The Bamboko are a Bantu

ethnic group An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people with shared attributes, which they collectively believe to have, and long-term endogamy. Ethnicities share attributes like language, culture, common sets of ancestry, traditions, society, re ...

of the Republic of Cameroon. They are part of the Sawa ethnic groups, those who live on the coast. The Bamboko probably moved to Mboko, the area southwest of

Mount Cameroon Mount Cameroon is an active volcano in the Southwest Region of Cameroon next to the city of Buea near the Gulf of Guinea. Mount Cameroon is also known as Cameroon Mountain or Fako (the name of the higher of its two peaks) or by its indigenous ...

, in the early 17th century. Predominant

Bakweri The Bakweri (or Kwe) are a Bantu peoples, Bantu ethnic group of the Republic of Cameroon. They are closely related to Cameroon's coastal peoples (the The Sawa peoples of Cameroon, Sawa), particularly the Duala people, Duala and Isubu. Early surve ...

, Mbonge and Isubu traditions claim they originated from this area, which supports the peoples' long shared histories and similar languages. They currently inhabit the west and northwest of the mountain, beginning at the villages of Sanje and Mukundage and continuing to the sea. This territory likes in the Fako and Meme divisions of the Southwest Province. Neighbouring the Bamboko to the east are the Bakweri and to the west are the Bakole and to the North are Oroko. The Bamboko are primarily

subsistence farmers Subsistence agriculture occurs when farmers grow crops on smallholdings to meet the needs of themselves and their families. Subsistence agriculturalists target farm output for survival and for mostly local requirements. Planting decisions occu ...

who toil the volcanic soils of Mount Cameroon to cultivate

cocoyam Cocoyam is a common name for more than one tropical root crop and vegetable crop belonging to the Arum family (also known as Aroids and by the family name ''Araceae'') and may refer to: * Taro (''Colocasia esculenta'') – old cocoyam * Mala ...

maize Maize (; ''Zea mays''), also known as corn in North American English, is a tall stout grass that produces cereal grain. It was domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago from wild teosinte. Native American ...

manioc ''Manihot esculenta'', common name, commonly called cassava, manioc, or yuca (among numerous regional names), is a woody shrub of the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae, native to South America, from Brazil, Paraguay and parts of the Andes. Although ...

oil palm ''Elaeis'' () is a genus of palms, called oil palms, containing two species, native to Africa and the Americas. They are used in commercial agriculture in the production of palm oil. Description Mature palms are single-stemmed, and can gro ...

s, and plantains. Duala ethnic groups

The Bamboko speak

Wumboko Kpwe (Mokpwe) is a Bantu language of Cameroon. It is mutually intelligible with Kole, and probably with Mboko (Wumboko) as well. There are multiple variants of the name: based on 'Kpwe' (''Bakpwe, Mokpwe''), on 'Kpe' (''Mokpe''), on 'Kweɾi' ( ...

. The tongue is largely intelligible with Mokpwe and Bakole, and linguists sometimes classify Wumboko as a dialect of Mokpwe. All of these languages are part of the Bantu group of the Niger–Congo language family. In addition, individuals who have attended school or lived in an urban centre usually speak

Cameroonian Pidgin English Cameroonian Pidgin English, or Cameroonian Creole (, from West Coast), is a language variety of Cameroon. It is also known as Kamtok (from 'Cameroon-talk'). It is primarily spoken in the Northwest Region (Cameroon), North West and Southwest Regio ...

or standard English. Increasing numbers of

Anglophone Cameroonian Anglophone Cameroonians are the people of various cultural backgrounds, most of who hail from the English language, English-speaking regions of Cameroon (Northwest Region (Cameroon), Northwest and Southwest Region (Cameroon), Southwest Regions). T ...

s are today being raised as first-language Pidgin speakers."Pidgin, Cameroon", ''Ethnologue''.

Notes

References

* Fanso, V. G. (1989). ''Cameroon History for Secondary Schools and Colleges, Vol. 1: From Prehistoric Times to the Nineteenth Century.'' Hong Kong: Macmillan Education Ltd. * Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.) (2005):
Mokpwe
. ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'', 15th ed. Dallas: SIL International. Accessed 6 June 2006. * Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.) (2005):
Pidgin, Cameroon
. ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'', 15th ed. Dallas: SIL International. Accessed 6 June 2006. * Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.) (2005):
Wumboko
. ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'', 15th ed. Dallas: SIL International. Accessed 6 June 2006.

External links

Bakwerirama

Peuple Sawa
(in French) {{Cameroon-ethno-group-stub