La Route Des Chefferies
La Route des Chefferies is a cultural organization specializing in heritage engineering in Cameroon and around the world. Created in 2012 following the success of the eponymous program, it is today at the origin of a network of more than of 26 museums, distributed in several regions of Cameroon. Involved in cultural and tourist development programs of the territory, major museum projects, training and strengthening the employability of young people in the cultural field, or international exhibitions, it acts daily in the service of heritage and culture.
In Cameroon, as everywhere in Africa, the clash of civilizations has caused phenomena of identity reconfiguration and hybridization. These long processes have taken place to the detriment of the secular values of the indigenous communities and their respective heritage assets. The diagnosis carried out in the 1990s by the architect Sylvain Djache Nzefa, founder of the “Route des Chefferies” program, is a pioneering work with regard to the situation of the heritage of Western Cameroon. Grouped within the association Pays de la Loire-Cameroun (APLC), the Cameroonian diaspora in Nantes has built this program with the traditional leaders of Cameroon, aware of the importance of safeguarding and promoting their heritage. A founding charter is at the origin of the Route des Chiefdoms, signed in 2006 by around fifty traditional chiefs, which is currently being revised for an opening on a national scale.
The program, which has become an association, contributes to promoting the protection and conservation of tangible and intangible heritage, to encouraging among Cameroonians a process of revalorization and appropriation of identity values, to also contribute to local economic development and the promotion of the industrial sector. cultural and creative in Cameroon. Through its initiatives, the Route des Chiefdoms covers a wide range of areas of intervention, initiatives based on values of respect for otherness and on the enhancement and protection of cultural, historical and natural heritage and work carried out in close collaboration with communities.
la Route des Chefferies is also involved internationally in several projects and with several organizations that defend the values of intercultural dialogue or equality between women and men.
CAMEROON
FRANCE
Our partners
I launch here tonight an appeal to all the patrons to make the road of the chieftaincies a road made of benevolence and solidarity so that the African tradition lives and Cameroon lives
The exhibition organized by La Route Des Chefferies in Paris, was a very important event for the chieftaincies, in the promotion and the safeguard of our heritage. It has positioned Cameroon in terms of culture and display of our heritage.
This exhibition will make it possible to make known the depths of the culture and the heritage of the Cameroonian chiefdoms
The exhibition of the Route des Chefferies at the musée du quai Branly is an opportunity for us, guardians of tradition, to bring our sons and daughters of the diaspora back to the source and encourage a reconnection with their ancestral values.
It is a moment of sharing our roots with the world through the door of France. A moment of communion of our values and our wealth with the world. Moments of immersion in the freshness and flavor of the geniuses of the forest made possible by the Route des Chefferies
The Paris exhibition is welcome for our chieftaincies because it has opened our cultures to the world and given a glimpse to tourists who would like to visit our regions. This exhibition has allowed us to value our ancestral traditions
I am happy to be involved in this project which is a way to enhance our culture
At the Musée du Quai Branly, all the cultures of Cameroon have had the historic opportunity to speak to the world in unison thanks to the Route des Chefferies. It will present and explain the immense tangible and intangible heritage of Cameroon
The Sur la Route des Chefferies exhibition brought the heart and soul of the Grassfields to life in Paris. It was a bold and innovative exhibition. Never before have the traditions and chieftaincies of Cameroon been presented on such a scale in France. One of the remarkable singularities of this exhibition is to have inscribed in space an active geography of identities and memory. All this by splitting in a subtle balance the past and the present.
"The exhibition promotes Cameroon, particularly the Grassfields (West and North-West regions) where monumental architecture, blacksmithing, beadwork, woodcarving, have been mixed and above all preserved over the centuries with the precious assistance of traditional chiefs. I hope that this exhibition will not be the last but that it will precede other exhibitions of the same kind in relation to other cultural areas of Cameroon. At a time when there is talk of the return to their birthplace of works illicitly taken from Africa, the opening of this exhibition allows us to observe that another way is possible.
It was a historic moment for the cultural journalist that I am. It is a great victory because beyond the artistic aspect, there is the symbol. It is the consideration of the local talents who deploy themselves to make the name of Cameroon shine through their works. Let's not forget that we are two years away from the Olympic Games in Paris. Positioning the brand image of Cameroon on the international level, through culture, is amazing. Today, we discover Cameroon in other ways than scandals.
I was always filled with a feeling of pride when I saw the pictures of the exhibition that took place in Paris. It was time that our heritage was exposed and highlighted. I am happy to know that Cameroonians in the diaspora went to discover unique objects such as royal thrones, calabashes, masks and totems and to take part in the activities of the Cultural Season which is a real bridge between the visible and the invisible, between the world of the ancestors and that of the living.
The exhibition organized by the Route des Chefferies is the most beautiful representation of Cameroonian cultural diversity ever seen. When I arrived at the museum, I understood that these sacred objects, although they are art objects, describe the expression of power, the power of an impenetrable world and finally the relationship between man and nature. This initiative is an opportunity for the discovery and knowledge of our culture throughout the world and the new generation.
What this exhibition inspires in me is admiration for this unprecedented cultural innovation, a new approach to promoting our culture by reaching out to others to give them a taste to invite them to visit our country and particularly the Grassfields. It is an ideal opportunity to sell our tourist destination. It helps to better promote and safeguard this little known ancestral heritage and to further root it for future generations especially for the conservation of our original cultural identity that makes us different from other peoples of the world.
