Elizabeth O’Kelly, M.B.E, the White Queen of the Grassfields or Queen of Drudgery (Yaa Woo Lim Vikiy),
There are five women who have greatly influenced my life: my bosom mother Ancella Ngenger of Southern Cameroons; Elizabeth Margaret Chilver, my mentor of Oxford, England; Christina Gola, my paternal aunt of Gembu, Tabara; Lynne Daniel my secondary school English governess and Elizabeth O’Kelly, the White Queen of Grassfields whose modicum of life’s story I am to narrate. In one of my doodles that Google or Yahoo or any one from Lilliput has not seen, I call her the Queen of Drudgery (Yaa woo Lim) in Lamnso, the language of the Nso Kingdom in the UNO Cameroons. I got the sad news lately from Mrs. Shirley Ardener, a Southern Cameroonians by adoption that Miss Elizabeth O’Kelly known by most elderly women in Nsoland, as Madam woo Bambui died last year (2012). News knocked me as that of Baroness Margaret Thatcher, P.M. of Great Britain who died on Monday, April 08, 2013. I cursed myself for the King of Nso, West Africa would be vexed with me that one of his officials entrusted in my hands was neglected. To exonerate myself, I immediately sent a dracaena (kikeng), a traditional letter to the Palace at Kumbo while waiting for the exact date and time of her transformation.
I last visited her four years ago at her old people’s residence, Grosvenor Gardens, St. Leonard-on-Sea in East Sussex, England. Mrs. E.M. Chilver my mentor had urged me to visit her as she was constantly asking of me. She offered me some old pictures of women’s developmental activities in the Grassfields and I was grateful. She was in good health and spirit. We had useful conversations on the progress of education of women in the colonial Southern Cameroons and her passion, intermediate technology aid and self-help for the developing economies.
Reasons for coming to the Grassfields
In Nsoland, (my later Ngonsonia named after its founder Ngonso), few persons knew her names except some elite, as it was tabooed in that country to call Nso officials by their personal names. However, just mention ‘Madam or Madam woo Bambui’ and all knew who one was talking about. She carried out humongous tasks in the education of women. The puzzle was how she single-handedly controlled not only hundreds of women, but thousands and thousands of them in the Grassfields. In all, she founded three thousand Corn Mill societies and had some 300,000 exclusive female members. Each Corn Mill Society composed of approximately 70 female members which was geared as pivot of attraction from where she launched her education campaign. I was wondering why she concentrated on women and why specifically my country of origin, the British Cameroons.
By coming to British Cameroons, she was responding to a special program the UK Government had set up to increase the number of educated women in the then British Nigeria and British Cameroons since these two countries were ruled in tandem for administrative convenience. The colonial government thought that by educating women, it was going to be possible to stamp out certain malpractices in the communities such as the despicable bride price commonly known is Southern Africa as lobola, that sadly is still going on and polygyny that was practiced throughout Western Africa.
Causes of Famine in the British Cameroons
Upon her arrival at Victoria she met and was influenced by Dr. Phyllis Kaberry. Kaberry was a US born citizen whose parents emigrated to Australia. She studied anthropology and was sent by the British Government to carry out a special ethnographic study of the women of the Grassfields. The motif was to find out the causes of constant famine in that country. Dr. Kaberry took Nsoland (Ngonsonia) as the center of her study and is still remembered by some aged. This kind lady put Nsoland on the global map with her bestselling book referred to below: Women of the Grassfields (1952). Her relentless visits of Kovifem (Nkum), the former settlement of the early Nso peoples and work with women while gathering her information made the then King of Nso, Mbinglo Sehm III, to bestow upon her the title Yaa woo Kov [Forest Queen]. This title could be misleading as the prime reason for her title was because she was able to solve the farmer-grazer litigation that was a cause for concern. Crops [corn (ngwasang) and finger millet, (saar)] were constantly destroyed by the Fulani heavily hooved cattle and that led to unwarranted starvation in many parts of British Cameroons. This was not quite clear to the Colonial Government and she was then requested by the Colonial Social Science Research Council, UK to find this out. She arrived at Victoria in 1945 when the World War II was on the verge of ending. She was to visit this country again in 1945-46, 1947-48, 1958, and 1960 when party politics was at its height and finally in 1963 when The Trust Territory of the Southern Cameroons had joined the Cameroon Republic, what was known as French Cameroons or Cameroons Under French Administration. This hard working lady was to die from injuries sustained after a motor road accident in 1977.
Prior to that, Yaa woo Kov Kaberry assiduously worked in the fields with women most of whom went about stark naked. She was later on joined by Mrs. E. M. Chilver we earlier saw (who will be 99 this August 2013), another remarkable Nso woman by adoption who never had a title but is popularly known as Sally, Mama for story, ‘Mother of raconteur’. The two ladies jointly published papers after gathering pristine information particularly on Nso, Ntem, Bali and Yamba customs that are stashed in archives at L.S.E., University of London; with Professor Ian Fowler at Oxford and Bodleian Library, Rhodes House, Oxford, England.
Conferring Traditional Titles and Ndzendzev Debacle
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| Miss Elizabeth O'Kelly (1st left) the founder of the Corn Mill Society preparing notes before a meeting at men's conference hall, Lavmfu Bah in Kumbo circa 1958 |
The tradition of awarding traditional honorary titles continued even to the time of writing (April 8, 2013). Dr. Miriam Goheen of the University of Wisconsin after her study of women of Nso role in economic and agricultural developments in the early 1990s was given Yaa Nso by King Sehm (Seem) Mbinglo I. In a similar vein, the indefatigable Elizabeth was also given Yaa woo Lim Vikiy [Queen of Drudgery] for her work with the women of Nsoland by Mbinglo Sehm III, the father of the present King. Elizabeth’s work was endorsed by the King. She told the author that nothing materialized in Nso unless sanctioned by the King known locally as Fon. She underlined the fact that rapprochement with the King was crucial for foreign workers. She went on that her relationship with the King was tested when there was the Ndzendzev skirmishes in April 1956 and it was alleged that she had sided with the senior lord of Ndzendev woo Kuun something she claimed she could not do as she had gone to Bamenda station to see the SDO, Mr. John Brayne Baker. She and the then Parish Priest of Kumbo Jules Peteers, Mill Hill who was a builder had only gone to the homestead of Ndzendzev on 14 April 1956 when skirmishes were fomenting, stones being thrown and men were agitating with clubs and spears but without guns. Their visit there was to calm the disconcerted population from further destruction of property. Having first hand info on the scenario, she was instrumental in the summoning of the armed forces from Bamenda and Enugu to separate the warring factions without which heads would have been falling. So, her fast thinking might have saved lives of many people.
Her relation with the King of Nso, His Majesty, Sehm Mbinglo III was strained and she was snubbed because of her intervention and her work with women began to suffer because it was alleged that she had met Shufai of Ndzendzev. She denied this allegation as she had remained standing outside and the only person who entered Fai’s residence was the Catholic Priest. She had no choice but to ask for a formal audience, convocation (bun Fon) with the King to mend fences. Once more her work with women could progress. It was and is still considered a grievous or treasonable offence, if one was to disrespect the King of Nso. Many Nso denizens would prefer to give up their lives than to entertain this sort of treatment. The Ndzendzev elder had ridden on his horse after having been exiled to Baba I and returned to address the King of Nso by his name. That was a treason. [Interested readers may have to get details from Faay Woo Lii Wong (1999) The Ndzeendzev Dispute: From its Beginning to its Ending: Kumbo, 72 p]. She was to write a report on what she observed and it could be read in Bodleian Library, Rhodes House, Oxford, UK.
Who was the White Queen of the Grassfields?
But who was Miss O’Kelly? She was the only child of clothing agent family born in 1915 in Manchester, England, UK. She attended private schools and completed her college in music education. After her education, she joined the Women Royal Naval Services (WRENS) as an Officer in a welfare unit in Ceylon what we now call Sri Lanka; served in Europe during the Second World War as army driver. She returned to England after that infamous war in 1946 and completed a community development program in 1947. Between 1948 and 1949 she organized a drama school at Whidbey (Whitby) for the Yorkshire Rural Community Council. In 1950 she joined the Colonial Service as a woman Education Officer (E.O.). She was posted to Borneo, Sarawak, Malaysia where she developed the idea of Intermediate Technology. There, she had only 12,000 members but her impact was felt in several communities. She was eventually translated to the Trust Territory of the Cameroons under British Administration in 1950 as E.O. for the Cameroons Development Corporation (C.D.C.). Her task was to educate wives of workers in the CDC. (The southern section that was carved out in 1946 by the British colonial regime for administrative convenience only was known as the British Southern Cameroons. This is what became known as West Cameroon State after the still highly contested plebiscite for its legitimacy of 1961. That West Cameroon State with the capital at Buea while under its Prime Minister [equivalent of president] under John Ngu Foncha and last by Solomon Tandem Muna, in a way surrendered the statehood of West Cameroon State to the Cameroon Republic that had its political independence from France on January 1, 1960).
Meeting Dr. Phyllis Kaberry and the seed of the Corn Mill Society
On her arrival in Southern Cameroons, Miss O’Kelly set up an adult education service at the Cameroons Development Corporation (CDC) at Victoria, what the present government calls Limbe (Limburgh). It was in the course of her sojourn that she met Dr. Phyllis Kaberry (1910-1977) who had just published a very important book we earlier saw was among the first to fly the flag (chichiwarr) of Nsoland in the world. The first was Fr. John Emonts' S.C.J. Ins Steppen und Bergland InnerKameruns, first published in Archen, Switzerland in 1922. However, Kaberry's important and profusely illustrated book published after a lengthy field work in Nsoland by Dr. Kaberry Women of the Grassfields published by HMS in 1952.
It was while talking with Dr. Kaberry that Miss O'Kelly learned that what most women in the Grassfields needed most were Corn Mills (vilevlevin). The reason was that women who were predominantly the bread winners in those days, after field work, they would have to get corn from the attics or barns, remove the grains, and fry them before grounding on the slave and master old-fashioned sand stone mills. It was tedious and took so long to be done before an evening meal could be prepared for an entire family of sometimes eight persons or more. The corn mills were to replace the stone mills (tiiysekiban).
It was after listening to this moving story that Miss O’Kelly thought that she could combine her education work with the establishment of Corn Mill societies that would help the women in many ways: hygiene, child welfare, domestic science, sewing, agriculture and so on. She had observed that sanitary inspectors confiscated women’s food stuffs being sold in the local markets for hygienic reasons. Some women had no clue as what was taking place but felt bitter or queasy against government authorities. She then thought that women had not had the idea of cleanliness because they were not properly taught. One way to do this was by the Corn Mill Society where those sanitary inspectors could come and explain what was going on without being hawkish. With the Corn Mill Society, women would come there to socialize study and learn without coercion and even to build their small size community halls. They molded sun dried bricks themselves without use of men’s labor as was the case when the Germans Fathers and Brothers initiated this in the 1910s. It was thought that those activities could liberate women and they could have a notch in the job market in due course of time.
Victoria to Bamenda Province and Adult literacy
In 1952 she moved to what was then known as the Bamenda Province, your N.W. Province whose name has been dancing from province to region, (Solomon Tandem Muna’s deliberate fragmentation, and creation). She set up the first Corn Mill Society in 1954. It was devoid of tribalism, religion and or politics and that was a well-thought of strategy. Women could join it and socialize no matter where they were from. She established adult education, evening schools in various villages making use of Standard Six students or retired civil servants or those persons who had completed Standard Six (Std 6) of those days. [Today’s equivalent will be class-six of preparatory school. In reality it was form two in contemporary secondary schools as Std 6 leavers were able to work comfortably in Government offices unlike those today]. This was attractive and did pull in crowds.
Daily Operation of Adult Schools
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| Some members of the Corn Mill Society waiting for Miss O'Kelly in Nsoland, the Grassfields, British Southern Cameroons (1958) Photo copyrighted (R) 2013. |
How was it done? Women after farm work at four past meridian would drop their hoes and rushed to their schools. Some had no time to have ablution but had one burning desire to read and write so as to absorb the White man's knowledge that has made him a force to be reckoned with. The tribulations such as lack of exercise book, slates, chalk, textbooks and schools the German pioneer Fr. John Emonts, SCJ, aforementioned had encountered when introducing schooling in Nsogebirge in 1913 was established.
It was not long before she founded a head office at Kimar hamlet on the way to Jakiri from Kumbo. Her schools flourished and were in all main villages in Nso and beyond. It was not long before she had graduates from those schools that could read and write Basic English, be versed in geography, agriculture, arithmetic, basic hygiene, child welfare and history. She was keen on the introduction of simple technology we learned she experimented with in Borneo, Sarawak. Under home economics, she introduced the art of soap-making using local materials, sewing, and cookery. She believed in the use of local materials that were cheap for the amelioration of daily living activities and improvement of productivity. She had seen how it was working well in S. E. Asia that was still at the same developmental level with British Cameroons and was bent of introducing these to the British Southern Cameroons. Her plans were thwarted as we will see.
Each of her adult literacy establishments sent representatives for additional refresher courses at Bambui or Kimar to the southwest of Kumbo and upon their return to their respective villages taught other members how to make soap using palm oil and other ingredients, sew and more. Raw materials and others were available from women’s shop she had found selling goods to members at subsidized prices unlike say the United African Company (UAC) and John Holt agents. The former was on the way to Mbve above Banka Homestead, now the home of an alien petrol station. It was exciting as the only local soap that could be made in Nso in those days was the dark soap (nsabulu) that was manufactured from percolated wood ash (potash) and meshe-en. The achievement of women was sensational and that news spread like wildfire. More and more women joined the schools and the Corn Mill Societies and not men. Warum?
Why was she keen on women’s development? She had learned that most men did not want their women to be exposed to Westernism as is the case with some primitive Arabe communities today. For example, when it concerned agriculture, men presented themselves as farmers before colonial agricultural officials' (A.O.) demonstrations or practical work, whereas when it concerned tilling and plowing, it was only women doing the donkey work. This aspect had been lampooned by Dr. Miriam Goheen also a Yaa of Wisconsin University in her good book Men own the Field, Women Own the Crops. Will women own landed properties in Nsoland when that after the bereavement of their husbands, their spouses’ relatives rush and seize all they had worked for with their late husbands? In those days and even after the so-called political independence, men presented themselves as farmers and did not soil their hands in the farm until later on with the introduction of cash crops as coffee, rice and palm trees. When those women did all the farming and harvesting and men had good time drinking palm wine from one alehouse to another. This way of life of the man of Nso was earlier on criticized by Rev. Fr. John Emonts, SCJ, when he first entered Nso in 1912 (Edmonts,ibid.). Has that attitude changed hitherto?
Operation of the Corn Mill Society
The Corn Mill Society was synonymous to traditional tontine (ngwa) or the Credit Union, what Fr. Tony Barnicle was to introduce in Nso (1964) through Kikaikelaki where women brought in their modest savings and made loans available at little or no interest to members. When the money accrued interest, hand-driven corn mills manufactured in England were then purchased from their shops at Bambui and elsewhere, hence the name Corn Mill. The popular mills were made by John Holt and Co of Liverpool. These were installed in huts by the main road or village squares. Women measured their corn in empty 4 imperial gallons kerosene tins and paid modest fees for the use of the machine. The cash was plowed back into the Society. The grains were easily pulverized and by two or one strong persons turning the huge wheel of the mill with human muscles.
The Corn Mill was designed to be used for the grinding of wheat in England using a motor engine. Since the women could not afford the motorized version, they had to take turn in turning it over and over while it made its bourdon sound. Miss O’Kelly would trudge on foot or horseback from one corn mill to another on her inspection tour. When she was to visit her establishment, it was well attended and the ladies, women would proudly sing welcoming songs they had learned as John Brown, etc. They showed off what they had learned in writing, spelling, English grammar and prices were sometimes awarded. She would return to her headquarters at Bambui, ward of Greater-Kumbo late in the evening. For her textbooks, she used books that were designed for adult literacy for students in Ghana (Gold Coast). It was not long before the ladies were reading of characters in their readers with Twi, Akwan, and other Ghanaian names.
Elizabeth had a green Land Rover that could only ply on the infamous dirt Ring Road, the nightmare of most Grassfielders today after fifty plus years of their so-called political independence, rightly dependency on Cameroon Republic (LRC). She was a brave driver, mechanic and above all a snake catcher that would kill those pest as they constantly invaded her estate at Bambui, that inspired most of Southern Cameroons naive women folk who looked upon her as role model for their children. She remarked that the Land Rover (jangma) was perhaps the only reliable and recommended truck the British ever invented. Most villages in Nsoland in those days had no pliable dirt roads. Even when they were as the Kumbo to Meluf road, Kiyan-Kikai and so on, there were no bridges and that was why she had to use a horse or walk with a couple of aides de champs to carry on her field tasks.
One of her motivation strategy was to inform women on what life was in other parts of Africa, South East Asia and the problem of water supply that was also another endemic problem that affected women in Nso and other neighboring tribes. In her days, most Nso people had tooth problems. Children had dark broken teeth because there was not chlorine in their drinking water that many of you take for granted today. As most homes were located far away from brooks in deep valleys, it meant that children or women had to travel a quarter of a mile to fetch clean (raw) water in Nso still taken for granted today. We would like to thank the Kimbo Water Supply, headquartered at Kumbo Palace and the assistance given to Nso by the Canadian Government under P.M. Pierre Eliot Trudeau who was a classmate and personal friend of Dr. Bernard Fonlon a savant of Ngonsonia. The Nso people could get clean water that was, unfortunately passing in asbestos pipes (a serious health hazard in the making that must be addressed soon). The Nso villages have to thank OK Clean Water Project.Org run by the Rev. Sisters of Kiyan under the auspices of Rev. Sr. Catherine Molloy, CND of America. These carry on with what Miss O'Kelly started. Again, these sisters come to Canada each year to raise funds for the building of more water projects in Nso and the Nso people are grateful to all foreign aids as waiting for Government authorities to assist in certain community developments is interminable. Elizabeth had no such luxury as plastic pipes and electricity but could work with what were produced locally, sun-dried bricks she and Fr. Julius Peteers, Mill Hill, (of Limburg in Holland, later Bishop of Buea) promoted.
How Elizabeth did make women to be aware of the fact that their sufferings were not confined to Nso and other tribes of the Grassfields? There was no electricity some of you take for granted in those days though its supply is intermittent and weak today. Many Nsonites used reed torches to walk at night or even to read an act that would make the life of a chap of today dreadful. Exercise books were sometimes perforated by dropping of amber from reed torches. Fire accidents from such torches in wattle-bamboo homes were common. She had slide shows using a vintage lantern called Tilly. The projection technology was simple. The bright lantern was lit and other areas covered and light rays concentrated to pass through her slides. Pictures were thus projected on the screen that she carried along. Women were therefore able to see what was happening in other parts of the world. It was sensational as many had never seen anything of that nature. Some depicted desiccated flat terrain where women and children were digging mud so as to get trickling brackish water. It was not all that easy. Other aspects shown were oxen used for traction and plowing. It was still a far cry in Nso and even up to the time of writing despite the fact that this intermediate technology was taught by the Wum Area Development Agency (WADA), Wum manned by the Germans before jealousy of the present regime stepped in to shred it.
However, what the Nso man was interested in was the tractor and the only person who had one in all of Nsoland in the 1950s was Fai woo Koffi, Banka Homestead, Mr. Benedict Somo, an accomplished coffee and palm tree farmer who also practiced pisiculture at Mbo, east of Mbiame. Furthermore, Nso rugged terrains made such innovation (use of tractors) difficult to be adopted and adapted. Perhaps it could be considered today after learning from what the Swiss and Austrians do with their specially adapted tractors for steep terrains. Perhaps terracing in the futures as done by the Chinese and Vietnamese could be copied. Whatever the case, Miss O’Kelly showed the people how they could improve their poor living standards and promised that motorized plowing was to come with time.
Another innovation was the building of water tanks at spring water sources. It was her modest equivalent to the OK Kumbo Clean Water.Org projects above-mentioned run by the Sisters of Kiyan using cheap plastic pipes that have brought civilization to nearly all villages in Nso. Many villages copied what Elizabeth introduced and it was not long before there were what people generally called water tanks with water oozing from pumps mushrooming all over main villages in Nsoland. Remnants of these are still seen in valleys. A typical one is found on the foothill of Mount Rookung to the right behind where women sell fruits and vegetables, that is, one hundred yards after crossing the brook bridge.
Politics that Drove the Queen of Drudgery Home
When the election to have that shoddy independence of British Cameroons came in 1961, the Northern British Cameroons opted to join North Nigeria and the Southern Cameroons through the naïve influence of short-sighted John Ngu Foncha, P.M. of Southern Cameroons joined the one year old Cameroon Republic that was then under a brutal dictator with obscured origin from northern Cameroon Rep. called Ahmadou Ahidjo. Miss O’Kelly and other Britons were sadly obliged to leave. [By making this statement, I am not yearning for the return of colonialism. Nevertheless, it could be endorsed if it were as what this indefatigable British woman initiated and carried on ]. She had been so popular and most of her women folk would not have allowed her to leave if given opportunity to restrain her. She literally sneaked out of the Southern Cameroons without saying adieu to her students. Her departure was not unique as other British colonial civil servants sadly left unceremoniously. I was to try to find out the reason for most of them leaving thus and was informed by some Ordinance Surveys (O.S) officials in Southampton, England that they were angry that the Southern Cameroons had opted to join thone-year-old Cameroon Republic instead of the Federation of Nigeria for their independence. Whatever the case, a UN Trusteeship was to get matured and be independent on its own as it was on the same status with S.W. African, now Namibia that was dumped on South Africa Republic. The idea of having political independence by joining another country because the British had deemed it that Southern Cameroons could not support itself financially was immaterial given the fact that the total budget of the C.D.C. we earlier saw was richer than the total budget of the tiny Gambia Republic sandwiched by Senegal. I was quick to tell them that most Ngonsonians (Nso peoples) under King Mbinglo Sehm III voted for the ‘green box,’ that was for Dr. E. M. L. Endeley a nice Bakweri man Elizabeth O'Kelly got to know well and Mr. Vincent T. Lanjo who represented Nso in the democratically and transparent Southern Cameroons House of Assembly. Though criticized by some Grassfielders for only speaking court English unlike John Foncha, a onetime schoolmaster who spoke Pidgin English, Dr. Endeley was for the Southern Cameroons having its political independence by remaining with the Federation of Nigeria. The question remains if Southern Cameroonians of the former British Cameroons would have been caught in the Biafra-Nigeria civil war of 1967-1972 since it was at one time government by the British from Lagos and Enugu, Eastern Nigeria? Or would they not have been allowed by the Federation of Nigeria to be eventually politically independent? That is a hypothetical question. Most British Cameroonians still feel cheated and want to govern themselves, that is be politically and economically independent as the union with Cameroon Republic that had its independence and others has not worked for the last fifty of so years.
The Decline of the Corn Mill Societies
When she left Southern Cameroons for good (1961), her Corn Mill Societies and the multiform adult literacy establishments she founded that were progressing in earnest started falling apart. It was to the advantage of the new colonialists some of you do not want to admit are in your midst to see all things British faced out. In a Utopian situation, a new board would have been set by the new occupants to carry on with what this passionate Briton had set. It was not long before the Corn Mill sign boards written in Arial narrow sans sheriffs on white wooden boards were crumbling too or were covered by elephant grass. Those who continued to use the mills were the poorest of the poor. The mills were disintegrating too as there were no spares or the women were like flocks of sheep without a shepherd, Miss O’Kelly. The UAC that could have supplied spares were chased out by the French who were glad to take over the vacuum the British had left. What did they do with infrastructure worse than when they came in? People started question the raison d’étre of independence and why the British left to bring in some persons ranting only in pidgin English and constantly intimidating them and would thrash anyone suspected of a crime without any judgment as in the British system they were used to. Where was that political independence? Where is it that after 50 plus years of the so-called union, the Ring Road debacle had never stopped drumming in decent Southern Cameroonians’ ears? The so-called 'enemies in the house', Southern Cameroonians had never ever lived amicably with Cameroon Republic because of diametrical cultural differences coupled with insensitively of Francophones citizens of Cameroon Republic who were trained by the French. They cannot just share irrespective of the fact that the Southern Cameroons produce oil, gold and has vast bananas, rubber and tea plantations. Where was that independence that the Mamfe-Kumba highway, once upon a time the high way of British Cameroons had ever been a nightmare of all drivers up to the time of writing? Would a neighbor who 'loves' you actually make your life a living hell and you go about singing his praises? Then you are impromentis. Where was it when the resources were being looted and Southern Cameroonians gagged by intimidation to be silent?
The sheds that were built to house the corn mills were dilapidated and rust came in to destroy some of them. The final straw that broke the camel’s back was the coming in of the diesel engines in the 1970s that were modern to drive the corn mills out of business. These motorized mills could handle more corn than the imported John Holts versions supplied by the United African Company (U.A.C.). Of late, some persons came from Nigeria to salvage them. Heaven knows what they are going to do with them. Perhaps for scrap metal or banditry that had permeated all knocks and crannies of the society. So to suggest as some critics have been advancing that the Corn Mills died because it was not viable is immaterial. Furthermore, with the advent of Ahidjo’s one party state, the Cameroon National Union (CNU), it became obvious that the Corn Mill could not be cajoled to support the dictatorship. It contradicted the motto of founder of the Corn Mil, which did not welcome politics, religion or tribalism. It will be remembered and even at the time of writing ( April 08, 2013) that any establishment that contradicted the status quo was / is crippled. It has to have a CAM as a prefix or suffix to its company name as a sign of allegiance to the dictatorial government. This could have been one of the reasons why it was not supported by the new regime of the then United Republic of Cameroon [made of the West Cameroon State and Cameroon Republic dominated by the Francophones who have ever been obsessed with the eventual departure from the union by the West Cameroon State].
Queen Envisaged and Regalia
I was to track down Miss O’Kelly when I entered Britain in 1980. Thanks to late Mr. Christopher Ghamogha of Lun homestead to the east of Kumbo Palace. He bumped into her when she was presenting a paper at a conference on intermediate technology and got her coordinates. My picture of her as the Queen of the Grassfields was someone living in a mansion with servants and body guards at her sentries. To my chagrin it was not the case. Her status was not commensurate with her achievements in the colonial British Cameroons. However, her commensuration was Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II giving her Member of the British Empire (M.B.E.) for her achievements in women literacy in the British Cameroons, Borneo and Sarawak. She dedicated all her life to the women to the extent that she died single and lived modestly. I found her living at the middle floor of Cumberland Gardens to the southeast of St Pancreas Railway station not far from Euston Square underground station. She shared this one story building with another lady friend who was a writer. She was delighted to have seen me and I told her that I met her when I was a toddler at Tonue what you call Tobin. She laughed when I told her that we would go to her office refuse dump pit at Bambui to collect disposed old ball point pens that were the first we ever lay hands on. We were also interested in carbon papers we thought were magical when written on.
While in England, I visited her more than once and we would have marathon conversations. I told her that I was introduced by Mr. Christopher Ghamogha of late who was studying sociology at London. Elizabeth who had a Yaa title, Yaa woo Lim Vikiy given by Fon Mbinglo Shem III showed me here queenly regalia, the Ngwerong sling bag, scull cap and a Nso war short lance in a well-embroidered case, (kiburuh). It was in her home that I was able to see them at close quarters. I was so pleased with meals that she had prepared for me including boiled sweet fresh corn. She told me that she knowing that I was from the Grassfields and Nsoland in particular, she had to get corn that was stable food of the area to make me feel at home. It was relished. She, there and then brought me to the acquaintance of Mrs. E.M. Chilver we earlier saw who was then Director of Bedford College, University of London and later on Chair, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University.
On another subsequent visit my Dutch friend accompanied me and she vividly described the beautiful sceneries of the Grassfields and its clement climate. She was still driving, this time not a Land rover but an Austin car and still giving lectures on intermediate technologies and nature of aids to developing countries and sundry. She had published two books:
- Aid and Self-help with a subtitle, A general Guide to Oversea aid)-1973
- And the second was Rural Women: Their Integration in Development Programmes and How Simple Intermediate Technology can Help Them.
These are the ones I know of and besides several papers some of which were published in Nigeria and the UK. The first book was used by the University of London as a main text book in sociology. Of course, it had a short chapter on Nso, Borneo and Sarawak where she had worked before. What amused me was seeing pictures of women straddling babies while sitting on bamboo benches at Mve (emporium) and reading or writing with seriousness of purpose. She was still single and being addressed as Madam O’Kelly as was the norm in the colonial days a tradition that was popular in Southern and East Africa. I dared not shake her hand as it was forbidden in Nsoland to shake hands of an Nso official.
She did not invest economically but educationally among the women of the Grassfields and Forestland, Southern Cameroons (1954-1961). I often compare this remarkably lady with Miss Karen Blixen, surnamed Jerie. This Danish princess once settled in the south of Nairobi and opened coffee plantations, raised cattle and employed several Kenyans and Somalians. When Karen was about to leave Kenya as did Elizabeth O’Kelly from the British Cameroons, a banned dance of elders known as Ngoma came to send Karen off. Ngwerong and Ngiri cults of Nso would have loved to send Elizabeth off. It is never late but the Nso and British Cameroons (UNO Cameroonss as variously called) could let her dreams materialize by standing on their feet and putting education of all, particularly women at the forefront with stresses on intermediate technology. There should be no buying of cars when they cannot afford petrol or building huge mansions that take all their resources to complete thereby neglecting other priorities. Use horses, donkeys and wheelbarrows that would not cost citizens an arm and a leg. Planning our cities properly for our use and future generation and not the higgledy-higgledy of Bamenda and elsewhere.
As said, Elizabeth O’Kelly left Kumbo, British Cameroons surreptitiously for she feared that her beloved students would not allow her to leave for sadly Tiko International Airport that is taken over by bush and some alien banana concern. Women of the Grassfields who were her followers and considered her their heroine could not believe that she had left. Up to now, there are others who are still waiting for her to return so that she could be given her well-deserved sendoff commensurate with her educational contribution to the women of British Cameroons. They will be sad to hear of her death last year.
I last met Elizabeth who was then 94 at her retirement home in St Leonard-on-the-Sea, East Sussex, SE England and she was alert and as fit as a fiddle. She was still using her rickety corona typewriter and had maintained the same style of writing as during our first correspondence. Her missive never passed one page unless she was commenting on political human rights issues. How did she keep such a healthy living life style? She never drank alcohol and did not ever smoke in spite of the fact that she served in the WRENS, army during World War II in Continental Europe and elsewhere. She planted trees at the age of 87 at Battle still in East Sussex and was proud to take people to see her trees. She believed in good environment and dreaded pollution of our world. I was amazed at the modesty and concerned for others by this lady whom I would have classed as bohemian, upper class Briton.
She still had one dream, namely the resurrection of British Cameroons to her glorious nationhood she often discussed with one of the Commissioners in the British Southern Cameroons, Sir Brayne Baker and S.D.O of Bamenda in the 1930s and Mr. F. W. Carpenter, former S.D.O.of Bamenda and his spouse. We shall never forget this outstanding lady. Her work in the Brtish Cameroons demonstrate that colonialism of her style was effective and necessary. When that Bishop Julius Peteers from Holland her contemporary was strengthening the religious foundation of Nsoland; Dr. Les Chaffee of America at BBH and Mother Camilla of Austria of St Elizabeth Hospital Shisong that of the health of Southern Cameroons; Miss Elizabeth O’Kelly was laying that solid foundation of multiform education. She knew that to educate the woman of Nso and the British Cameroons at large was to educate that budding nation state and why not the world. No doubt Ngonsonia or Grassfields denizens in toto rank among the highest educated group of peoples in Western Africa. Thanks to the dedication of people like Yaa woo Lim Vikiy, the Queen of Women’s Drudgery and the British Government. She is a legend we will be missing. The mighty Queen who never got married to a man but to labor just to elevate the suffering of women will ever be in our hearts for eternity. May Our Lord reward her abundantly!
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