Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 112
time oblivious of any such hidden agenda coming from the new Muslim elite whom they had
established as indirect rulers in Gwoza town.
The issue of 'Pagan Reorganisation'
The issue of 'Pagan Reorganisation' was an ongoing administrative challenge for the British.
The fear of political discrimination prompted them to allocate touring officers, and the plan
was that they would mediate between newly created 'tribal councils' in the hills and the
district head at Gwoza town. At the same time, a chima or 'messenger' was supposed to
function as liaison officer between the bulama in the hills and the district head. Unfortunately,
the idea did not work very well in reality, and the hope remained that downhill migration and
conversion to Islam would eventually resolve the problem. For example, a memorandum from
1936 6 calls for the abolishment of the position of chima altogether, since the 'village heads
and elders of Johode' allegedly had not the slightest idea of some of the most elementary
principles of tax collection, indicating that they left this task to the chima. Also, the taxes
raised and the expenditure needed to cater for the 'special needs' of the montagnards did not
add up. It included the cost of a permanently allocated British touring officer (Eustace, ibid).
The longer term idea of establishing 'tribal councils' was also dropped, since it was soon
realised that it was not something which could be achieved, as the hill population would not
engage in administration.
Eustace (ibid) provides us with population figures in 1937 for the newly amalgamated Gwoza
and Ashigashiya districts, with Yerima Yato in Gwoza now being the only district head:
Hill Pagans. 54,837 - 88%
Plain Pagans. 2,341 - 3.8%
Muslims. 4,928 - 8.2%
It is difficult to judge how realistic these figures are, but they do give us some impression of
the situation at the time, with a proportionately very high percentage of 'Hill Pagans' in
comparison to the 'Muslims', whom we infer lived mainly in the plain, presumably by then
most of them in Gwoza and also in Kirawa and Ashigashiya. Also, Eustace’s tone of
engagement changes, as unlike Mathews or MacFarlane before him, he characterises the
montagnards in rather derogatory terms (ibid):
The people are hill pagans, naked and uncircumcised, they are extremely backward and primitive.
Untouched by Christianity, they remain unaffected by Islam, which has made no progress among
them. Being incompatible with their mode of life - uncivilised and unashamed existence - its
practice is not allowed in their communities. Pagans who have left the hills to see the world or
obtain employment must, if they wish to return and live at home, discard their clothes and revert
to paganism, acknowledging the sanctions and obligations of their clan.
Eustace finally presents a 'plan for the future' based on the conclusion that the 'Hill Pagans'
were not able to self-administrate: in place of 'Tribal Councils' he proposes a 'Hill Pagan
Advisory Council', relying mainly on developing a local elite via education, plus a 'Clan
Council' based on a traditional institution known in Dghweɗe as gidegal. We will discuss the
institution of gidegal later in a separate chapter of Part Three, but as it turns out, Eustace's
idea of the 'Gidegal' was that of a pseudo-chiefly institution, while it was, according to our
Dghweɗe oral sources, a kind of a majority based egalitarian institution of lineage elders,
which had no chiefly functions whatsoever.
It seems that the plan to include the hill populations in the decision-making process of the
administration of the district never really took off successfully. There were no traditional
chiefly structures, not even on the level of clan leadership, which could have been used for
'Pagan self-government' in the British sense, and the bulamas (ward heads) remained the main
administrative interface between Gwoza and the hill population. That this is a fair assessment
6
See Kaduna National Archives, reference: MaidProv-1035D
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