Cameroon Artisan makes chairs from cow horns

At the time butchers are slaughtering cattle at the slaughterhouse of Maroua,Far North region of Cameroon, Artisan Nourou Mohamadou arrives to collect the ox horns, recycle them into a work of art.

“Everything starts first at the slaughterhouse, this is where you saw me picking up the horns. This is where everything starts, because I sort the horns according to what I want to do. If I have a product that I want to assemble, I come here first to the slaughterhouse, on the spot, I sort the horns, the raw material necessary for my activities,” Mohamadou said.

It is in the artisanal center of Maroua, that Nourou has his workshop. He makes the furniture and chairs with ox horns here. He makes several objects and has made the trade to shows its specificity. The first operation is to place horns in boiling water, extract the bone that is inside the horn.

Once the operation is complete, he then polishes, sand paper the horn in order to make them clean and attractive.
In this part of the country, Mohamadou is the pioneer in the processing of cow horns. For eleven years, he has been producing these furnitures that impresses people with its beauty and originality.

“But for production, we focused on the production of chairs. That’s what works for most people, beef horn parlors. That’s what people appreciate more. There are several lounges, there are single lounges, there are sets with foam, there are royal sets, a simple living room with foam can cost at least 350,000 FCFA,” he added.

A few years ago, orders were surplus, especially during tourist seasons. Attacks by Boko Haram sect in the area has caused tourists to flee. Today, he makes an average of three to four sets a month. Many hoteliers are seduced by his works, and they are his main clients.

“I came to buy a chair. I saw that this chair is very comfortable and beautiful. In all the travels, I have done, I have never seen this quality of chair. I see that here in Maroua we can make stuff like that with beef horns and it’s beautiful,” Businessman Moussa Mohamed said.

Mohamadou strongly believes that the recycling of cow horns could be a good job.