A Bamileke community in Bali-Nyonga: a note on the Bawok

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Periodical article

Title:	A Bamileke community in Bali-Nyonga: a note on the Bawok
Author:	Chilver, E.M.
Year:	1964
Periodical:	African Studies
Volume:	23
Issue:	3-4
Pages:	121-127
Language:	English
Geographic terms:	British Cameroons Cameroon
Subjects:	Bamileke Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
External link:	https://doi.org/10.1080/00020186408707200
Abstract:	Bali-Nyonga, a chiefdorn in the Bamenda prefecture of West Cameroon, was founded in the mid-nineteenth century by Nyongpasi or Fonyonga I, the chief of one section of a Chamba-led confederation of raiders of southern Adamawa origin and their Grassfields adherents. The Bawok community settled on the south-eastern outskirts of Bali-Nyonga, is locally known as Bako, or 'carvers', and their chiefs, who now styles himself 'Fengga Fang of Bawok', as Fobako. Bako is included within the modern Bali local government and customary court area as an electoral ward and was not separately shown in the 1953 Nigerian (eastern region) census returns. The association of the Bawok with Bali-Nyonga for nearly sixty years has not destroyed their linguistic identity. A comparison between its surviving institutions and those of Bamileke chiefdoms indicates that it has retained many of them, although there are confusing variations in nomenclature, and a less elaborate retainerdom than was to be found in the larger chiefdoms. References.