These movements may be mythical in many cases, but anthropologists and historians accept the plausibility of a migration of some Sawa ancestors to the coast during the 16th century.
According to Sawa oral history, Mbedi, the son of Mbongo, lived at Piti on the Dibamba River, northeast of present-day Douala.
Based on records of Dutch traders, the first known Duala ruler was a man the merchants dubbed Monneba, who lived at the present site of Douala in the 16th century.
[5] The Sawa claims of descent from Mbedi may simply reflect the hegemony of the Duala people during early contact with Europeans and the colonial period.
Some of these, such as the Bakweri, Bakole, and Limba, speak languages closely related to Duala, so the proposed kinship is not difficult to accept.