Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 105
colonial control. However, the French held this control only as a bargaining chip, until the
Treaty of Versailles decreed that the Gwoza hills and Madagali would become British. This
came into effect in 1922, but the British had started already exploring the Gwoza hills before
that, from at least 1920 onwards.
Because the Germans had already handed the control over the mountain population to
Hamman Yaji in 1902, we presume that the British continued to rely on him in that respect
until the First World War created a new situation. The question arises how Dghweɗe up in the
hills perceived this change. Some of the answers are given by their oral history. We will learn
below that the Dghweɗe had a very clear view of the division of their tribal land into a
northern and a southern part. After Hamman Yaji had not only raided Korana Basa but also
Ghwa'a, they felt a great sense of injustice, because the people of Ghwa'a perceived
themselves to be traditionally under Wandala. They might not have understood the
geopolitical implications of the Great War, but they presumably felt that they had to act in
tune with their cultural traditions, which implied that Ghwa'a was a central place, as it was for
the other affected groups as far south as Tur.
The Germans made at least one excursion up into the Dghweɗe area, according to Moisel's
map (ibid) by Stephani in October 1903 (see Figure 7a), but his report could not be traced.
Luckily there is an indirect confirmation of it in the British colonial records. German rule in
Adamawa was, after the killing of one of their residents in 1904, very much a mixture of a
more or less heavy-handed military presence combined with some indirect rule, for which
Hamman Yaji was one of their most reliable allies. A tax or land reform was not proposed
before 1913 and was therefore never implemented due to the First World War. German
military excursions only happened along the trade routes in the plains, while Hamman Yaji
controlled the 'peace' in the hills.
Hostilities between German and allied British and French troops had already begun in 1914,
but it took almost two years for Germany to surrender. Before that, and presumably even
more during that period and at least until 1920, Hamman Yaji ranged freely in the area.
Whereas before he was carrying out raids to pay his annual tribute to the Germans (he started
to document his raids in the hills from 1912 onwards), he could now relinquish any such
responsibilities and 'hunt' only for himself. He was in possession of guns, which gave him
great physical superiority. Unfortunately the diary he kept (Vaughan and Kirk Greene 1995)
does not give direct evidence of any raids in Dghweɗe itself, but our Dghweɗe oral accounts
presented below show clearly that such raids did take place, although we do not have an exact
date for them.
Readjustments under British Mandateship
The first official British report on the inhabitants of the Gwoza hills was by captain P.E.
Lewis in 1925. Lewis was an assistant district officer based in Dikwa, under whose colonial
administrative auspices the Gwoza hills had now come. As already mentioned, there had been
a brief French colonial interim rule of the Gwoza hills which ended 1920, shortly after the
Treaty of Versailles, but no records say that the French ever made it up there. Lewis and his
colleague, Featherstone, went there from 1921 onwards. One of Lewis's main purposes was to
explore the willingness and ability of the montagnards to pay taxes. He produced the first list
of local officials that represented indirect British rule in each of the villages belonging to what
he calls 'Gwoza and Ashigashiya', which were then the two main districts covering the Gwoza
hills administrative area (see Table 3).
Archival sources inform us that in the early days when Gwoza was taking shape, there was
quite some opposition from the villages and groups on and around the Zelidva spur, who were
not happy coming under Gwoza. This led in 1924 to the 'Raid of Gwoza', which Lewis reports
on the 1st of September. In his mind, the raid was most likely launched from 'Guduf North'.
He further tells us that what should later become Gwoza town, then only consisted of seventy
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