History of Bom Village

Bom Village is one of the 42 villages that make up the three clans of Nwa Sub Division – Yamba, Mbaw, and Mfumte. Situated in the rare fertile Massihm Valley of Yamba Clan, it shares boundaries with Sih and Mbori Villages to the East; Gom and Ngang Villages to the West; Mfe and Mbem Villages to the North; as well as Ngung, Kwak and Ntong Villages to the South. Bom is renowned for palm oil and palm wine production, which are also sources of income for the villagers, besides the production of a variety of food crops. This is because the various Chiefs of the village and their subjects resolved not to accept ceding any part of their land for cattle rearing and stood by that decision for decades even when successive Fulani herdsmen tried to corrupt and bribe the Chiefs to allow them access.

Bom Village hosted the first Baptist Church and Mission Primary School in Yamba Clan before they were moved to Mbem and later another Mission School was built in Bom-Gor, a central place to serve many villages, including Bom, Kwak, Mfe, Sih, Mbori, and Yang. Bom-Gor Mission School became a force to reckon with in terms of academics and sports, winning many trophies and awards during inter-school competitions.

Origin/Migration

The Bom people are said to have originated from Tikari some 450 years ago. It is reported that when they left a place called Kimi in Tikari land, they settled briefly in the present Nwa Village before continuing their search for a more convenient environment, which they found in the current Bom Village. Here, they were attracted by palm trees and the fertile land, which they were already used to in Kimi. When the Bom people finally left their transit place in Nwa, the market which they had set up remained known as Tan Bom (Bom Market) up to today.

Leadership

During their migration, the Bom people were led by the Great Warrior Mahnghing, who became the first Chief (Fon) of Bom. Upon arrival in Bom, he built the famous shrine known as nghing, situated in Mula’an (Upper Bom), where the Village kept most of its totems and performed their traditional rites.

While in Bom, the seven major families that undertook the journey settled in different places which became known as quarters, as follows: Chichor (the Palace), Machor, Makwak, Mandak, Massing, Kukan, and Gor, with each of them headed by a Nji (quarter head) who was a personal representative of the Fon. Bom Village has had such prominent Njis like Nji Nemlak of Chichor (Mayak or head of the Njis), Nji Kongmbo of Machor, Nji Nformi of Makwak, Nji Bumtu of Mandak, Nji Njapdzer and Nji Katoh of Massing, Nji Nwukan of Kukan, and Nji Gaprim of Gor. Some of the quarters in Bom are subdivided into compounds (mbuntap), such as Jin Compound in Massing Quarter, as well as Meukup and Kutang Compounds in Gor quarter.

It is interesting to note that Kwak Village existed under Bom Village and was administered by the Fon of Bom before becoming completely “independent.” That is why today there is not only a great similarity between the two villages but also, they have a common tie in various areas of life. During that time, Bom Village was divided into three principal entities, namely: Bom Kop, Bom Kwak, and Bom-Gor.

Fons/Chiefs

Bom Village has so far been ruled by seven Chiefs (Fons), including Mahnghing, Tonbuin, Tonfum, Tanglum, Metcheuk, Jotim B. Garriba, and Mamngong (current). It is worthy of note that for committing a sacrilege, Merum went mental and was dethroned as chief, thereby losing his name and identity on the list of rulers of Bom. This means that there is an unwritten provision that any chief of the village who misbehaves or goes contrary to the will of the Bom people can be deposed (which in the language of the kingmakers means much more than just removal from office).

Although all the missing Fons were great rulers who had the interest of their people at heart, not much has been documented about them, except Chief Benjamin Jotim Garriba, who left his footprints on the sands of time during his reign. Fon J. B. Garriba was a peace crusader and the people’s leader. Before taking any major decision affecting his people, he ensured that he sought the opinion and counsel of the traditional council and elite of the village on it.

Also, he never allowed any of his subjects (whom he preferred calling his brothers and sisters) to suffer any form of harassment, especially for non-payment of tax. That is why each time he collected tax tickets from the Government administration in Nwa, he used his personal money to pay for everything. He then shared the tax tickets to the villagers of taxpaying age and asked the Njis to collect the money in their various quarters or domains. Sometimes, he allowed the people to pay in kind, such as palm oil, foodstuffs, chickens, and animals. He hated seeing any of his people arrested for whatever reason, so he laid his life for them by ensuring that any such victim was quickly released and later corrected back home.

For the most part of his reign till his “disappearance” in 1999, Chief J. B. Garriba served as President of the Court in Nwa, during which he became very popular and influential such that his word was final in any court decision. Even the court magistrates sought his opinion on most major and controversial cases, especially those relating to land disputes, family or domestic issues, and chieftaincy tussles. In fact, the court and some of his fellow chiefs of other villages knew him as “the wise chief” and even nicknamed him “King Solomon” because of the wisdom he exhibited in everything. He was always assigned to lead the team whenever the court was on a routine mission to other satellite courts in places like Ntong.

Though he did not receive any formal education himself, Chief Garriba greatly valued the education of children and the development of Bom Village. So, he made sure that he sent his children to school with the little stipend he received as allowance from the court, supplemented by proceeds from his coffee farm and fish ponds which he maintained by himself. He equally encouraged every other Bom man to do the same, to the point that he prescribed a sort of deterring measure for anyone who ignored the education of their children. He constantly challenged them to draw inspiration from Pa Johnson Ndarikwu Gabuin, who became the first Nwa man to pursue education abroad. Meanwhile, he had zero tolerance for any form of discrimination or segregation between male and female children, but wanted the girlchild to enjoy equal opportunities and rights like their male counterparts.

Herdsmen

As earlier hinted elsewhere in passing, Chief J. B. Garriba had zero tolerance for herdsmen grazing in any part of LakBom unlike his counterpart in neighboring Mfe Village who had not only ceded nearly half of his land to herders for a morsel of bread but also converted to Islam. At times, Fulani cattle owners like Ardo Nyana tried bribing Chief Jotim to cede part of the Bom land to them for grazing but he stood his ground by always siding with the Bom people whom he held so dear in his heart.

That was the beginning of a longstanding problem with the Fulani community, who from time to time, invaded farmlands with their cattle and destroyed crops or fought with our mothers. We vividly remember that Pa Mayak was sentenced to prison because he prevented Nyana’s cows from grazing in his farm at Maburen. Nyana bribed the presiding Magistrate with herds of cattle to rule against Mayak.

It required the unity and good will of the Bom people, especially the elite, to get Mayak out of the Bamenda Central Prison, which at the time was more of a reformatory or correction centre than the torture centre we find in Kondengui, Yaounde. I remember regularly visiting him Up Station with late Pa J. N. Gabuin with food, drinks and fruits in the VIP Quarters where the kind-hearted female Prison Superintendent had allowed us to unusually provide him with a mattress.

I strongly believe that the recent incursion and killings of young Bom men by herdsmen were not unconnected with the refusal to allow them to take an inch of the Bom land for grazing. Bom Village lost no fewer than six young men who were killed by Fulani herdsmen fighting alongside government forces who had taken upon themselves to kill innocent civilians in the name of combating Amba Boys. Whole families also fled for safety, leaving the village near-deserted.

The real mission of the herdsmen was to sack the village and subsequently take over the fertile Massihm Valley. You would notice that the attacks in Bom, Gom, and Ngung were fiercer than in the rest of the places. It is time for the Bom people to close ranks and defend their Fatherland while planning to rebuild the desolate land at the appropriate time. Now, the storm mar rage and the whirlwind may beat, but that will not stop the Bom people, who are like the eagle, from soaring again. After all, our strength is in the name Bom, which means “to build” not just razed houses and farms but also broken hearts and homes. When the storm is over, and very soon it will be, Bom will rise up and be great again!

The Socio-Cultural and Religious Life of the Bom People

The people of LakBom live chiefly in Yamba Clan, Donga Mantung County of Southern Cameroons, and speak Yamba, the language of one of the three tribes of Nwa Local Government. Grouped into seven main quarters – Chichor, Machor, Kukan, Makwak, Massing, Mandak, and Gor – LakBom was united as a single people and lived in the current community before the invasion of the slave masters. They had a strong sense of ethnic identity and unilaterally resisted the invaders by digging trenches with sharp objects planted in them to trap them.

Traditionally, most LakBom people have been and remain subsistence farmers, with their staple foods being cocoyam, cassava, corn (maize), millet, plantain, banana, okra, pumpkins, and beans. Although they also engage in agriculture, the men are chiefly responsible for palm wine tapping, palm oil processing, and hunting. Land in LakBom is owned communally by kinship groups or quarters and individuals of each quarter have the right to use it for farming and building. Families and individuals also keep livestock for use in sacrifices, marriage, and as a source of income, among other purposes. Their principal exports are palm oil, palm kernels, brooms, and coffee, with a few individuals now involved in growing cocoa. They also trade in local crafts such as cane baskets and fiber bags. These, coupled with a low literacy rate, however, have not been enough to help grow the LakBom economy. Over the decades, the village has also not been lucky to have many of its sons and daughters in the civil service or as business entrepreneurs so as to be influential in local politics.
Except for Gor quarter, the people of LakBom live in a rainforest area, most of them occupying dispersed compounds, although in some areas, the compounds are compact and typically made up of clusters of huts for separate patrilineage households (bontar).

Each quarter in LakBom has a unique common meeting place (tap ndzhir), an ancestral hut where the family members (bontar) go to discuss their common issues. However, authority in LakBom is vested in the King (kum) and his traditional council, although the clergy and the few wealthy men and politicians in the village also have a degree of influence in decision-making.

Religious Beliefs and Practitioners

Although fast eroding and giving way to Christianity, the traditional people of LakBom acknowledge the existence of a creator God or Supreme Being (Tar Nwi), ancestors who are believed to protect their living descendants, and a few other deities and spirits whose will is revealed through divination and oracles. These deified spirits hitherto were believed to have shrines and temples of worship and to affect the living in very real and direct ways. The traditionalists who recognize the existence of Tar Nwi hold that the universe is divided into the natural world of humans and the spiritual world of spirits.

The powers in the spirit world were usually contacted through the mediation of so-called powerful seers or clairvoyants, diviners, soothsayers, fortune-tellers, or oracles, who were said to possess powers that could enable them to transform in nature and certain animals like tigers, leopards, giant cats, pythons, crocodiles, and hawks. These seers were believed to be empowered with the authority, truth, and justice to interpret the wishes of the spirits and pacify them with ceremonial sacrifices as they had the responsibility of blessing and supporting those devoted to them while punishing social offenders and those who inadvertently trespass against their privileges.

Death and Afterlife

In LakBom, there is a strong attachment to the living, the dead, and the unborn, who are said to form part of the gamut of the population. The dead are seen as enshrined ancestors because they lived their lives well and died in a socially acceptable manner. In other words, they died naturally and were given proper burial rites according to the norms of the village. They are now believed to live in the spirit world where, on a daily basis, they mirror the world of the living, who must honor and pay tribute to them by way of regular sacrifices.

Interestingly, most of those who were involved in such practices have abandoned their oracles to become Christians, following strong evangelism by some sons and daughters of the village who are today powerful Ministers of God, determined to rid the village of indigenous beliefs such as the belief in the maiden spirit masks (mbheur) a painted wood symbolizing beauty and peace, as well as the soh and rum which are believed to chase away evil spirits from the village, and women are forbidden from seeing otherwise they are afflicted by a deadly illness, including madness and even death.

By Frank Prince Garriba