Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 141
Chapter 3.1
Names and places
Introduction
This is intended as a transitional chapter between written and oral sources on the brink of the
late pre-colonial and early colonial period. At the same time it is the first chapter of Part
Three of our history in fragments from the grassroots, where we refer more or less exclusively
to our Dghweɗe notes. We have already used some of these in Part Two, to underpin the precolonial key sources that illustrate the pre-colonial embeddedness of the Gwoza hills as part
of a shared subregional past. In the context of this we differentiated between early and late
pre-colonial times, and demonstrated how the cyclical climate change allowed us to
hypothetically connect Ghwa'a to the 16th century, and Korana (which would later become
Korana Basa) to the 17th century.
We hypothesised that the Gwoza hills were, during the 16th century, connected not only by
regional trade to Kirawa, particularly in the area of iron production, but had also been inspired
by the DGB complex in terms of montagnard achievement. We connected this period with
early written sources on the emergence of Umar's brother as a 'pagan usurper', early regional
trade relations connected to iron, and the trans-Saharan trade of slaves against horses which
led to the development of a Wandala cavalry. We surmised that slave raiding along the
foothills and plains was perhaps the more viable way of capturing slaves, and that Ghwa'a
might have been a relatively safe place during this period.
With the removal of the Wandala capital from Kirawa to Doulo in the 17th century, the DGB
sites also lost their importance. We were able to connect the most likely end of the DGB
period with the equivalent humid period in our wider subregion. We not only mentioned the
Tur tradition and the formation of the Mafa within the DGB area, but also the formation of
what would later become Korana Basa. Climatic conditions further deteriorated during the
18th century, when the Wandala dynasty officially converted to Islam. This brought about the
Wandala Chronicles, the other oral historical source we used for comparison.
We discussed the epistemological implications of legendary accounts from the hills and plains
regarding Katala, and hinted at the structural difference in the role of outsiders as founders
between Dghweɗe legendary oral history accounts and those presented in the Chronicles. We
suggested that they presented no reliable chronological time frame, and will go on to discuss
the case of Mughuze-Ruwa as being an example of a montagnard outsider, in comparison to a
legendary noble one, as a founding father of the Wandala state.
We also showed in Part Two, how we connected place names from early colonial sources
with place names from oral sources. We hinted that this was how we would begin Part Three,
and work our way back in time. We will see how this leads us to the most recent oral history
on the foundation of Korana, which eventually became the most populous part of Dghweɗe.
Our Dghweɗe friends referred to population pressure, leading to an inner tribal conflict,
which changed the settlement structure of southern Dghweɗe during late pre-colonial times.
In the context of this, the place name 'Gharguze' keeps popping up, as we have already
referred to it several times, and we dedicate some space in this chapter to the history of the
name.
Because the place name 'Gharguze' appears in oral history as well as in our earliest colonial
cartographic source, it is the key name to hint at the former settlement structure of southern
Dghweɗe before the formation of Korana. We already noted, from the earlier presentation of
the legendary account of the arrest of Hamman Yaji, that our local Ghwa'a protagonists still
used 'Gharguze' when referring to that historical area of administrative Korana Basa. In our
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