Mikael Assilkinga
Cameroon
My name is Mikael Assilkinga and I come from Maga, Cameroon. I am completing my doctorate at the Technical University of Berlin and the University of Dschang, researching objects of power from Cameroon in German museums. In parallel, I am working on the provenance of Cameroonian human remains from the colonial context. The human remains from Cameroon in Göttingen have not been researched so far. The project „sensitive provenances“ was the best opportunity for me to deal with this and to make the history of violence known both in Germany and in Cameroon, and above all to work on repatriation. Justice must be done. I want to contribute to this through my research.
Doing Research
Cameroon / c. 1905 / Anthropological Collection
In Göttingen, I was particularly interested in the “skull of a boy from the tribe Batibé” (today Batibo), “vassal state of the Bali King” that was probably collected around 1905 and is now in the anthropological collection. Bali was allied to the Germans in the region and together they organised several military expeditions against the neighbouring kingdoms to bring them under their respective colonial yoke. During such wars, villages were plundered, palaces burned, cattle taken away and parents killed. Children who lost their parents died often sometimes afterwards. Katharina Stötzel and I could determine that the boy died of anemia, a disease caused by malnutrition. Unfortunately, his fate was not the single case. In addition to the Cameroonians killed directly in colonial wars, the Germans sealed the fate of thousands of children in the former colony Cameroon. Although it is difficult to visit Batibo due to an ongoing war, I followed up this lead because it was important for me as descendant of a formerly colonised society to clarify the tragic death of this boy.
Mikael Assilkinga
Four skulls in the anthropological collection were brought by Leo Frobenius (1873-1938), a character I met for the first time though his ideas during a seminary at the University of Dschang. He was presented as a great contributor to scientific racism through his studies. The archival materials indicate that one (4:17) of these skulls belongs to the Nandji people (actual Adamawa region), but did not answer all my questions. I went to Adamawa to discuss with different communities. Clearly, there is not idea about the skull. In fact, in all the communities I met, people thought that their ancestors the Germans killed were all buried. It was a great shock for them to learn only today that some of their ancestors’ skulls have been secretly taken away. It was difficult from that moment to move forward, since in the region all communities used to bury dead people directly after their death. This situation of an unburried ancestor was simply new to them.
Mikael Assilkinga
Cameroon / c. 1905 / Anthropological Collection
