Rhumsiki
Interesting facts
- In 1966–67 Rhumsiki had about 1,150 inhabitants; by the 2005 census its population had grown to nearly 5,400.
- According to tradition, the Kirdi ancestors of the villagers took refuge in these mountains in the 18th century, fleeing the advance of the Muslim Fulani.
- The Kapsiki number roughly 150,000 people across the Cameroon–Nigeria border, where on the Nigerian side they are known as the Higi.
- Their language, Psikye or Kamwe, belongs to the Chadic family and has around eleven dialects, one of them called Humsi.
- Kapsiki blacksmiths form a distinct, endogamous group of about 5% of the population, serving also as funeral directors, musicians and healers.
- The crab divination practised in Rhumsiki has been studied by Dutch anthropologist Walter van Beek, who spent some four decades researching the Kapsiki.
- In the late 1960s the village already held a Sunday market, alongside a separate market devoted to peanuts.
- A 1980 Cameroonian stamp showed young Bororo women posed in front of the Rhumsiki peak.
- Rhumsiki is often described as the most visited tourist spot in northern Cameroon.
Why it is worth it
Around the village of Rhumsiki in the Mandara Mountains of northern Cameroon, the land is studded with the jagged remains of ancient volcanoes: plugs of hardened lava and outcrops of basalt standing alone above the valleys, as if the softer mountains around them had been peeled away. The tallest and most photographed of these towers is Kapsiki Peak, whose summit reaches 1,224 metres. Writers have called the scenery almost lunar, and André Gide, who travelled through the region, ranked it among the most beautiful landscapes in the world.
These spires are volcanic necks: the solidified cores of long-dormant volcanoes, left standing after erosion stripped away the cones that once surrounded them. Scattered among the fields below are the round stone houses of the Kapsiki people, topped with conical thatched roofs and spread across the village and the neighbouring valley — a form of dwelling typical of northern Cameroon. The Kapsiki are descended from the so-called Kirdi peoples who settled the area in the 18th century. The peak has long served as an emblem of the country: it appeared, as the "Piton d'Humsiki", on a stamp of French Cameroon issued between 1947 and 1952, and again on stamps of independent Cameroon in 1962 and 1980.
Rhumsiki itself is a village in the Mayo-Tsanaga department of the Far North Region, part of the commune of Mogodé, with a population recorded at about 5,400 in 2005. It lies just 3 km from the border with Nigeria. Its traditions are a large part of the village's character, from blacksmiths, potters and weavers to a well-known diviner who reads the future from the way a crab moves small pieces of wood. A weekly market has been held here since at least the 1960s.
Getting there
Rhumsiki lies about 55 km by road from Mokolo, the departmental capital. The nearest airport is Maroua Salak Airport (MVR), about 72 km away.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Rhumsiki, also spelt Rumsiki and Roumsiki, is a village in the Far North Province of Cameroon.
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