Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 102
interpretation of the DGB sites would need to be seen not only in the light of rainmaking, but
also of cornblessing. The first is related to planting and growing while the second is linked to
dung production and the increase of the yield in terms of soil fertility. We will illustrate this
on several ethnographic levels in greater detail later, not only by showing how patrilineal
pairing works in the context of traditions of origin, but also in the context of population
pressure and the oral history of warfare and war alliances. Another ethnographic level is to
understand the cosmological worldview underlying ritual culture, and how it was embedded
in material culture. The chapters on architecture and the house as a place of worship are a
good example, as is the chapter on adult initiation, which we reconstruct from the collective
memory of our local protagonists. All these detailed descriptions will not however enable us
to provide historical proof that the Wandala of Kirawa were once ritually involved in bringing
about the invention of an intensified terrace agriculture of sorghum in the hills, but only
present circumstantial ethnographic evidence by outlining a possible shared subregional
cultural historical past.
This entails the acknowledgment that the Wandala of Kirawa, during early pre-colonial times,
was still a pre-Islamic entity, perhaps with the odd ruler who converted to Islam. The latter
theory is supported by the narrative of Ibn Furtu about the siege of Kirawa under Idris
Alauma, king of Borno, during the second half of the 16th century. That the Wandala
Chronicles, which were written in 1723/24, show structural similarities to some of the
Dghweɗe legendary tales, for example the role of outsiders as founders, is also of great
interest. Still there are no direct historical conclusions to be drawn concerning such a
subregional relationship between the Gwoza hills and Kirawa during these early pre-colonial
times.
In that context we referred to Ghwa'a as the older settlement part of what should later become
Dghweɗe. We then preliminarily linked Ghwa'a to the 16th century with its significantly
lower Lake Chad levels of 280m, indicating about 50 years of severe aridity. The legendary
story of Zedima points to Durghwe as the place from which the climate was controlled by a
terrible drought, which he had caused by collecting the 'roots of the sun' from deep inside the
earth. Our Katala-Wandala story points to Tala Wandala in Ghwa'a, which allegedly existed
before the formation of southern Dghweɗe, which led to what would later become known as
administrative Korana Basa. We also showed how we made a historical link backwards from
early colonial times, to the tail end of what we refer to as late pre-colonial times, by referring
to cartographic sources going back to the first decade of the 20th century.
The oral history accounts on the relationship with the Wandala refer more to the tribute and
slave raiding of that late pre-colonial period. Some of this can be underpinned by Denham's
visit to Mora in the early 19th century, shortly after the Wandala capital had been moved from
Doulo to Mora. The Dghweɗe watchman system, overlooking the intramountainous plain,
suggests that it might still have been Wandala from Kirawa, and not Mora, who controlled the
eastern Gwoza plain. However, the fact that tribute had to be taken to Mozogo, which belongs
to the plain of Koza on the Cameroon side, suggests that by then Mora was most likely in
charge of collecting tribute and not Kirawa. The fact that my Dghweɗe friends remembered
names of watchmen, and names of those who carried tribute, underpins this point.
During that period the Fulbe jihad had already taken place, and the old Borno empire had
increasingly lost power in the wider region. This is represented by the boundary between the
Fulbe of Madagali and the Wandala, near Disa in the western adjacent plain, to which our oral
protagonists were referring. At the same time, the eastern plain remained under Wandala
influence, and it seems that the Gwoza hills themselves were relatively free from slave raids,
even in that late period. This only changed during the Hamman Yaji raids from the German
colonial period onwards, a conflict that extended after World War One into the early British
mandateship period. We will learn in our next chapter how Hamman Yaji attacked from the
western plains. This terrifying period only ended with his arrest in August 1927, of which the
Dghweɗe have a legendary version, highlighting their oral historical ways of dealing with
outside attacks of that kind.
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