Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 147
existed in one form or another during the late DGB period, while Korana most likely only
formed after the DGB period had ended. There is of course only circumstantial proof for this,
but all our oral sources confirm that Ghwa'a was a pre-Korana central place.
All the other settlement units, except perhaps Taghadigile, are today part of administrative
Korana Basa, but we see in Table 3 to the left that Lewis lists them all more or less as
separate units. He points out that 'Haraza' (Gharaza), 'Kudumsa' (Hudimche), and 'Gudule'
follow in their customs the lead of 'Korane' (Kurana). This statement tells us that 'Korane',
which are Korana Basa and Korana Kwandama, were considered as somehow influential in
traditional terms. We will learn, from our oral accounts on local warfare further below, how
the descendants of Vaghagaya most likely expanded from Korana to replace the older
settlement of 'Gharghuze' during late pre-colonial times. 'Kolika' (Kwalika) is treated by
Lewis as being a separate unit concerning customs, while 'Tagadigile' (Thaghadigile) follows
the lead of 'Tokoshe', and he also points out that they are geographically together.
If we refer back to my survey of 1994 (Figures 3 and 8), we see that the then administrative
settlement structure of Dghweɗe shows Taghadigile as being part of Ghwa’a, while Takweshe
belongs to Korana Basa. Using modern Korana Basa as a base, and calculating Lewis's
estimates of 1925, we arrive at 827 houses altogether, in which 'Kolika' (Kwalika) has by far
the highest number of houses of all the settlement units of administrative Korana Basa.
If we now add Taghadigile to Ghwa’a, we have 540 plus the 827 houses of Korana Basa,
which totals 1367 houses paying taxes throughout all of Dghweɗe in 1925, apart from the
bulamas and other local 'chiefs'. If we now take an average of five individuals per house, we
arrive at a population number of 6835, which is significantly lower in comparison to our
estimate of about 20,000 in Dghweɗe of 1996 (Table 1). If we now calculate a 3% annual
increase over 70 years, we arrive at almost 22,000, which is a rough match to the above
estimate. In terms of the number of houses, this would have meant about 4000 houses in the
mid-1990s, and suggests that 2633 new houses were built in the 70 years previously in the
whole of Dghweɗe.
Of course, none of the above takes into account the increasing downhill migration, and
perhaps calculating six individuals per household would have been more realistic. What
remains interesting is that we can indirectly conclude from Lewis that in 1925 administrative
Korana Basa counted the majority of houses in comparison to Ghwa'a. We will return to that
later when we discuss the concept of majority known as gidegal, in our chapter on traditional
modes of Dghweɗe decision making. We remember that Eustace mentioned this in 1939 as a
type of pseudo-chiefly institution, which he liked to describe as 'clan councils'.
The above population numbers are of course highly speculative, but not entirely unrealistic,
since Lewis already pointed out in his example of 'Johode' that the bulamas tended to give the
lowest possible estimates in order to reduce the tax burden. What we can conclude with
certainty is that taxation started to be introduced in the hills in around 1925, and it was
something to which the montagnards were not accustomed. They had paid tribute to Wandala
for an unknown period, lasting most likely into the later pre-colonial times, but that system
had not been consistent and had needed to be enforced whenever it lapsed. Now they were to
learn to pay tax of their own free will, which they might have seen as an infringement of their
much-loved independence as terrace-farming montagnards.
Concerning the customs lists, we cannot expect too much. It was a tradition among British
colonial officers to list burial customs, which is something we also see in later British colonial
reports on the Gwoza hills. This trend was inspired by a diffusionist tradition in anthropology,
as is apparent in Meek's (1931) ethnographic studies of the region. Unfortunately we do not
have much data on the burial customs of the Dghweɗe with which to compare the surely
valuable data the colonial officers routinely collected on the subject.
The mention of methods of proclamation is presumably associated with exploring systems of
traditional law, since the British not only introduced taxation but also courts of law. Later, we
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