Commenting on Ngonso

Before I comment on Ngonso, being the supposed name of the founder of Nso Kingdom in West Africa, I would like to give you a sketchy background of myself. I am an offspring of Nso of Mtaar group sometimes known as the Visale.  Further, I am a great grandson of Ntah Faa. “Ntah” being a title bestowed upon my great grand father by one of the kings of Nso Kingdom located in what used to be known as the British Cameroons, West Africa for his successes as a military commander in Nso bush warfare. His real name was Mbiybe. He was perhaps one of the greatest known warriors Nso ever had. His fighting spirit was not only in wars but in health.  He became an octogenarian who died in 1964  at the age of one hundred and thirty-six years (136).  All his first set of wives and the eldest children died and he married other sets and some grew up died yet he was still soldiered on even when he was blind. For this reason when denizens are talking of old things or persons, they often compare them with Ntah Faa.  In 1844 he was already a no-nonsense fighter. As a tribute to his fighting skills, he was given a princess by the King of Nso, Yaa woo Faa as one of his wives. Yaa woo Faa was most probably the most beautiful buxom woman at Kumbo in 1902. When the Nso palace was ransacked by the first wave of colonial Germans to enter Nso Kingdom, she and many other Nso mesdemoiselles were captured and taken by the Germans, the Nso call Barah ton Ntoh to Duala and Yaunde. Young men who were also captured were forced to work in littoral plantations and railway track construction of “der Nordbahn." The women became servants, wives or concubines of the conquerors. Yaa and some were lucky. They were eventually returned with presents and mirrors which were novelties in Nso in those days. Others captives never returned. Some became assimilated in the Duala ward of Bonaberi and speak no Nso language today.  That is a different story for another occasion.

Today, I would like to add to what Prof. Bogasu Tanla Kisahi has clearly elucidated concerning the name Ngonso whose spelling is not been standardized and should. Ngonso personal name was not known and is not known hitherto.  Ngonso is literally translated from the language of the Tikar, Bankim (Refum/Rifem) as “daughter of Nso.” “Nso,”or Nzso or Nsho, or Nsoq as variously spelled in this case is her parent’s name. This was discussed by late Mr. Simon Tar (2010); Mr. William Banboye, Paul N.Mzeka, Shufai Lee Wong (Joseph Lafon). Mzeka write up in 1977 has clearly shown that Ngonso was travelling with her husband and others. What puzzles me is the surprising reiteration of this fact by many readers now as if it was never there. Perhaps members need to read Mzeka’s splendid book The Core Culture of Nso and I will also add Claude Tardits’ Rouyaume Bamoum. This appellation Ngo/Ngou is still used among the Tikarized groups among who are the Nso. (More on who are the Tikar (Tinkari) can be read in David Price, Bodleian Libraries, Oxford).

Some of you have been inadvertently using this way of appellation when commenting on propositions or statements by other members of the Shuundze forum. I have heard of Wan Ngoran, Wan Lukong, wan Tangwa, Wan Lavjsamba, etc. Your real names are there but when proper Nso grandees are referring to you, particularly in the public, they address you as the son of ….. or the daughter of so, so, and so. In the case of the daughter, they use her mother’s and not her father’s name even though her name may be Mbuum, or Yensamo, Kisang, Wiim and so forth.

The run Lamnso all of us toy to speak is very remote from the language Ngonso the founder of Nso Kingdom, many of you now call Lady Nso or Mother of Nso spoke at Bamkim..Rifem when she left with her entourage for Mbonso. Perhaps the nearest comparison would be, Piapiakum, Mum, Mfoombam or Lam Fia and others the Germans prostituted by adding  suffix “ba” many of you do not want to part with. It is now called Bafia.

What do we speak now? What we speak is a macaronic language, being languages of conglomerate tribes that agreed to live with us (Nso) amicably or that we assimilated to form what should rightly be the Empire of Nso. So it is awry to translate Ngonso as “Lady Nso” or “Mother of Nso” and put a period. It is just there as Mathias and Pauline and should not be translated into modern Lamnso. Some of us will accept this with a pinch of salt as many of you have accepted my Latinize Ngonso, Ngonsonia with another pinch of salt. You have to be reminded that the place names most of our tribes have now were never there in 1300 AD when they started peopling the Grassfields in central British Cameroons. You will hear from me that recently many Britons suggested that Britain be called Pritanic to reflect her present population composition. Again that is a different story interested readers may glean from my publication on African place names’ origins.

One of my hobbies is toponymy, the scientific study of place names. That has taken me to study the etymology of some of the Nso place names, toponyms.  You will be hearing from me for the first time that most of the  (human and physical) place names in Nso today are inherently Nkarian, Visale, Bah, Baki and a few groups of prima occupanitists that were found in Nso when Ngonso made that historic encounter. (Interested persons should wait for details in an mss that I am still working on).

Many of you have heard of a saying that “Nkar was conquered by Nso with its language.” If you write that in your essay and present to me, I will give you a naught  It is still there for those who have made an effort to learn a modicum that is prevalent. “Wassi” for instance is Nkar for a child. Is it not a name now of an Nso village that abut the Bamum Kingdom to the south? Can a Run Lamnso speaker claim that Nso coined that name? Most place names with the suffix ki and shi in contemporary Nso Kingdom are Nkarian. There are many more yet to be revealed. 

Viban Ngo, PhD.