On Becoming the Peace Elephant Warrior Princess: Reclaiming Indigenous Rights to Spirituality, Creativity and Orality for the Vitality of Mbòg Bàsàa

Abstract

As a Bàsàa woman, learning about the developmental stages of a girl in traditional Bàsàa society allowed me to recognize the subtle and imaginative abilities I inherited from my mother. And I set out on a quest to explore the positive aspects of my tradition in response to Bot Ba Ndjock’s (1970) reflection and inquiry about the future of Bàsàa women. Her remarks: “Will future generations be proud of the 20th century Bàsàa woman ‘evolved, emancipated, liberated’, being deliberately raised with back turned on the positive aspects of traditional culture?” With these lessons, it was my intention to use Mbòg, the social knowledge of the Bàsàa people, to answer the research question “What has been my process reclaiming my language and culture?” To organize a dissertation content honoring Mbòg, I structured this decolonizing dissertation to prepare my ceremony by clearly articulating a Bàsàa research process—the basis of Mbòg as a research paradigm. The work of Bàsàa scholars who investigated Mbòg as social knowledge (Mboui, 1967), Mbòg as traditional education system (Bot Ba Ndjock, 1970), Mbòg as a linguistic act (Mayi Matip, 1984) and Mbòg as creation (Biya, 1987) helped me think about how to compose Mbòg as a Bàsàa research paradigm. To unveil my process reclaiming my language and culture, I began with my spiritual journey. I utilized two traditional tools (wood and clay) and two contemporary tools (comic and zine) to represent Mbòg. The next journey was my creative process. I first selected the traditional fables I wanted to reclaim. Then, I sought the support of my parents, cousins and friends to determine how to revitalize the fables into multilingual (Bàsàa, English and French versions) and multimodal (illustrations, coloring book, and animations) formats. My final journey with orality ended at the language and art camp, Vac’Art. In this intergenerational and intercultural context in Yaoundé, I used my camera as a research tool to document the processes the Bàsàa and non-Bàsàa teaching artists used to train children/youth in arts-based methods (dance, theater, ceramic, music and cooking). For this reclamation journey, I was predisposed to perform the practices that kept my Ancestors in harmony. I wanted to respond to Bot Ba Ndjock (1970) and let her know that the 21st century Bàsàa woman ‘evolved, emancipated, liberated’ is still proud of her traditional education. Through this journey of re-membering, I figured out ways to massively transmit our social knowledge, Mbòg, so that generations of Bàsàa girls remain proud. Bòg, the root of Mbòg, reminds us that within this circle of life, order is a dynamically active harmony. Given our educational context, I have been asked if Mbòg is a philosophy or a pedagogy? As an Indigenous educational researcher at the intersection of language, literacy and culture, I offer bòg as a resource pedagogy, a gift from my Ancestors.