Princess Ngonnso

1
Princess Ngonnso and the foundation of the royal
house of Nso
Genetics in support of Oral History
K. R. Veeramah, D. Zeitlyn, V. G. Fanso, B. A.
Connell, M. E. Weale, N. Bradman and M. G. Thomas.
The Centre for Genetic Anthropology, Department
of Biology, University College London
Introduction
Hypothesis
Before the arrival of European colonists in the
nineteenth century the Nso royal family, headed
by the Fon, ruled an empire of some 2600km2 in
the western Grassfields of Cameroon with the
royal palace located in Kumbo. The Nso comprise
over 200,000 citizens divided into four
caste-like groups (CLGs) (table 1).
Given certain social characteristics of the Nso,
such as the strict rules governing membership to
the Wonto and the high level of  polygamy, NRY
types found in the Wonto would be expected to be
more homogenous than the other CLGs while there
would be no difference in the distribution of
mtDNA types.  Additionally, if all Nso Fons
are direct paternal descendants of a Visale chief
and Y(xBR,A3b2) was characteristic of the
hunter-gatherer Visale (see Box 1) then this
would be expected to be the modal NRY haplogroup
amongst the Wonto and this NRY type would be
relatively homogenous with respect to a battery
of STRs.
CLG Membership Criteria
Wonto Descendants of a Fon up to the fourth generation (for men) and third generation (for women) - the Royal family
Duy Descendants of a Fon who ruled more than four generations ago (for men) and three generations ago (for women)
Nshiylav Subjects born into Palace servitude
Mtaar Commoners
Figure 2 A principle co-ordinate plot (PCO) of
population pairwise Fst genetic distances
calculated using NRY UEP haplogroup frequencies
of the four Nso CLGs (labelled by name) and
other Grassfield populations (labelled
corresponding to the key adjacent to the plot).
PCO1 and PCO2 explain 76.94 and 13.65 of the
variation respectively.
Pairwise comparisons of the four Nso CLGs showed
no statistical difference in the frequency of
mtDNA types (Fishers exact P values5 gt
0.28549). We estimated a time to the most recent
common ancestor6 for the Y(xBR,A3b2) NRY type
found in the Nso of 519-601 years (95 CI
67-2,420), a date which correlated well with the
oral history of when the first Fon of Nso ruled.
Results
Table 1 The four Nso social CLGs and the
criteria for membership to the corresponding CLG.
Nso CLG Assigned NRY Haplogroup Assigned NRY Haplogroup Assigned NRY Haplogroup Assigned NRY Haplogroup Assigned NRY Haplogroup
Nso CLG P(xR1a) BR(xDE,JR) E(xE3a) Y(xBR,A3b2) E3a
Wonto (n18) 0 (0.000) 2 (0.111) 0 (0.000) 10 (0.556) 6 (0.333)
Duy (n51) 1 (0.020) 0 (0.000) 2 (0.039) 9 (0.176) 39 (0.765)
Nshiylav (n42) 0 (0.000) 1 (0.024) 1 (0.024) 8 (0.190) 32 (0.762)
Mtaar (n21) 0 (0.000) 0 (0.000) 0 (0.000) 3 (0.143) 18 (0.857)
Total (n132) 1 (0.008) 3 (0.023) 3 (0.023) 30 (0.227) 95 (0.720)
The Nso have a detailed oral history of their
origins, which dates to 250-700 years before
present. The most common account tells of a
Princess Ngonnso travelling from the Tikar
Kingdom, approximately 100 km to the east, and
encountering a small indigenous group of hunter
gatherers (the Visale) by whom she was warmly
welcomed. Her son was consequently made the first
Fon of the Nso and it is from him that the
current Fon is said to be directly descended
along the paternal line. However, opinion differs
as to whether the Princess came with a husband
from Tikar1 or married a local Visale chief.
Conclusion
The data generated was in concordance with the
most common origin story of a Princess migrating
and marrying a local Visale, rather than being
accompanied by a Tikar husband. We have
demonstrated that genetic analysis can be a
useful tool joining other disciplines such as
anthropology and linguistics in investigations of
the histories of groups living in sub-Saharan
Africa, especially those for whom prehistory is
recent and where archaeological evidence is
sparse.
Table 2 NRY UEP haplogroup numbers found in the
four Nso CLGs. Corresponding relative
frequencies are shown in brackets. Haplogroup
nomenclature is that proposed by the Y Chromosome
Consortium3.
The modal haplogroup of the Wonto was
Y((xBR,A3b2), with a frequency of 56, and all
members of this haplogroup had identical STR
haplotypes (coined the Nso Royal modal haplotype
(NRMH)). In contrast the modal haplogroup in the
other CLGs was E3a (see table 2) with a diverse
range of STR haplotypes (gene diversity 0.9438
0.01144). A known paternal descendant of a
recent Fon also possessed the NRMH.
Acknowledgments
We thank all sample donors, the BBSRC, Dallas
Swallow and Abigail Jones as well as Richard
Phillips and Ali Barwani who performed some of
the typing.
References

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Only 1 out of 780 self declared non-Nso from the
Grassfields had a Y(xBR,A3b2) chromosome and
this individual was born in Kumbo, the Nso
capital. Thus there was significant population
differentiation between the Wonto and all other
populations (Figure 2).
Figure 1 A map showing the area of Cameroon
studied and the specific towns DNA was collected
from.
Objectives
Our aim was to examine which of the different
variations of the oral history describing the
foundation of the Nso, if any, was best
supported by sex-specific genetic data, where
each account would generate separate expectations
for the distribution of the non-recombining
portion of the Y-chromosome (NRY) and
mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) types.
Box 1-The replacement of hunter gatherers by
Bantu-speaking farmers
It is thought that previously common NRY
lineages may have been replaced by a lineage
associated with the expansion of the
Bantu-speaking peoples, namely E3a7. We have
found evidence that suggests haplogroup
Y(xBR,A3b2) is one of these replaced lineages.
It is found at very low frequencies (lt14) in
populations distributed throughout sub-Saharan
Africa and the STR haplotype distribution
displays a high among group variance (assessed
using AMOVA8) of 85.64, which is consistent with
inter-group isolation. This is in contrast to the
modal haplogroup E3a with an among group variance
of only 3.05, a low figure which is consistent
with high inter-group geneflow or a recent common
origin. We suggest that Y(xBR,A3b2) may have
been predominant in pre-Bantu-speaking
hunter-gatherers.
Method
We typed the NRY2 of 151 samples from Kumbo and
1087 samples from 12 other Grassfield towns
(Figure 1), including seven in the Tikar region,
for 12 Unique Event Polymorphisms (UEPs) and six
Short Tandem Repeats (STRs) (for the definition
of NRY haplogroups and high resolution haplotypes
respectively) and grouped them according to self
declared cultural identity (including Nso CLG
where applicable). Additionally, the mtDNA HVS-1
region and specific coding region markers were
typed in Nso samples for assignment to
predefined mtDNA haplogroups.
Interpolated contour map of square root of
Y(xBR,A3b2) haplogroup frequencies in
populations in sub-Saharan Africa. The square
root transformation was used to aid in the
visualisation of low Y(xBR,A3b2) frequencies.
Interpolated contour map of square root of E3a
haplogroup frequencies in populations in
sub-Saharan Africa. Position of populations
actually collected are indicated by .