Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 138
fragments of a pre-colonial past, which have been reshaped, not only in our action of
recording them, but also by our Dghweɗe friends to whom they were presumably passed by
their late pre-colonial forefathers.
One of the difficult chapters has been the presentation of Dghweɗe social relationship terms,
but I very much hope we have found a way to avoid confusion, by distinguishing between
classificatory lineal descent of local group ancestors and the genealogical descent of living
members of family groups from socio-economic base units. Avoiding theoretical discussion
about the history of kinship terms became somewhat problematic here, because issues such as
the complexities of descent theory and alliance theory are referred to only in footnotes. Our
main interest however is in exploring and interpreting our fragmentary Dghweɗe notes on
kinship terms, rather than highlighting aspects of universal kinship theory. We present kinship
terms linked to the paternal and maternal sides of patrilineal extended families, emphasising
the inclusiveness of these terms as part of the wider kindred connections created and
maintained by a network of marriage alliances across exogamous lines of descent. In this
context we favour the argument that the exogamous descent group structure was most likely
the result of the expansion of the Mughuze-Ruwa during late pre-colonial times.
We will complete Part Three with three further chapters, one being about decision making, in
which we discuss the concept of gidegal or gadghale, something which no longer existed
during my time. We mentioned before that Eustace (1939) wanted to use gidegal to establish
a self-governing council of elders, and we will illustrate how Reynolds (1954) also relied
heavily on British lineage theory in order to achieve this. We will show that gidegal or
gadghale was actually a system based on the increasing population number of expanding
lineal descent groups over locally more senior but smaller or shrinking clan groups. Gadghale
was a representation of the egalitarian structure of Dghweɗe social organisation, and the
elders who represented such majorities could not be transformed into chiefly councils. In the
same chapter we will also present divination as a key method of individual and collective
decision making, and show how this is linked to the Dghweɗe concept of divinity as part of
their cosmological view of the world.
There will also be a chapter on the Dghweɗe marriage system, including a method known as
‘marriage by capture’. This was once an acceptable way of finding a wife, but should not be
confused with the abduction of girls by Boko Haram. We will demonstrate that marriage by
capture was more an emergency measure, possibly linked to an environmental crisis that had
led to the breakdown of a system of marriage alliances between exogamous descent groups,
and that arranged marriages were the preferred way of marrying in Dghweɗe of the peaceful
past. Finally, we will present the ritual use of Cissus quadrangularies, known as vavanza in
Dghweɗe ritual culture. We have already referred to the importance of vavanza in the story of
the arrest of Hamman Yaji, and we will mention it frequently in subsequent chapters. In the
final chapter of Part Three we will show that the ritual use of Cissus quadrangularis also had a
political dimension linked to its ritual ownership. The religious/magical concept of skwe
(ritual treatment), and the Ɗagha peacemaker lineage being the most frequent owners of these
types of Cissus quadrangularis, underpins our theory of ritual density being an aspect of local
crisis management.
There will be no specific conclusion to Part Three, but instead an overall general conclusion
in which we will try to summarise how we think Dghweɗe culture might once have appeared,
and we will underline the importance of our Dghweɗe ethnography as source material for a
shared subregional history from the grassroots. Here we will refer to the Dghweɗe as an
example of montagnard terrace culture once found between the DGB complex and the
Wandala of Kirawa. We aim to achieve this by re-emphasising the role of the Gwoza hills as
an important piece of the ethnographic puzzle of the Mandara Mountains. We see this as a
valuable task, considering that the ethnography of the northern Mandara Mountains has so far
almost completely ignored the Gwoza hills for historical reasons, the primary cause of which
we identify to be the First World War and the subsequent division into French and British
colonial mandateships.
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