Patriarchy turned upside down: The flight of the royal women of kom, Cameroon from 1920 to the 1960s

Abstract

The history of northwest Cameroon can be better understood by analyzing the increasing possibilities for connecting among ordinary people. Members of one specific society in this part of Cameroon, the people living in Kom, have developed a special attitude to new forms of connecting. Their story is one of appropriating new connecting technologies that were introduced in colonial times, namely, the church, schools, motor vehicles, and roads (de Bruijn et al. 2007; de Bruijn 2010). When these colonial technologies were introduced, people appropriated them in various but meaningful ways, domesticating them in the way they could best understand them. In Kom, this was known as kfaang, and for the Kom people, kfaang connotes newness, innovation, and novelty in thinking and action, and the material indicators and relationships that result from it (W. G. Nkwi 2011: 1). This chapter considers the appropriation of these linking technologies and their interaction with society and how this has led to social change. The technologies introduced by the colonial regimes can be compared to a linking technology, like a bridge, since they connect different worlds. This historical chapter discusses this interaction but also how these connections were given a life, and how and when they were objects that were integrated as change. How did these connections become a resource? The specific case study highlighted here has to do with gender transformations in Kom society.