or in parts of it, mothers are the owners of children and they are also the ones who control the family. But it is a sacrilege in other parts of Cameroon, for women, to wield the kind of power they have in the Bassa and Bassa-Badem lands. Even in these lands, the powers of women are stronger in the Nkam division and within Nkam division, amongst the Bassa-Badem land, than all over Cameroon. First, before elaborating on the story that, I want to tell you, because I made the promise, I will like to tell you a little bit more about the Bassa-Badem nationalities, that some Cameroonians and their White friends who have read a lot of books, still call tribe. The people of Bassa-Badem are in fact part of the Greater Bassa nation. And in the Bassa nation, there are many other nationalities who speak different languages from the real Bassas and the reason is because, since the Bassas left Israel, and started wandering down south, they have settled in many places that had other nationalities with their own languages.

This has influence the way Bassa is being spoken currently. And because some Bassas also wanted to create their own countries, they decided to change the way they spoke in order to appear different. And some times, it was a subterfuge to escape capture from stronger nations. Bassas are found in most parts of Africa. I understand that, they are also located in Liberia and in Nigeria, in the plateau state, and there, there is even a local government called Bassa local government. Capitals of two Caribbean nations namely: Guadeloupe and Saint Kit & Nevis are called Basse-Terre. Why? Simply because, most slaves taken from West Africa and settled there, were of Bassa nationality, thus the slavers decided to call those two capitals Basse-Terre. But most can’t speak the Bassa language any more because, the slavers vicious and malicious as they were, decided to mix up black Africans, in order to avoid slaves from the same region to foment trouble as a group of Congolese slaves attempted ones in the United States. I am going to stop here because; I have gone too far out of topic. But I want you all to know that, nationals of the Greater Bassa nations were not the only nationalities taken to slavery.

The other ones were the Igbos, the Yorubas and people of the interior Grass field, who are now referred to in Cameroon as the Bamilekes. But you have to understand that, all the latter nationalities had had their own nations and considered others who could not speak their language as foreigners. It explains why slavery was a success. But it was another group of foreigners who came and decided to create what is called today Cameroon or Nigeria. And in what is today called Cameroon, those who caught and sold the Bassas and the Grass field people known today as the Bamilekes, and who now speak either English or French, where the Doualas and Efiks nationals. The Doualas caught too many Bassas during wars and sold them to White people and when the Bassas started running into the forest, the Doualas followed them and discovered that, in the forest, there existed other nations known as the Betis and beyond them, was the Bamilekes. The Bamilekes live in an intermediate land called Grass field, but how they began being called Bamileke is a mystery to me.

But all I know is that, people who live in that intermediate region between the forest and savannah are called Grass field people. The Douala caught a lot of Bamilekes, because, their numbers were large, they were hard working and never wanted to fight or run away. The Doualas are a nationality who came from the former Congo kingdom. They ran away because, their former kingdom was at war. And as they came in their canoes, they decided to settle around the sea, mostly because, they were strangers and fishermen. Their friends were the Efiks who also were water people. They like fishing and because these two nations were near water, they had constant contacts with White people and got guns and other weapons that those in the interior never had. They were superior and malicious than indigenous nations such as the Bassas, the Bamilekes, the Betis and the Igbos. But in the Grass field, there existed other slaving nations; they were the Balis and the Bamous and Nso nations. The last two are in fact the same nations with different names. But the three are Tikary people.

While the Doualas were operating in Bassa and Bamileke lands, the Efik were operating in both Igbo and Bamileke lands and helping the Doualas to conquer as many Betis, Bassas and Bamilekes as possible in order to sell to their White friends. Today, the Efiks are found in Cameroon and in Nigeria, while the Doualas are only found in Cameroon and their cousins are found in the two Congos. Look, this story is too complicated. I will please want to stop. I wanted to tell you about the Bassa-Badem. As I was telling you, they are in reality Bassas, but since they left Israel when the Roman Empire destroyed Jerusalem, they have been wandering, and their languages have in the process been modified. That is why; you will discover that, there are some fundamental differences between the Bassa and the Bassa-Badem languages. The Bassa-Badem language also has own variances. Remember, if I have not told you before, the Bassa-Badem nationality is the largest in the Nkam division.

They are present in the three sub divisions that make up the Nkam division, namely: Yabassi, Yingui and Nkongdjock (route of the elephant). And as I have already told you, the Bassa-Badem language is different from Bassa-Bassa and within the Bassa –Badem language, there are variances. The way the Bassa-Badem language is spoken in Yabassi sub division, is a little bit different from the way she is spoken in the Yingui sub division, while the way she is spoken in Yingui is also a little bit different from the way she is spoken in the Nkongdjock sub division. The first Bassa-badem language or that spoken in Yabassi sub division, is closer to Bassa and Douala languages, while the second or that spoken in Yingui sub division, is closer to the Banen language and the third Bassa-Badem or that spoken in Nkongdjock sub division, is closer to Bang language and some Bamileke languages, such as Bafang.

It must also be made clear that, while the Bassas or the Bassa-Badem were caught by the Doualas and the Efiks and sold to White people as slaves, most Bassas and Bassa-Badems also began doing the same thing and that is why today in Cameroon, the Doualas (the master slavers), the Bassas, the Bassa-Badems and the Betis, who were first victims of slavery, consider the Bamilekes or people of the Grass field of Cameroon as slaves. In fact, all coastal nationalities of Cameroon think that, people from the Grass field are inferior, but while they are thinking of the past, the people of the Grass field have grown stronger economically and intellectually than people of the coast.