Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 150
people' once settled there, together with the 'Magarha' (a Margi clan who left) and the 'Fta
Kra' (a former Dghweɗe clan who left for Zelidva), before the 'Vaghagaya' rose to power.
Also, other local sources referred to the settlement units of Korana, Hudimche and Gharaza as
'Gharguze', but our friends from Ghwa'a in particular used the name 'Gharguze' as a synonym
for 'Vaghagaya', being a reference to that central part of administrative Korana Basa
(Dghweɗe notes 1995 and 2001).
We learn in Chapter 3.4 how the descendants of Vaghagaya increased during the late precolonial period. This led to the Goze people leaving for what would later develop into Gwoza
town, subsequently becoming the administrative centre of the Gwoza LGA. Our oral sources
from Gwoza Wakane explained to us in 1994 that two brothers called Dgho and Kdazuwal
had first come from Gharguze to settle to the immediate south of the Gwoza foothill. After
Dogho died, Lughdho his son moved to the western part of the Gada-Mayo village nearby,
however the name Gwoza Wakane was a recent development as there had allegedly once
been a bulama by the name Wakane.
It is difficult to establish how long ago the 'Goze people' settled in what would become
Gwoza. We were told by our oral sources in Gwoza Wakane that it was during pre-colonial
times, and that they still had a place in Korana Basa to perform sacrifice but had stopped
doing so some time ago. Interestingly, they did not claim to have been part of the Tur
tradition, and could not give the name of their original ancestor from Gharguze. However,
they did have an associated lineage consisting of two brothers from Margi Mulgwe, one of
whom was sold into slavery and the other one adopted because he impregnated the daughter
of Dogho's son Lughdh. This story reminds us of the outsider Mughuze who impregnated
Hembe's daughter and then became the father of Vaghagaya, which we will learn more about
in subsequent chapters.
Most of my Dghweɗe sources who used 'Gharguze' as a reference to that central part of
administrative Korana Basa were aged around 80 or older in the mid-1990s. This suggests
that they had most likely heard it from their parents and grandparents who had lived through
the late pre-colonial and early colonial transition period. We can therefore safely assume that
'Gharguze' existed as a place during pre-Korana times, and survived orally as well as in
written sources. This view is supported by the fact that Zimmermann (1906) mentions 'Goso',
Moisel (1912) lists 'Hirguse', and by oral evidence from Gwoza Wakane, an early part of
Gwoza, which was founded by two brothers from 'Gharguze'.
Conclusion
In this transitional chapter we connected written sources from early colonial times and oral
sources from Dghweɗe and Gwoza to show that there was once a settlement area in southern
Dghweɗe known as Gharguze. We pointed out that our older local protagonists from Ghwa'a
in northern Dghweɗe still used this traditional reference, while it seems that our oral sources
from what had long been known as Korana (consisting of Korana Basa and Korana
Kwandame) did not. We were also able to establish that Ghwa'a was the older part of
Dghweɗe while Korana, or Korana Basa, was presumably a late pre-colonial development,
and we hinted that it most likely developed in the context of the Tur tradition as the latest
south-to-north migration which we linked to the period of the very wet 17th century. We
connected that period with the end of the DGB period, and with the moving of Kirawa to
Doulo and later to Mora as the centre of Wandala rule.
We are struggling to find a suitable place name for southern Dghweɗe in what we call the preKorana period, as the expansion of the Vaghagaya lineage changed the traditional settlement
structure of what would become administrative Korana Basa. It is much easier regarding
Ghwa'a, which was often referred to as 'Johode', and sometimes this appears to have been
used as a reference to the whole of Dghweɗe and not just Ghwa'a. However, the next chapters
will show that Ghwa'a and Johode are more or less identical, because in 1934 Mathews refers
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