Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 134
more predictable Wandala. The reciting of the oral narrative of Hamman Yaji’s arrest can
perhaps be interpreted as a piece of Dghweɗe oral literature, designed to digest the sudden
shock of such a disempowering intrusion, which was after all the result of a colonial
instability caused by World War One.
Throughout colonial times we can see the attempt of British indirect rule to foster the rather
romantic hope of the hill population welcoming self-governance, at the same time as being
convinced to pay taxes. However, even though the Dghweɗe had experience of tribute
arrangements, they would not accept taxation just like that. We learned from the late precolonial history that the Wandala had to regularly reinforce their tribute arrangements with
threats of raids. This was not the same as the system of self-governance proposed by British
indirect rule, which assumed that the Dghweɗe would volunteer to pay taxes, which of course
was not part of their cultural vocabulary.
The well-meaning British touring officers eventually had to resign their hope, and Eustace's
report shows that British officials had reached a point where they simply rejected the
Dghweɗe as being backward and uncooperative. However, the newly emerging local Muslim
elites in Gwoza 'knew' better, but as we have seen in the context of the killing of lawan Buba,
the people of Ghwa'a would not allow themselves to be forced downhill by intimidating
methods. When lawan Buba and his entourage intentionally violated their cultural dignity
during a key ritual of local belonging, they felt that they had to actively defend their identity
as montagnards. In the context of this, they also rejected their messengers (chimas) and ward
heads (bulamas) as representatives of a cultural invasion from the plains, of whom they could
not approve. The result was still increasing cultural stigmatisation, which might in the long
term have made them feel like losers. This was perhaps one of the reasons why some younger
Dghweɗe were vulnerable to allowing radical Islam into the hills.
We also presented the process of Christianity, and how the different missionary organisations
used different methods to spread the gospel. One of them was medical support, which led to
the foundation of the Gwoza hospital by Mr and Mrs Chandler. Because the Gwoza hills had
a long history of being an Unsettled District, missionary activities could not access the hills
before independence. We subsequently described the process of independence by briefly
describing the political circumstances of the two plebiscites, of which the first one had voted
to stay under British rule. Only the second one led to the people of the Gwoza hills voting to
officially become part of the Republic of Nigeria in June 1961. We also highlighted again
how Boko Haram took over the hills, and how easy it is to blame the Dghweɗe for that, but
assertively pointed out that they were and still are the survivors of a long-standing history of
cultural and geographical marginalisation going back to early colonial times.
We have now reached the end of Part Two, where prehistorical and historical key sources
played an important role in drawing a picture of a pre-colonial and colonial background
scenario of a shared subregional past. We frequently referred to Part Three as the
ethnographic centerpiece of this book. We regularly pointed to chapters we would later
present in Part Three, such as the chapter: 'Names and places', the one on the Tur tradition,
and the one about the architecture of the traditional house and its role as a ritual place. We
mentioned the chapter: 'Outsiders as founders', and the one explaining Durghwe as an
important mountain shrine, and the ritual importance of adult initiation for ongoing socioeconomic success during the late pre-colonial period. Cyclical climate emergencies and
sustainable strategies of crisis management as part of the material and immaterial cultural
history of the Dghweɗe is a key theme throughout Part Three, especially considering that their
mountainous environment reached so deeply into the northern semi-arid plains only about
150km south of Lake Chad.
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