Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 148
will refer to the issue of proclaiming innocence in the context of sorcery accusations, in the
chapter on the Dghweɗe concept of existential personhood, where we attempt to portray the
belief in sorcery as an integrated part of traditional personhood.
There is one custom reported by Lewis which relates to the Dghweɗe pre-colonial tradition of
infanticide of the eighth-born child. Lewis’s report triggered a discussion among the British
officials, and subsequently adoption was introduced to prevent the eighth born being cast out
or even killed. We discuss this in Chapter 3.18, by contrasting it with the significance of the
seventh born who represented good luck. We already know that the seventh-born son
(thaghaya) represents a key concept of Dghweɗe culture.
List of names and places according to 1994 settlement survey and oral history
Table 4 below lists all settlement units and lineage names I have identified in Dghweɗe
during my fieldwork, apart from the resettlement areas. The administrative allocation of
settlement units, as I identified them as part of my survey of 1994, are used. The list is
important in geographically identifying related place and lineage names in following chapters,
and should be read together with the map presented in Figure 8 underneath.
Table 4: List of Dghweɗe settlement units and lineage names
Administrative
Korana Basa
Administrative
Ghwa'a
Main Units
Sub-Units
Lineage names
Ghwa'a
Ngaladewe
Washile
Btha
Kunde
Leshe
(Washile)
Gajiwe
(Washile)
Fakuwe
(Washile)
Hembe
Ghwire
Baza
Gathaghure
Balngada
Ghweske
Taghadigile
Washile
Korana
Basa
Kwachive
Korana
Kwandama
Karpa
Dagwama
Takweshe
Wudza
Ɗagha
Ghardime
Tatsa
Ngaladewe
Hudimche
Kandile
Lala
Kadzgwara
Gharaza
Ghuna
Wuzawa
Ɗagha
Gudule
Zhiwe
Linga
Mangala
Kwalika
Nagaladewe
Dugh Keme
and Ghadala
Kem Gula
(have left)
Kuɗume
Nighine
Yazigila
Gaske
Kadzgwara
(Ɗagha)
The lineage names listed in Table 4 are probably not complete, but they reappear again in the
Dghweɗe lineage tree presented in Chapter 3.4: 'The Dghweɗe house of Mbra' (see Figure
12). This will allow us to connect the geographical distribution of lineages by also identifying
the location of settlement units as presented in Figure 8 and Table 4. This is important for a
better understanding of the oral geography of former war alliances (see Figure 8a), as it is also
for many of our ritually and spatially relevant ethnographic data throughout Part Three.
Figure 8 also shows the village wards of administrative Korana Basa which once formed
'Gharguze', and which later became also known as 'Vaghagaya' (see the key to Figure 8).
We note that the boundaries of the modern Dghweɗe ward structure of 1994, shown in Figure
8, not only display the village boundaries between Korana Basa and Ghwa'a, but also the
district boundary with Chikiɗe of the time. The latter belonged to Ashigashiya district, while
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