THE BAMUN: HISTORY AND ART
 (Bamun, Mum)

Cameroun

The Bamun is an original ethnic group of Cameroun of around 215,000 members.

The traditional religion of the Bamun placed great emphasis on the hereditary spirits who were incorporated in the skulls of the late ancestors. The greater men of each lineage had the possession of the skulls of the late men. When the movement of more divine must find a place appropriate maintaining the skull. In spite of these efforts, the skulls of some men remained without protesting and their spirits are considered shaken. The ceremonies are made this way to appease these spirits. There is also the respect for feminine skulls, but the details less are documented.

The Bamun also thought that the women made the ground fructuoso. Of there the fact that the women were ordered of the plantation and the harvest. The masks and the representations of the head also had importance. Although at more modern times many Bamun is Muslim or Christian. He himself king Ibrahim Njoya became to the Islam, later to the Christianity and soon he returned again to the Islam after the Treaty of Versailles.

The Bamun is one of the few African towns that desarrollararon their own form of writing. This system of writing had been created by king Bamun called Njoya. Njoya constructed a museum and fomented east system of writing. The writing, and the rules of Njoya, survived under auspices German during a time. Nevertheless in 1916 the French invaded his society finishing with both things. This way, the system of writing developed by Njoya fell in disuse.