Domaines de la Nuit et Autorité Onirique dans les Maquis du Sud-Cameroun (1955–1958)

Abstract

This article explores the dreams recorded by Ruben Um Nyobe in 1958, shortly before his death during the struggle which the Union des Populations du Cameroun waged against the terms which the French and their local allies sought to impose on Camerounese independence. The struggle should not be categorized in the inflationary rhetoric of African ‘revolutions’. Rather, it should be viewed as a movement of resistance and assertion within the colonial arena, where European authorities controlled certain strategic points while African communities maintained predominance at other locations. In this connection it is important to understand the importance which African communities in southern Cameroun attached to the world of the invisible and the ‘economy of the night’. It was in the invisible world that Africans, and especially those who were considered to be leaders and therapists in their societies, had sought to manipulate the ‘economy of the day’ and the strategic points controlled by the colonial economy and administration since the late 19th century. In this context, the dreams and annotations of Um Nyobe become significant, not as an expression of sexual preoccupations or the residual psychological orientations of his society, but as historical evidence: signs and statements of his effort to control the day, direct the struggle, and bring healing to his community, and acts of political as well as cultural significance. The colonial regime framed and affected the lives of its subjects, even to the point of consciousness and dreams, but at the same time the subjects fashioned their own space, refashioned their institutions, reinterpreted the actions of the regime and continually undermined its authority.

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