Hurrah! To Tav-Njong

Revised and reproduced from The Sketch, No. 17, Monday, February 22-28, 1993, P. 13

When people, who don’t know my worth – traditionally, that is – meet me, they tend to call me simply by my first name. Some even behave as if they were doing me a favour by adding ‘Mister’ to my name. Little do they know that I feel more comfortable with being addressed as Tav-Njong or Tav, for short.

Only the other day, I found it difficult to make a former classmate of mine from secondary school days in Man O’War Bay in Victoria, understand why I was dressed in a sleeveless danshiki over khaki shorts, a multi-coloured, thread-woven cap, already showing signs of age, snugly sitting on my neatly cropped head. Carelessly slung around my shoulder, but firmly tugged under my left armpit, was a sheathed matchete. In my right hand, quivered a spear with a shiny, well-oiled metal tip.

I was on my way to attend a Samba session. It is in the Samba society that we, the ferocious warriors of the Nso people, meet late into the night to map out war strategies. We usually begin by sacrificing a fowl to appease the roving spirits of our ancestors. Needless to say that no man who might have slept with a woman some hours before, or at any other time prior to the Samba session, is allowed to participate in such deliberations.

I can see you silently wondering to yourself how these people ever tell which one among them might have been fooling around with a woman before the solemn moment of the sacrifice. Well, that’s a closely guarded secret, but we always know. We have our ways, you know, and no one jokes with them.
“But Martin, don’t tell me you walk around a city like Douala carrying things like these!” he said, pointing to my sheathed matchete and spear, incredulity somersaulting in his eyes and in his voice.

“What! Am I not a Tav-Njong?” I asked.
“Tav-Njong? What in the world is that?” he asked.
“What! Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of Tav-Njong before!” I said, sounding scandalised.
“Never!” came the astonishing answer.

I shook my head sadly, wondering out loud when our educational authorities would ever come to their senses and include in our school curriculum such important topics as the martial role of Tav-Njongs in the history of warfare in the Cameroons. I, however, took that unexpected and much welcomed opportunity to educate him on the role of a Tav-Njong, one of those valiant warriors of the Nso people who, as the popular saying goes, “receive the spear or arrow in the chest, never in the back”.

“If you were to see a Tav-Njong fallen in battle, a spear or an arrow sticking out of his back”, I proudly informed the ignorant young man, “that would be a clear indication that the Tav-Njong in question had chickened out in the heat of the carnage, and was taking to his heels when his back was transfixed by a spear or an arrow; an act that would bring much shame onto himself and his progeny for eternity”.

I told the astonished and ignorant young man that I believe I am a descendent of a family of brave warriors, those who had put up a courageous fight against the marauding, horse-back ridding, bow-and-arrow-armed Fulbés, who the Nso refer to as Bara-nyam (horse-back riding white-men). Those battle-hardened, battle-scarred, Fulbés, were the uncompromising disciples of the dreaded, legendary Usman Dan Fidio, one of Africa’s most colourful, impressive and imposing religious and political personalities – what a contrast with the dull, colourless, boring, insecure, and thieving bunch lording it over us today! – who had spread the word from the Koran, the holiest of all the holy books in Islam, from the North with the sword.

“One of the most terrifying sights to a Nso man in those days”, I continued, “was the horse. No one then knew what it was, never having seen, nor even heard of it before. Everyone fled more terrified by those fearful beasts, belching smoke from their open nostrils, than from the equally ruthless riders.”
“However”, I continued, “a certain, Tav-Njong, cornered by a particularly fierce-looking horse -- what a ferocious beast it truly was! -- with smoke bellowing from its nostrils, with a rider whose eyes were as red as hot coal; yes, the terrified Tav-Njong had flung his spear in despair at the approaching horse and was about to flee when he saw that horrendous beast kneeling down before him. It was then that our Tav-Njong friend realised to his astonishment that his spear had homed in on the beast’s huge heaving chest, piercing its lungs and heart. The horse-rider himself, with Medusa-like dread locked hair, also came tumbling from his horse.

After suspending his initial disbelief, our brave Tav-Njong, in the manner of Perseus the Greek, then calmly harvested that rider’s Medusa-like head, thus adding one more trophy to his family’s proud collection of war booty. “From that day on”, I continued, “whenever the elders of the land met to draw up war plans, our heroic Tav-Njong would be one of the select few drinking out of a human skull. An honour second to none in the annals of the martial history of Nso people!”

“I have every reason to believe, Doc., that I am a direct descendent of that warrior”, I told the truly dumbfounded young man. “So, as you can see, bravery has made its home in my family’s blood-stream. This sheathed matchete firmly tugged under my armpit and this spear quivering in my right hand are symbols of unparalleled martial bravery and I’m a warrior”, I concluded proudly.

“Ça alors!”, exclaimed our astonished doctor, “for a twentieth century, apparently well-educated man to walk about the city, dressed the way you are, with such a thing under his armpit, a spear in hand, is a clear sign that even though some of you, especially from upcountry, have apparently been taken out of the bush, the bush will never be taken out of you”, he said, shaking his head sorrowfully.

Then, as he was about to drive off, he said, “How will Biya and Achidi Achu not continue to screw up this nation when people like you refuse to leave the bush?”

To be frank with you, dear Reader, I think some people in this country tend to over-react to simple things. Tell me in all sincerity; what did your humble Tav-Njong’s sheathed matchete and spear have in common with Biya’s brutal rule in this country. Frankly.

Comments

[willy Nkwain]

I've known you for quite sometime now but it has never occured to me that you're a "Tav njong" or that you are aware of such interesting traditional manifestations.
That's simply great "Tav". I'm also an ardent lover of tradition, but the titles are not forth coming.
I'll surely have a lot to say if I go through all the website.
Willy