From this war was born one of the royal symbols of the Bamoun people, the double-headed serpent, which is engraved on the furniture of the palace. One of these thrones, the one on which King Mbouombouo was sitting, was carried away by French soldiers after 1925.
It will be returned to Cameroon in the course of 2019. A delegation of Cameroonians led by the current Mfon Mbombo Njoya has, for this purpose, returned to the Chateau de Versailles this week. The artists Manu Dibango, Charles Lembe, Alexandre Pain Douala, Yannick Noah … supported this initiative.
This throne will be returned as part of actions of similar size in other African countries such as Chad, Benin. They were instructed by the French head of state, Emmanuel Macron, who commissioned the report Savoy-Saar.m, named after a Senegalese scholar, Felwine Saar, and a French intellectual. This report presents a methodology, a calendar, specific proposals facilitating the return of works from the former colonies.
