Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 153
Chapter 3.2
Warfare and settlement history
Introduction
There are no written records of how the Dghweɗe settlement units first came about, but there
are some interesting oral accounts on local warfare between the ancestors of Korana and the
descendants of Gudule, which give us some idea. This conflict marks the southern part of
Dghweɗe as having the most recent violent pre-colonial settlement history in comparison to
the northern part. We think it marks the tail end of the Tur tradition, and the tendency of
south-to-north migration sheds light on it. A prominent reason for the migration was
overpopulation and shortage of land, and we will see below that the same explanation is given
by our Dghweɗe friends, being the oral-historical reason for tribal warfare remembered in
southern Dghweɗe.
The two most important ancestors of Korana mentioned in the context of the war with the
descendants of Gudule, are Mughuze and Vaghagaya. This warfare culminated in the
descendants of Vaghagaya finally driving the Gudule out of Gharaza, which, it was alleged,
the decendants of Vaghagaya had occupied previously. There is a different version which
attributes the event to Mughuze, who is considered to be the lineage ancestor of Vaghagaya.
Interestingly, Mughuze started out as a local nobody, but both Mughuze and Vaghagaya
reproduced successfully. An outsider being at the very root of population increase is a
familiar theme, including other common motifs in the narrative, such as for example the
importance of the seventh-born child of a first wife.
We will learn more about that in following chapters, and concentrate here mainly on the war
between the Vaghagaya and/or Mughuze and the Gudule, which oral history claims to be the
founding event for what would later become modern Korana Basa. As mentioned, one reason
behind it was population pressure. In this context, bulama Ngatha (1995) from Hudimche said
to me: 'War was about lack of land because of a growing population'. I think bulama Ngatha
sums up here one of the main reasons for tribal warfare in Dghweɗe: shortage of land. The
same assertion was made by other oral historical protagonists.
Before we discuss the war between Gudule and Vaghagaya-Mughuze, we will look at the war
alliances I came across in Dghweɗe as a whole, and see what they tell us about Ghwa'a and
what would later become Korana Basa. I sometimes refer here to southern Dghweɗe as preKorana or Vaghagaya, and northern Dghweɗe as traditional Ghwa'a. These qualifiers indicate
that it is unclear exactly where the traditional boundaries between southern and northern
Dghweɗe once lay, so ‘pre-Korana’ means before the rise of the Vaghagaya, following the
oral-historical translation of southern Dghweɗe. We think that examining war alliances is a
good route to better understanding pre-colonial settlement history.
War alliances between northern and southern Dghweɗe
As mentioned, Ghwa’a and Korana are respectively the main settlement units representing the
traditional divide between northern and southern divisions of Dghweɗe. Their boundaries
changed over time along the patrilineal lines of their expansion, which have respective local
roots. This was the case with Korana as well as Ghwa'a, the latter being referred to as 'Johode'
in archival records, but in neither case was tribal warfare mentioned. 'Johode' appears in
colonial reports to be more engaged in rebellion against the emerging colonial power, rather
than the conflict being a feature of pre-colonial settlement history. Our oral sources on the
various war alliances across Dghweɗe point elsewhere when referring to the rise of the
'Vaghagaya' in southern Dghweɗe, the battle being a result of inter-tribal feuds.
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