The Wovea are an ethnic group native to coastal areas of the Fako division of the Southwest Province of Cameroon. The Wovea are one of the ethnic groups that comprise the Sawa, or Cameroonian coastal peoples.
History
Wovea oral history names a man from the island of Bioko as their forebear. His ship washed ashore at Mboko, the area southwest of Mount Cameroon. There he married a local woman. They moved southeast and settled at Ambas Bay. The Wovea likely lived along Ambas Bay in the 17th or 18th century. They could have participated in the same migration from Mboko that brought the Bakweri and Isubu to their current territories.
During the 16th and 17th centuries, the Wovea came under the dominance of the Isubu. When the Spanish ousted Protestant missionaries from their base at Fernando Po (modern Bioko) in 1858, the Isubu king, William I of Bimbia, sold part of Wovea territory to British missionary Alfred Saker. The area became Victoria (today known as Limbe). The Wovea living there were forced to move to Mondole Island.
The Wovea have been mostly Christianized since the 1970s. Evangelical denominations dominate, particularly the Baptist church.
The Wovea participate in the Ngondo, a traditional festival of the Duala to which all of Cameroon's coastal Sawa peoples are invited. The main focus is on communicating with the ancestors and asking them for guidance and protection for the future. The festivities also include armed combat, beauty pageants, pirogue races, and traditional wrestling.
Classification
The Wovea are Bantu in language and origin. More narrowly, they fall into the Sawa, or the coastal peoples of Cameroon.