Colourful frontiers: African map-making in colonial Cameroon
Colourful frontiers: African map-making in colonial Cameroon:

From at least 1908 to 1930, the palace scholars and artists of King Njoya (r. 1894–1933) produced and curated numerous maps, which depicted the ruler’s West African kingdom Bamum in today’s Cameroon in parts or as a whole. Along with mapping, Njoya had his country systematically surveyed. The indige...

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Gespeichert in:
Bibliographische Detailangaben
1. Verfasser: Zehnle, Stephanie 1986- (VerfasserIn)
Format: Elektronisch Artikel
Sprache:English
Veröffentlicht: 2024
Schlagworte:
Geschichte 1890-1910
Farbe
Kartografie
Karte
Kamerun
Online-Zugang:DE-255
Zusammenfassung:From at least 1908 to 1930, the palace scholars and artists of King Njoya (r. 1894–1933) produced and curated numerous maps, which depicted the ruler’s West African kingdom Bamum in today’s Cameroon in parts or as a whole. Along with mapping, Njoya had his country systematically surveyed. The indigenous Bamum cartographers were inspired by immigrants from Christian missions of Europe, by Muslim scholars from the Sahel, as well as by German, English and French colonial administrators and scientists during the period of Njoya’s rule. Navigating through this unsettled age of colonialism in his country, the King applied maps to visualize his authority based on Islamic, Christian and colonial transfers of cartographic knowledge. Hence the colouring of these maps neither completely represented European nor Asian-Islamic role models in the colouring of maps, but also drew from African artisans and traditions of colourful tapestry, of ornamental wall painting on houses and palaces, and of manuscript calligraphic décor. While Njoya’s palace willingly adopted paper and drawing utensils from the Basel missionaries and colonial officials, the artists stuck to colour schemes of the Cameroonian grassland, the Muslim Sahel and the Sahara. By that means Njoya ‘Bamumized’ materials from both Islamic and European scholarly traditions in line with his quest for authenticity and autarchic cartography. Bamum’s cultural and political frontier position around 1900 – between expanding colonial administrations from the South and invading Islamic emirates from the North – was expressed on the maps by colouring detailed border zones of the state. Despite changing the colour schemes frequently, the colourful focus of the indigenous Bamum maps was invariably aimed at defining the frontiers of this state. This mode of style presents us with insights about the emergence of territorial statehood in West Afr
Beschreibung:Illustrationen, Karten
ISBN:978-90-04-46736-1
DOI:10.1163/9789004467361_013

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