ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a brief overview of the Fulbe in West African history and in Cameroon. There follows an exploration of the often contradictory notions of Fulbeness, which coexist in the contemporary Fulbe community in which the author did her field work. Identity in Domaayo is variously said to rest on ancestry, a "racial" notion of physical attributes, religion, or the performance of Fulbeness. The Fulbe live in every West African country from Senegal to Nigeria and are found as far East as Chad, the Central African Republic, and the Sudan. The chapter also discusses the Fulbe in West African country and its history religious and ethnic conversion. The twentieth century brought the Fulbe into the colonial fold. According to the Dutch anthropologist Kees Schilder, German colonization, beginning in 1902, favored Fulbe power by ruling local populations through the already established Fulbe political hierarchy and strengthening it with the force of German military power.
