Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 142
opinion, the fact that they still used it qualifies it as a memory of the later pre-colonial period
of local history that was alive during my time.
The second chapter of Part Three concerns oral sources only, and we will present our
Dghweɗe friends from Korana Basa, in particular bulama Ngatha of Hudimche, and others,
who explain how in this case warfare and settlement issues are linked. We will show how,
within and between Korana Basa and Ghwa'a, some of the war alliances were formed along
the lines of locality and descent, and we then introduce the oral reports of the war between
Gudule and Vaghagaya. The latter became the most successful son of outsider MughuzeRuwa.
In Chapter 3.2 we also present local collective memories about warfare with the 'Matakam'
(Mafa) who were by far the largest neighbours of the Dghweɗe, however the discussion of the
rise of the Mughuze-Ruwa is the most important part of the oral-historic interpretation, and
will lead to various other related ethnographic contexts. One of them is the importance of
patrilineal descent in local group formation, labour-intensive terrace farming being another.
Two colonial sources
This section introduces the two earliest written sources to mention place names in Dghweɗe,
and includes some early demographic numbers. It is followed by another subsection that lists
the names of settlement units and the respective lineage names occupying those settlement
units. The combination of both will hopefully serve as a useful reference to other settlementrelated names and places mentioned in subsequent chapters.
We begin with the map by Max Moisel from 1912/13. Next we look at the list given to us by
British colonial officer Lewis in 1925. In his somewhat detailed 'tax schedule' he listed the
names of Dghweɗe settlement units for the first time. Next, we will compare Moisel’s and
Lewis’s place names with the Dghweɗe list of settlement units extracted from our 1994
survey, and discuss the importance of the place name 'Gharguze', before we move on to oral
sources concerning warfare and late pre-colonial settlement history.
Moisel's (1913) view of the Gwoza hills
Max Moisel produced a series of topographical maps, in the scale of 1:300,000, of the
'Deutsche Tschadeseeländer' (German Lake Chad countries). Like most of the others the map
showing the Gwoza hills was published in 1913, while the data had been collected by colonial
officers several years earlier. This happened ten years after Germany finally took possession
in 1902. Moisel had partially listed them in an article in 1905, which included a first draft of
the map. In the 1905 article Moisel describes the historical events leading up to the
'Besitzergreifung Nord-Adamauas', which is possibly best translated as 'Taking of possession
of northern Adamawa', of which we paraphrase in English the following summary:
With the arrival of German administration a restructuring of the country took place, and in this
context one needs to remember that this also meant that the old historical allegiances, for example
the allegiance between the Wandala with the king of Borno, and the one between the Fulbe and
the emir of Yola, were now finally severed. In 1903 the Governor of the German Cameroons
decreed that the extreme north would be divided into two residencies. The first was to be based in
Kousseri, referred to as 'Deutch-Bornu' (German Borno), and consisted of the sultanates of Dikwa,
Gulfei, Kusseri, and Mandara, as well as the Musgu and other so-called pagan tribes between
Chari and Logone. The second was 'Nord-Adamaua' (North Adamawa), with its so-called 'Fulbe
states', and from then on its administrative centre was Garoua. In 1904 the name 'Deutsch-Bornu'
was changed to 'Deutsche Tschadseeländer' (German Lake Chad Countries), and in 1905 these
were brought together into one residency. It had its capital in Garoua and was called 'AdamauaBornu' (Adamawa-Borno), and German troops to guard the extreme north were based in Garoua,
Dikwa, Kusseri, and Bongor (Moisel 1905:185).
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