01/04/2024
REDISCOVER... BONA'ANJA WATER MUSEUM SIGA-BONJO
I. THE MUSEUM OF WATER
1. Localization
The Bona'Anja Siga-Bonjo Water Museum (opened in 2019) is located in Bonanja Siga Bonjo Chieftaincy in Nkam in Yabassi in Wouri-Bwele County. It is located in the town of Bona’Anja Siga Bonjo, a few kilometers from the city of Douala in Cameroon, precisely on the right bank of the river Wouri, in the canton of Wouri-Bwele. From Douala, the economic capital of Cameroon, two routes are possible to get to the Museum:
- By road: Bonabéri-Békoko-Souza-Junction Kaké - Miang - Mangamba - Bona'Anja - Siga Bonjo (about 50 km)
- Riverway: Bonamouang (North Akwa) - Bonjo (20 km)
2. Objectives of museum
The Water Museum, referred to as the Environment, Art and Social Universe among the Sawa people, is an original concept that uses the museum's resources to show the different facets of this inexhaustible food. Water is a source of life, a symbol of fertility, fertility and spirituality. This ambitious concept, whose spatial translation is perceptible through a scientific, interactive, playful and pedagogical museographic course, was born out of its promoter's desire to highlight:
- The memory of the material and intangible culture of the riverside cantons of the Wouri basin or its tributaries. II are Malimba, Bell, Akwa, Deido, Bele-Bele, Bassa-Wouri, Bakoko-Wouri, Bukoko-Dibombari, Pongo, Wouri-Bwele, Wouri-Bossoua, Bodiman, Yabassi, Dibeng-Ndokbele, Abo north, Abo south, etc.
- The memory of the material and intangible culture of the peoples of the great coast of Cameroon;
- The bond created by water between communities and the building of the Cameroonian nation.
Indeed, the river Wouri/Nkam originates from the department of Menoua located in the hinterland. So it forms a link between coastal peoples and those of the rest of the country and even beyond.
The Museum of Water has the objectives of:
- Reveal to the public, through a museum, scientific, playful, interactive and pedagogical course, the role that water plays over the centuries.
- Also present the cultural foundations of water communities and singularly the Sawa of the Cameroonian coast.
- Highlighting the history and experience of the coastal principals and communities, including the interactions between coastal tribes, those of the hinterland and the western element which already constituted, from the 15th century, a platform for the dialogue of cultures to live together.
The Water Museum is positioned both as an art museum (plastic/music/dance sawa), a museum of human sciences history/ethnology/anthropology), but also a centre for interpretation of Cameroon’s history (photos and historical documents), a significant part of which is built on the banks of the Wouri.
3. Collections from the Museum
The water museum collections value a triple thematic: Environment (E), Arts (A) and Social Universe (U) among the Sawa. They present, among other things, genealogies, systems of kinship, traditional power, social organization, cosmogy, etc.
The museum is devoted to the Sawa culture, through the prism of water, and shows its importance in the life and culture of the Sawa people: rituals and traditions, but also cuisine, beauty, and social life. Thus, you can find attributes of power in the sawa (stools, royal thrones, traditional outfits, traditional masks), objects of everyday life, but also canoe bows (tangé).
4. Architecture of the museum
The architecture of the water museum draws its source from the unique physiomy of the aquatic environment. His writing is based on strong symbols of cosmogy and sawa cosmology: the museum looks like a house placed in a canoe mounted on pilots. On the facades sprinkled with totemic and aquatic symbols, blue and white, colors of the sea, dominate. Pilots, who support the vessel, are visible in the dry season and invisible in the rainy season due to rising waters. So the water museum, like a canoe hanging on the Wouri, appears in all its majesty. The rural setting and the proximity of the Wouri River offer the advantage of a mild climate and the surrounding vegetation, giving greenery, exceptional beauty and an offer of tranquility and tranquility. The water museum is part of its immediate environment and is a carrier of urban development in Siga-Bonjo.
II. VILLAGE BONA'ANJA SIGA-BONJO
Siga Bonjo, administrative headquarters of the Bona'Anja chieftaincy is an ancestral fief operated from the 18th century by the sons of Bona'Anza and subsequently populated, under the impulse of chief Bossambé Epellé. Located on the right bank of the river Wouri, opposite the island of Wouri (which partially houses the villages Bonjo, Bonépéa, Mutimbélembé and Munjamussadi), Siga Bonjo is bordered to the north and west of Mangamba (Abo Nord canton) from which it is separated by the administrative boundary between the districts of Yabassi (Nkam) and de Fiko (Moungo). To the East, it is bordered by a stream and bordered the village of Boneko in the South. Long disadvantaged by its enclave, Siga Bonjo is now a booming locality, in favour of the opening and construction by the state in 2011 of the Mangamba-Bonjo road.
Bona’ Anja Siga Bonjo is a traditional 3rd degree chieftaincy, located a few kilometers from the city of Douala, in the town of Siga-Bonjo, on the right bank of the river Wouri. It is administratively in Wouri-Bwelé Canton, Yabassi District, Nkam Department, Coastal Region, Cameroon.
III. THE WOURI CANTON - BWELE
Wouri Bwele Canton is bordered to the South by Doula 5th Arrondissement (Bonangando Akwa Village and Ngombé Bassa Canton), to the North by Wouri Bosoua Canton, to the West by Abo North and Abo South Canton, to Dibombari Bakoko Canton, to The East by Dibeng-Ndokbelé, in the South-East and beyond Dibamaba by the Canton of Bakoko du Wouri (3rd Arrondissement of Douala).
Le canton Wouri Bwele account 17 villages : Bona'Anja, Bonamengue,Bonelo,Bonépéa, Bonindi, Bonjo,Bwene, Malamboa, Moundja-Moussadi, Moutimbelembe, Ndokbaken, Nono, Massoumbou, Tonde Carrefour, Nkolmbong, Qiwom, Tonde villa (New-Bwele).
The Sacred Places:
- The Sanctuary of the Effa Bossamba. This shrine is named after Chief Bossambe Epelle of Bona’Andja Bonjo in the Bonabwaka family. Effa Bossamba is the seat of the Miengu, iconic site, theater of myths and mysterious legends, witness to great ritual ceremonies. This is the deepest place in the Wouri (15 m).
- The Sacred Baobab of Bonabwaka – Bon’Anja (Bonjo).
- The Mausoleum of the Superior Chief Edjenguele Belle.
Wouri Bwelé township is named after Bwelé, the first son of Ewodi Mudibé Mbedi Mbongo. The term Wouri/Wuri originates from Ewodi's phonetic alteration by corruption of the D and R in archaic douala (like Bonabedi transformed into Bonabéri, Dibombadi into Dibombari, Moukoudi into Moukouri, etc.) ) and by election of E. Which gave the transcription of the term Wori by English, Wuri by German and Wouri by French.
Sources :
- Siga Bonjo Water Museum
- Joseph Tsama E
- https://museedeleau.org/presentation/
- https://ewodi-wouri-bwele.org/blog/project/le-canton-wouri-bwele