M’muock! Loosing her Cultural Identity

M’muock! Who are we?

The M’muock clan happens to be found in Lebialem Division of the South west region of Cameroon. What cultural identity are we? Some people call the M’muock people; ba-ngwa, some call them Dschang people, and while others call them bamuock, But who are we then?

It is rather an embarrassing situation when many of us can’t project the cultural identity of our mother land. Why is M’muock not known when you tell some one you are from M’muock? The reasons are so many and depend on the individuals:

- To some people they are shy to tell where they are from,
- Some are not patient enough to explain details about who M’muock people are,
- Some quickly accept the fact that they are either Dschang people or ba-nwa people to cu the long story short.
- Many others insist about their cultural background to project who M’muock is.

The obvious question here is; are the M’muock people the Bamuock, or Dschang or Ba-ngwa? In attempting to answer this question, we have to flash back to where the origin of M’muock is.
It should be noted, the M’muock clan is made up of 4 separate villages, representing the sons of one man who separated to occupy different territories.
M’muock has her origin from the Menoua Division of the West Region of Cameroon and while in Menoua they were called bamuock and this can still be proven today as their former settlement in the Menoua is up to date called E’fem-M’muock (meaning the old settlement of M’muock people). If the M’muock people were not known as the Bamuock, this old settlement till date would not still be called E’fem-M’muock; this is thus a proof that M’muock people existed. The fact that this old settlement of the M’muock people is still today called “Efem M’muock” implies, the M’muock people left this area not too long ago and also they must have inhabited this area for along time and equally M’muock was known as part of the people of Menoua as autonomous, so M’muock will remain M’muock and should not be given any other entity as to say Nwa or Dschang.

To some extent the cultural identity of the M’muock man is far more related to the culture of the Dschang people of the Menoua Division and the Bangang people of the Bamboutos Division all of the West Region of Cameroon:- You will observe some of these cultural relationship from traditional naming, dancing, dressing, days of the week and the dialect. The main problem of the M’muock loosing her cultural identity was because of their minority in number where ever they find themselves as such they tend to get associated to neighboring majority tribe and to get integrated to the society where they happen to live in. Wherever few M’muock people find themselves and happen to have majority of ba-nwa, they will integrate themselves to be called ba-nwa, or Dschang incase it is Dschang who are the majority. In towns like Bamenda where the M’muock people are the majority, they are known as Bamuock. We are loosing our cultural identity because of minority.

However we can regain our identity if we want to; we can always insist we are Bamuock, not Ba-nwa or Dschang, the fact that we have some similarities in the dialect with either the Dschang, Nwa or the Bamboutos people does not make us to be called them; if similarities in the dialect, dressing, traditional dances, traditional naming was a pre-requisite to grouping people together as a tribe, then the Nkwen, Mankon, Bafut, Mendankwe, Mundume all in the North west regions should be grouped as one tribe. I have often insisted on my cultural identity as a bamuock in hospitals and in school until many now know there are people called Bamuock.
There are many disadvantages when your cultural identity is hidden (not projected), because the majority and renown people will always seized the advantage to have those things which are supposed to be yours.

Many people just think that everyone who comes from the Lebialem division is a Ba-nwa man, but we have to make people to wipe away this ideology. One of my tutor in the days of my secondary education who was from the M’muock area use to tell some of the ba-nwa students who discriminated the M’muock people calling them all sort of names, he told them that M’muock is not Nwa and will never be so. He told them the difference is clear from the differences in appellations. He cited just few differences of appellations; for example, Ba-nwa will say “Abeh” to mean fufu, but bamuock will say “Apah”, ba-nwa will say “Fou’ah” to mean come but bamuock will say “sei’eh”, ba-nwa will say Mbei’eh” to mean a knife but bamuock will say “poeuh”. He went further to ask them to tell him whether there was any similarities in the naming of tradition days.

- If we do not have any traditional days which are common, is it possible to plan any meeting following only traditional days for a bamuock and ba-nwa? The fact that political divisions in Cameroon rolled us to Lebialem does not mean we have to surrender our cultural identity to Nwa. We have to thank those who at one time in Yaoundé (M’muock Union of Student) initiated this cultural identification through a publication titled “M’muock dieing in the hands of Nweh”

What are the customs and traditions of the M’muock people?

We shall examine some of the similarities in the cultures of the ba-ngwa, Dschang and bamuock to see where M’muock people will actually fit in.

On the table below, we shall have the comparison of some appellations in Ba-nwa, Dschang and M’muock.

Appellations M’muock Dschang Nwa
Come Sei-eh Shie-eh Fou-eh
Good Morning O’zail’eh Ozei Ale’leh
Dance Jenghe Jenghe Bin’e
Give me Ye’ha Ya’ha Fie’ghe
Market Eshi’a Es’a Esa
Knife Pough Pough Mbei
Stone Toh Toh Aroe’le
Cocyams Macaba Macabe Ekou;eh
Fufu Apah Akw’ah Abei
Water Nchie Ntse Ntse
Banana Akendei Akandienghe Lebeu
Sweat Potatoes Mefoh Mefoh Atonghe
Slope Lekou’oh Lekou’oh Nkwen’eh
Moon Sang Sang Faw teo
Week Nghab Nghab Le’tei
Clothes Njei Njei Ndro
Oil B’wot B’vet B’vet


Appellation M’muock Dschang Nwa



Days of the week
1. Ngangha Ngang Alena
2. Mboughwa Mboughwa Amina
3. Mboughlou Mboughlou AFagha
4. Njeugong Metta Angong
5. Mboughkeo mboughkeo Asei
6. Njielekeo Mbouchu Alung
7. Fa-ah Fa-ah Ankoa
8. Telang Njielah Anzoua
From the tables, this will greatly tell us that Bamuock was part of Dschang, and political division that came to Cameroon can not separate such people or put them as subjects.

The common names (names of persons) also vary so much, and there are only very few names that may be common for the M’muock-Nwa and even so the pronunciations or spelling may never be the same. It should be noted that most of the M’muock names are equally Dschang names as well as Bangang names. Also with the M’muock and Dschang, the first born child is always named by the mother, and in most cases it should be the woman’s father, but with the Nwa the name of the first born is named by the father.

The traditional dances also show a great disparity for the M’muock-Nwa than it shows for M’muock-Dschang. This makes it very difficult to identify the M’muock and the Nwa as one. For some tribes, they have a kind of dance that can be used to identify them, and this can only be use a tool for identification if it should cut across.

M’muock people have been subject under Nwa for long so we have to stand up in Unisom to identify our customs and traditions and to maintain them.

“M’muock Man is the one to bring back the lost cultural identity, and to do this we must stand firm to defend our identity and refuse any subjection.

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