A Critical Survey of the Resuscitation, Activation, and Adaptation of Traditional African Female Political Institutions to the Exigencies of Modern Politics in the 1990s: The Case of the Takumbeng Female Society in Cameroon.

Sussana Yene Awasom
Senior LecturerCEFAM, 
Buea, Republic of Cameroon.
Executive Secretary, Ngemba Women’s Born-house Forum,
Buea Cameroon

CODESRIA 10th General Assembly, Kampala, Uganda, 8-12 December 2002

Introduction

In the wake of the Beijing Conference on Women Rights, the old debate on the reality or myth of the marginalization of African women in politics since pre-colonial times resurfaced. Even where indigenous female political organizations existed, played important political roles, and had been highlighted by anthropologists who were struggling to understand traditional socio-political organization of African societies (cf Henn 1978; Guyer 1984; Nkwi 1985; Ritzenthaler 1960; Wipper 1982; Kalb 1985), there is still the stubborn refusal among chauvinist academic circles that African women really matter or ever mattered. Attempts at re-evaluating their roles are interpreted as simple romanticization.

Some opinions even hold that women activism in modern times is often teleguided by men and are therefore a disguise instrument of male manipulation. According to Konde (1991) an old male strategy in African politics is the usage of women for the political empowerment of men. The objective of this strategy has always been the same; the methods of its application have change according to circumstances to meet the exigency of the moment. In pre-colonial Cameroon, for example, when men exchanged women in marriage, the women provided their fathers and husbands with social, economic, and military links into other lineages and clans. The alliances that were created from exchanging women, the wealth that was accumulated in bride wealth payment and the work performed by women, and the political prestige and military strength derived from them, accrued to the benefit of men. It was the men who were the partners in these relationships; the women were the pawns, the means to those ends.

This paper is not an excursion into the imbecility of verifying the marginal or worse still, absent role of women in politics. Every where today in Africa, the female educated elite are rising to ask for a fair power sharing formula with their counterparts to effectively participate in the development of our continent (O’Bar 1984; Onalenna 2001). But traditional female indigenous institutions continue to resurface, readjust and conquer space in the sphere of modern politics.

This author sets out to examine the Takumbeng traditional female political institution in Cameroon that resurfaced in the 1990s after a period of apparent hibernation. It looks at its relevance, mobility, and adaptation to a completely novel postcolonial context of multipartiyism and the accompanying threats of civil strife. This paper is inspired by women activism in the 1990s, championed by the Takumbeng traditional organisation, which this author had the opportunity to critically observe, and which chauvinist scholars have skilfully decided to either merely allude to or completely omit in the plethora of literature focusing on Globalisation and the reintroduction multipartism in Cameroon (cf. Banoch 1992; Takougang 1993; Takougang and Milton 1998). A group of women, mostly post-menopausal with no dependent children at home, resurrected their indigenous political organization, the Takumbeng, to reinvigorate democracy and contain the excesses of a modern army. These white-hair women participated and reinforced the Ghost Town (ville morte) and civil disobedience campaigns aimed at expanding the democratic space, and barricaded the residence of the main opposition leader, John Fru Ndi, whose life was in danger in the aftermath of the October 1992 presidential elections in Cameroon, which the opposition leader had apparently won. They set up a twenty-four hour guard, rotating every twelve hours. When the national military did make a move against the opposition leader, descending on his compound to arrest him, these women stripped naked, knelt down and held out their breasts- long as a sign of women’s power, and always a winning move in an argument- the military backed off and basically told the national leaders that they should come and arrest the opposition leader. But they, the soldiers, were not going to tempt fate by defying "their mothers" simply to take the opposition leader into custody. This single but extraordinary application of traditional female institutions to defy a modern army in the context of multipartyism is an indicator of the transformation of such a gendered indigenous institution since pre-colonial times. Its relevance here lies in the fact that these women threw their weight into active politics and averted a major political crisis in Cameroon by preventing the arrest of a populist opposition leader that could have led to civil unrest with unforeseen consequences.

This is not the first time in recent Cameroon history that indigenous female political institutions have been mobilised to intervene in the public space because their vital interests were affected. The Anlu Women uprising in 1958 was provoked by the genuine attempts by the colonial administration to introduce far-reaching modern reforms in the agricultural sector, which scarred women and brought them into the streets with telling political consequences for the Endeleley government.

The ambition of this author is to critically analyse the resuscitation, transformation and galvanization of Takumbeng traditional institutions into instruments of real power in the 1990s. We shall look at how this female institution organised itself in the contexts of the 1990s and its relevance and scope of action. This paper draws heavily from interviews, archival and secondary sources and on participant observation. It is divided into four parts. The first section is an overview of indigenous female political institutions and their roles. The second part of this paper is an overview of historical antecedents of indigenous female political organisations. The last and core part of this paper of this paper is an examination of the resuscitation and activation Takumbeng indigenous institutions in the post-colonial contexts of the 1990s. The last part is the conclusion.

Traditional African women at the margin of society and their indigenous political Institutions

There is the tendency to overemphasis the domestic sphere of women at the expense of their public sphere for understandable reasons. In traditional African society women were the central figures in household management while men were almost totally absent and relegated to the public sphere. Women were responsible for childbearing, cultivating food crops (Guyer 1995), cooking, and the raising of the girl-child. Mothering in particular tied her down to the domestic sphere, as breast-feeding was usually lengthy and confining. The suckling of the infant child usually ran for three years during which the baby was protected from competition from the next sibling by the mothers often lengthen sexual abstinence and exclusive and frequent breast feeding (inhibiting ovulation and conception) and postponing the next birth. Special taboos confined the women’s leaving the compound for varying lengths of time in order to ensure that the mother and child are secluded and protected (Oppong 2001). Perhaps this explains why women who had already attained menopause spearheaded female political activism since they were freed from excessive household chores. Men complemented this breast-feeding role of their wives by making supplies available and being loving and indulgent as a parent (Sohai 1969). The roles of women and men were not therefore in conflict.

Adelaide Hills (1961) emphasizes that although the woman’s world appeared to be a narrow one, her authority and status within that world was unquestioned. She never felt dominated. She was overburdened but never felt oppressed. She was duly honoured and extolled as a mother, as she links lineages and plays a diplomatic role.

Sometimes women acted as regents during and interregnum or periods of political turmoil. In the kingdom of Bamoum in Cameroon, which is strictly patriarchal, a woman served as a regent from 1885-1887 before relinquishing power to her mature son, who became King Njoya (Claude Tardite 1980). What was the nature of female political institutions in traditional Africa?

Patriarchal leadership has always been a dominant theme in African studies and female political institutions shall be situated in relation to that of the dominantly male-structured society. In centralized societies there was usually the Chief, his Council, regulatory societies, and the queen mother and women lodges (kaberry and Chilver 1961, Nkwi 1977). The queen mother enjoyed the same status, and not functions, as the clan head. In the Ide Confederacy in the Bamenda Grassfields, there were two chiefs, one male (Kodong Wilinu), and the other female (Kodong Wiliyin). The evident difference between male and female paramount chiefs as the distribution of political authority was almost entirely male-based. The male chief assumed more varied roles, while the female chief’s only public role was to be a major speaker on behalf of women of Ide in the polity-wide forum of both men and women (Masquelier 1985: 105-118). But what were the specific male and female spheres of authority?

The political structure of the confederacy was devolved to the wards and its segments. Each ward controlled a number of palm groves, which were managed by the ward heads. Palm trees that bore palm nuts were allocated to every able man in the ward and he shared the harvested nuts with some other men of his patridescent group whose collaboration was required in making oil. Women were given some oil for cooking but the bulk of the extracted oil had to be relinquished to the senior elder of the ward who stored all the palm oil he received from the male members of the ward in the central storage house, which he alone controlled. The senior elder in turn gave oil to the male chief who was responsible for making the oil palm tribute to the paramount chief at the apex in Wum. Part of the proceeds from oil was used by the paramount chief, among other things to acquire wives for junior members of the ward. This structure of male and junior categories was replicated in the institution of hunting lodge, and in the war lodge, which were exclusively male domains.

In essence, the formal political structure and hierarchies that grew out of the relations among men within the palm oil trade chain and lodges did not provide for women participation, although the office of a female chief existed. Senior and elder women were simply older women and relations among them were more egalitarian.

In the economic sphere however, the woman retained full control over the fruits of her labour, which were represented by farm crops. She stored her harvest in her own house where she and her children dwelled and cooked what pleased her. She was under the moral obligation to feed here husband and children and her visitors. She did not need a husband or anybody’s authorization to have access to farmland; by virtue of residing in the village, she enjoyed the privilege of using communal land, and she could also fall back to her natal patrilineage for a farm plot.

Clearly men and women operated within two distinct socio-political planes, each being further characterized by a distinctive economic feature. The men’s sphere was one of hierarchies and prestige while women remained at the periphery of this. But they could play a limited public political role by participating in joint forums with men called Ka. The Ka was periodically held to control the course of events of importance to the whole community like rituals, community labour, festivals, a plague etc (Masquelier 1985: 105-118). In essence, women appeared to be passive in this set up although they had their own distinct indigenous political institution.

Historical antecedent of the intrusion of Indigenous female Institution in Modern politics.

Modern politics in Africa has always been male dominated. The passive or peripheral role of women in politics, however, is not a constant situation but was dictated by circumstances. The political tempo in the modern state sometimes upset the traditional socio-political framework and reactivates and energizes traditional female institutions. The Anlu was reactivated by a particular circumstance and it came to serve as the foundation on which the Takumbeng of the 1990s was born. The history of the Anlu is therefore indispensable for an understanding of the spontaneous eruption of the Takumbeng in the 19990s.

With the advent of multipartyism during the colonial period, the traditional male dominated political structures started facing serious strain. Traditional rulers found themselves confronted with an overarching colonial presence. Chiefs were subordinated to the new modernizing dictates of the colonial authorities through their trained western educated agents (Crowder and Obaro 1970, Van Rouveroy 1987). Because traditional authority was subordinated to the coercive colonial forces, women tended to view the colonial authority and their allies as the ultimate power of the land and these groups were often targeted for demonstrations or when they wanted to seek redress.

In the Bamenda Grasslands, women were badly affected by the presence of the Fulani glaziers whose cattle had started entering the area at the beginning of the 20th century, and had quadrupled by the early 1940s; instances of cattle trespass on women’s farms multiplied. This was an inevitable situation because women practiced shifting cultivation and they were still to learn to co-exist with the cattle Fulani who were strangers in the area1. The incessant destruction of women’s farms led to complaints by women, mobilized by women traditional institutions to the colonial authorities and not to their chiefs. It was even suspected that the chiefs were accomplices to the rich Fulani graziers from whom they collected bribes to be quite.

From protests to the colonial administration in the 1940s about Fulani destruction of food crops, the female traditional government of kom, known as the Anlu, found a common course that united them into action. They Anlu organised themselves and started staging a series of demonstrations in the 1950s as a way of publicizing their plight. The British colonial administration was sensitive to this problem and introduced a number of measures including the demarcation of grazing and farming areas2. Fulani presence appeared to have provided a mobilizing stimulus for the women of the Bamenda Grasslands, and they came to see in demonstrations an instrument of asserting themselves and righting wrongs against them.

The Anlu traditional institution in the Kom kingdom in Cameroon went down on records as the first attempt by women in recent Cameroon history to transform their traditional political institutional into an instrument of formidable power. The women used the Anlu to cause the fall of the Endeley government in 1959 thereby creating the legacy of "woman power" in Cameroon. What specifically is the nature of Anlu?

The Anlu, which means "to drive away", is a women organization whose goal is to seek redress for crimes committed against womankind, especially with obscene reference to their private (cf Ardener 1960: 29-53). The origin of Anlu is narrated by Kom’s oral tradition. The Kom people used to pay annual tribute to the chiefdom of Menjang (a neighboring tribe) in the form of building a house. The Kom foyn (village head) got tired of the tribute levy and advised his people to resent paying it. The Menjang people interpreted the resentment of the Kom people to pay them tribute as an act of rebellion and decided to punish them accordingly. They secretly planned a punitive expedition against the Kom people when the men would have gone out on a hunting expedition and it leaked to the queen mother through her network of spies. The queen mother mobilized the women, disguised them as men by putting up their husbands’ attire, and armed the women. So when the Menjang men attacked during the moment they felt the Kom men were absent, they were confronted with a formidable force of "men" who were actually Kom women in disguise, and this compelled the Menjang men to take off on their heels. In their struggle to escape, the women arrested one of the men who was physically injured. He was bewildered to discover that the attacking army were women. The woman gave him a snake beating, threatened his life and sent him back with strict instructions to his people never to ask for any service or tribute from Kom people any more. From then Anlu came to be recognized as a reputable organization for handling women and state affairs. It is, in essence, a disciplinary traditional organisation, with a military and a mythical origin for the defence of the right of women and the state. So whenever the vital interests of women were affected, Anlu was expected to step in forcefully. The Anlu was headed by a naànlu (.mother of anlu) who is usually the eldest women in the village, but was subordinated to the queen mother of Kom. Two spies, Ugwesu, and two errand women, Nikangs, assisted her. The Ugwesu was headed by Na Ugwesu (mother of the spies). She ensured that the offenders and their accomplices were adequately sanctioned. When the Ugwesus identified anyone who communicated with such a culprit, the Ugwesu meted sanctions. The Nikangs ran errands for the Na anlu and flogged culprits. A culprit is expected to repent. After repentance, the Anlu had to perform purification and cleaning rituals (cf Nkwi 1985: 184-185, Konde 1990)3. How did a traditional organisation like Anlu find itself in modern politics?

E.M.L.Endeley came to power in 1954 following the general election in the Cameroons in the previous year, which saw his KNC party winning 12 out of the 13 seats. The lone seats went to an independent candidate, S.E.Ncha, who ultimately joined the opposition Kamerun People’s Party (KPP). Endeley won the elections on the popular platform of secession from Nigeria, home rule for the southern Cameroon and ultimate reunification with the French Cameroons. But once home rule was achieved for the Southern Cameroons with Endeley as leader of the Government Business, he started drifting away from reunification. His marriage to a Nigerian woman appeared to have been an extra incentive for his pro-Nigerian stance. John Ngu Foncha formed the Kamerun National Democratic Party (KNDP) with the goal of pursuing total secession from Nigerian and ultimate reunification with the French Cameroons. During the 1957 general elections in the Southern Cameroons, the opposition KNDP party performed relatively well by obtaining 5 seats while the government party scored 6 (Awasom 1998: 169-179).

How could the KNDP turn the tables in its favour? Kom, an important political constituency by virtue of its population, was firmly under the control of the KNC whose leader in the area was Joseph Ndong Nkwain, a son of the traditional authorities. To unseat the KNC in Kom was not an easy task and required a lot of imagination directly in the hands of women, this reform touched on them directly. Few women were prepared to experiment with their livelihood by adopting a new agricultural method without a precedent in their tradition, and was a lot of discomfort about the envisaged reform. Rumours built upon rumours about the KNC government’s real intentions.

It soon became common knowledge that the Chief of Kom, who was a right hand man of the colonial administration and the Endeley government,was about to sell Kom land to the land grabbing and aggressive Igbo traders . Land was considered sacred and the king did fertility rites intermittingly to protect it; it was therefore an anathema to contemplate the prospect of doing away with it. To allege that Endeley was conniving to dispose of Kom land was a direct invitation of open rebellion. Entrusting the enforcement of the cross-contour regulation in the hands of a non- Kom agricultural officer only reinforced the rumour of attempts at tampering with Kom land. The Kom women were further pieced up with the government’s inability to handle the intractable farmer –grazier conflict, which was on the rise. The women wanted the Fulani to be expelled because of the continuous incursion of their cattle on their farmland. Women had suffered from Fulani cattle hardly got any compensation, and the KNDP stepped into the conflict to paint the Endeley government of the scapegoat of their woes. The KNDP’s chances were improve in Kom, when Augustin Ngom Jua, a native of Kom and a vital politician in the government party, crossed the carpet in 1958 to join the opposition KNDP. It was now Jua’s responsibility to transform his native Kom constituency into a pro-KNDP stronghold. He now capitalized on the fears and prejudices of the Kom women about certain modern agricultural reforms, which the government was about to introduce

The kom women felt threatened by the agricultural reform of the 1950’s, which they perceived as an attempt by the government to disrupt their traditional method of farming, on which their livelihood was harnessed. Modern agricultural techniques required that farm cultivation on slopes should be organised across, and not parallel to, the slope in order to check erosion and preserve soil fertility. But traditional farmers techniques practiced over the year dedicated a different wisdom as women farmers parallel to the slope and not across and had often had good yields (Ritzenthaler 1960: 483-484). The government therefore enacted legislation in 1955,with the support of the opposition KNDP that required women to orient their linear garden beds horizontally rather than the traditional vertical arrangements in order to check soil erosion was had been identified as one of the problems that agriculture in this region was encountering. The law also prohibited the Ankara farming method, which required the burning of grass that was usually covered inside ridges to improve soil fertility and obtain good yields. Since agriculture was the main stay of the women, they organised protracted demonstrations against the government, which ultimately lost the 1959 general elections. The Anlu women therefore bequeathed the cultural base for women mobilisation and resistance against any threat to their vital interest.

Multipartyism in the 1990s and the resuscitation of the Takumbeng female institution

The Takumbeng that made its appearance on the Cameroon political scene in the 1990s was a disguised Anlu; it was simply new wine in old skin. Within the multiparty context if the 1990s in Cameroon, women from the North West Province reconstructed a traditional female organisation that was, hitherto, politically moribund, if not inactive What was remarkable about this organisation was its membership and its modus operandi- the women were mostly postmenopausal white –hair figures whose job was the distribution of hand bills and tracts, and whose target were armed soldiers, gendarmes and policemen. The traditional Takumbeng are composed of women of the postmenopausal age, found in the Kingdom of Ngemba, which loosely comprise Mankon, Mbatu, Njong, the Upper Ngemba Confederacy and even Bafut4. As an indigenous female political institution, it was to intervene spiritually and administratively to redress particular issues in the land. When there was a disaster or it was suspected that the land had been desecrated, only the Takumbeng could intervene for it was beyond the competence of men to perform such tasks. These octogenarian women were believed to possess potent mystical powers because of their sex and age. As women who had brought life, it was believed that they could use these very reproductive organs to curse and terminate lives? Their private part and their womb constituted the factory from which man was manufactured and this factory is a women’s monopoly. The sex organ of the Takumbeng was very symbolic because it represented to them exclusive weapons to intimidate and discipline the male sex with. No body will stand to see these women expose their nakedness and point their breasts at them like guns because it meant a myriad of misfortunes comprising impotency, infertility, incurable diseases, death etc.

The reintroduction of multiparty in Cameroon in 1990 reactivated the Tankumbeng indigenous institution, which had generally maintained a low profile John Fru Ndi, an Anglophone businessman, achieved the reintroduction of mutipartyism in Cameroon in 1990 at the cost of the slaying six youths by the Cameroon military, in Mankon- Bamenda, who celebrating the forceful declaration of an alternative political party, the Social Democratic Front (SDF). The Biya regime had banned the launching of another political party but international events made the risk of introducing it worth the trouble. The collapse of the USSR unleashed a contiguous democratisation wave that caught up with Africa. The Benin Republic was the first in Francophone Africa to embrace multiparty, followed by Cameroon’s neighbour, Gabon and other countries like Mobutu’s Zaire and Cote D’Ivoire. It was an insult to Cameroonians that they should continue under the one-party dictatorship and John Fru Ndi went ahead to declare the SDF.

Despite the violent reaction from the government against the idea if multipartyism, the international community and French favoured it. So in December 1990, the Biya regime formally legalized multipartyism and introduced a certain degree of freedom of communication and association, including the holding of public meetings and demonstrations (SOPECAM 1991). The reintroduction of multipartyism saw the recurrent presence of troops in the Anglophone provinces and the Anglophone North West Province in particular owing to the restiveness of this part of the country and its vociferous quest for a new political order, which was often taken to mean secession. The SDF championed a series of Ghost Town and Civil Disobedience Campaigns throughout most of 1991 in a bid to force the hand of the Biya regime to call a sovereign national conference to chart a conducive framework within which multiparty politics could operate. The Takumbeng women, whom many in cosmopolitan Bamenda were aware of, made their appearance for the first time during the Ghost Town Campaigns declared by the opposition. The Opposition Ghost Town Campaign required that all public and private business sites were to remain closed throughout the week except on Saturdays and Sundays. The same applied to the commercial town of Douala, which is the nerve centre of Cameroon’s economic activities. In order to ensure that no business operated, including the circulation of township taxis, within Bamenda Township, which is the headquarters of the radical opposition SDF party, the Takumbeng women reinforced the vigilante groups that constituted themselves to enforce the Ghost Town.

The Takumbeng were mobilized into action by what they perceived as the economic hardship and suffering imposed on their children by the Biya government. The Takumbeng were mobilized into action by what they perceived as the economic hardship and suffering imposed on their children by the Biya government. The Takumbeng women usually circulated almost nude, with hair total grey, teeth clenched with a large blade of grass gripped in between their mouth symbolizing "no talk but action" (Cohen 2001). The front line were octogenarians while the women who came after them were younger and pretty noisy and comprised teenagers and matured women. Their passage in the morning meant every place had to remain closed and everybody had to desert the streets for the "ghosts" to patrol. The Takumbeng therefore added colour to the Ghost town and Civil Disobedience campaign that the opposition parties launched in 1991.

In order to take off steam from this political activism, the Biya regime organized both legislative and presidential elections, which allowed the opposition to participate. The October 1992 presidential election in particular is of great relevance to this study because of the war-like situation that emerged from it and the reaction of the Takumbeng women. The opposition leader John Fru Ndi was alleged to have won the elections, which earlier opinion polls had predicted. But the vote counting at the Supreme Court was delayed for over a fortnight despite the fact that all the results from polling stations nation wide were available. Fru Ndi proclaimed himself winner of the polls in a bid to pre-empt any fraud while waiting for the Supreme Court to confirm his victory. When the results were finally proclaimed, the incumbent, Paul Biya, was declared the winner with 39.5 per cent while John Fru Ndi was declared second with 35.5 per cent (Sindjoun: 1994). The population of Fru Ndi’s constituency went wild and the violence that followed, characterized by arson and looting, was frightening. A state of emergency was slammed on Bamenda, the provincial capital of the North West Province and Fru Ndi was placed under house arrest. Fru Ndi remained defiant and continued to grant interviews to the BBC and other foreign radio stations while the International Community condemned the Biya regime.

The state of emergency period was one of rumour peddling. The presence of troops in combat fatigue in every corner of Bamenda town was interpreted as an act of war and several young people fled into Nigeria to prepare for possible reprisals. The Takumbengs re-emerged from this tense atmosphere created by the omnipresence of troops and the threat of war. But this time they had no tuft of grass between the teeth, symbolizing that they were also going to use their mouths as a weapon. John Fru Ndi was believed to be the saviour of Anglophones from the Biya "tyrannical" regime. Placing him under house arrest and surrounding his house with troops was intolerable and was an act of war and the women had to go in for his protection and the destruction of the soldiers by mystical means.

Shortly after troop0s surrounded Fru Ndi’s residence, the Takumbeng concerted and decided to take vigil around his premises and sang all night. Unlike during the Ghost Town period, the Takumbeng women were exclusively of postmenopausal age, who had nothing to lose and was believed to have a lot of magical powers. They did not need to paint their hair white because age had whitened it for them. They did not put on any pant or breast wear since those areas of their bodies constituted their weapons for the fight at the appropriate moment.

The first group of Takumbeng women who positioned themselves around Fru Ndi’s compound and started casting an evil spell on the troops were about twenty. They were supplied rich breakfast in the mornings by Fru Ndi and sympathizers from the public. Within a week, the number of Takumbeng women swelled to over eighty as more Takumbengs from the interior villages flogged to Mankon Town to protect Fru Ndi. There was every advantage joining the Takumbeng because food, and drinks were available which most of those grannies could not afford in their homes on a daily basis. The Takumbeng had to reorganize themselves in such a way that they could freely rotate.

The president of the Takumbeng for the occasion was John Fru Ndi’s mother, a woman full of determination and ready to die for her son. Close aides of the SDF as well as neutral sympathizers of the Takumbeng also gave a helping hand in their organizational effort.

The post-menopausal composition of the Takumbeng was strategic and realistic. The women were old and were no more childbearing. There were less susceptible to be raped by the troops than young ladies. Second, these women were fanatical believers of Fru Ndi that could hardly be swayed or enticed. The presence of heavily armed troops convinced them of the rumour that war was at hand and they believed they could defeat the modern Cameroon army with their mystical powers.

About half way into the two months state of emergency, the Takumbeng were forced to go into action. What pushed them into the offensive were attempts by the government troops to whisk Fru-Ndi off to Yaounde for internment. The Takumbeng confronted the approaching troops by raising their dresses high into the air and exposing their nudity. To put colour in their fight, they raised their shrink led breasts towards the direction of the soldiers as if to fire bullets from their breasts. The shrill sounds that accompanied their actions sounded liked the casting of a magical spell on somebody. It was an awful and demoralizing sight and the troops found it difficult to proceed to arrest Fru-Ndi. The resistance from the women persisted for days and rumours reaching Yaounde and opposition strongholds held that the troops in Bamenda were dying in their numbers and that any soldier who fell sick could not be cured except with the cooperation of the Takumbeng women.

The army could not accept humiliation from these octogenarians and orders came from Yaounde that Fru-Ndi must be arrested and brought to the capital. When news of imminent troop reinforcement reached Bamenda in order to seize Fru-Ndi by force, the Takumbeng occupied all the strategic entrances into the town while young men flowed oil on the tarred road into Bamenda, making it impossible for army trucks to enter the town without slipping off. The army trucks did effectively arrive in Bamenda but they had to camp outside the town until they were given orders to return to their units of origin.

Rumours about rising casualties among government soldiers from the evil spell of the Takumbeng women increased their prestige and helped to swell their numbers in Bamenda Town. The troops in Bamenda soon became weary with the state of emergency campaign and there were rumours of the prospect of a military mutiny in the town. Many started questioning their raison d’etre in the town and the increasing international condemnation and threats of sanctions from the European Union compelled to government to call off the state of emergency in Bamenda after two full months. It was only towards the end of February 1993 that massive troop presence vanished from Bamenda town. The Takumbeng’s traditional role was not meant to fight wars and less still a modern army. It was not a confederation of post-menopausal women from several villagers. It simply reconstituted itself from the specific circumstances of the 1990s when it believed the government had declared a war on the people of Bamenda.

Conclusion

The Anlu was the precursor of the Takumbeng female indigenous political institution which was resurrected in the 1990s and transformed into a potent instrument for the fight for the expansion of the democratic space and the defence of the opposition leader, john Fru Ndi. The Takumbenh inherited the mobilisation skills of the Anlu and were able to make a conspicuous appearance on the streets and demonstrated themselves as a force to reckon with. Its role went beyond a simple female regulatory society that catered for female interest that was largely dormant in peacetime. But circumstances changed the Takumbeng into an unprecedented force that embarrassed a modern army and prevented it from carrying out the arrest of John Fru Ndi, the main Cameroon opposition leader after the 1992 presidential elections in Cameroon. Traditionally the Takumbeng belonged to individual chiefdoms among the Ngemba speaking peoples of the Cameroon Central Plateau. But in the political heat of the 1990s, women of diverse ethnic backgrounds in the North West Province fitted themselves into the Takumbeng movement for political change. When the women sensed that the all-powerful Cameroon army had invaded Bamenda town and was out to arrest and destroy its imminent son, John Fru Ndi, they quickly mobilized for a confrontation with the army5.

The Takumbeng believed in their supernatural powers to fight the army to death by exposing their nudity and shrink led breasts towards the direction of the army, thereby creating a demoralizing effect. In the eyes of the military, these old women were undesirable stripers and not the type pornographic videos occasionally treated their lecherous eyes to. These postmenopausal women were not only fragile but they were unattractive and incarnated all types of weird myths stretching from their ability to cause impotence and bring about ill-luck to their ability to cause slow death. They were a difficult force to handle and the military were not trained to fight such a force.

The Takumbeng that fought the military in 1992 was a transformation of traditional Takumbeng as its membership was not ethnically based but embraced women of the North West Province within the vicinity of Bamenda town. They shared the same symbols and techniques of fighting the military. Despite their confederal nature, and enjoyed the largesse of the population of belonging to the army of senior women citizens. To many of them the end of the state of emergency was a sad episode for they lost their newfound jobs and had to fall back to their uneventful lives of the old. Like the Anlu before them, the Takumbeng of the 1990s was the brainchild of multipartyism and heavy military presence in Bamenda did not scare them from activism. It should therefore be expected that when the going goes tough, women can always originate a combat strategy by tapping from the vitality of their indigenous political institutions.

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