Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 155
alliance to defend against the expansion of Vaghagaya. We see in the third scenario (3) that
there were more possible allegiances of smaller lineage groups with various underlying local
intricacies.
An example is that Hembe aided Kunde and Ghwa'a against Vaghagaya, despite Hembe being
the former patron and father-in-law of Mughuze. This is presumably explained by the fact that
the locality of Hembe belonged traditionally to Ghwa'a in northern Dghweɗe. The situation
becomes even more complicated when trying to understand why Hembe would fight Kunde if
the latter were at war with Gathaghure. Here again lineage lines kick in, because Gathaghure
was a descendant of Mughuze and as such was closer to Hembe. Kunde and Ghwa'a as well
as Taghdigile were descendants of Thakara (Figure 12d), and were traditionally opposed to
Mughuze-Ruwa (Figure 12 and 12c), but whenever Hembe or Gathaghure was attacked from
outside they formed a war alliance with Ghwa'a. Locality potentially overrode descent in this
case.
Our protagonists continued by saying that Tatsa usually did not fight at all, because it was
situated in the middle (Figure 8 lists Tatsa as being part of administrative Korana Basa). It
was explained that Tatsa was, in terms of local descent, from Ghwa’a (see Table 4 and
compare it with Figure 12d), but was geographically very close to Vaghagaya, and therefore
they did not fight at all. This exemplifies the problem of small settlement units between
northern and southern Dghweɗe, indicating a policy of neutrality. It suggests that we should
perhaps acknowledge that the war alliances relayed to us by our local sources were no older
than the inception of 'Vaghagaya' from pre-Korana times, expanding from Korana during the
late pre-colonial period by gradually replacing what was formerly also known as Gharguze. In
the context of this, the war between Gudule and Vaghagaya appears to represent the most
recent pre-colonial step of the expansion of the Mughuze-Ruwa.
The war between Gudule and Vaghagaya and/or Mughuze
Dghweɗe oral history informs us that Mughuze or Mughuze-Ruwa is the ancestor of the
majority of Dghweɗe of modern Korana Basa. His seventh-born son, Vaghagaya, is the
ancestor of the largest lineage in the whole of Dghweɗe, and they settle in three settlement
units, namely, Gharaza, Hudimche and Korana. They share a common shrine in Korana, but
there is no shrine for Mughuze. This is why we treat Vaghagaya as a special case here, and
refer to it as a place and not just a lineage. This is relevant in the context of the Vaghagaya
version of the war between Gudule and Vaghagaya, while the Hembe and Gudule version
cites all Mughuze descendants as main actors in that conflict. Nevertheless, the Gudule
version has many similarities with the Vaghagaya version, which is why we summarise both
narratives together for introductory reasons as follows:
Before the expansion of the descendants of Vaghagaya to Hudimche and Gharaza, the Gudule
lived in Gharaza. After three days of fighting, the Gudule could no longer withstand and decided
to quit altogether. While they were starting to leave for a place called Gudulyewe [which is the
Dghweɗe version of a Gudur tradition], Linga and Mangale [the two younger brothers of Zhiwe]
were called by the Mughuze/Vaghagaya to stay. Linga and Mangale agreed and they subsequently
settled in Gudule of today, while the rest left for Gudulyewe. From a certain local point in Gudule,
they beat the drums for their brothers in Gudulyewe, so they would know to start their bull
festival.
Mughuze was originally alone but was then taken in by Hembe, and later became the ancestor
of the most numerous lineage in Dghweɗe. We will hear more about the rise of Mughuze in
his role as local outsider in due course, but at this point we are only interested in the war
between the descendants of Mughuze and those of Gudule. According to the Hembe narrative
(1995), which we summarise next:
Gudule took Mughuze and turned him upside down only to plant him, head first, into the ground.
Hembe found Mughuze stuck upside down in the ground and pulled him out. From then on
Mughuze was secretly cutting grasses for Hembe, and eventually Hembe asked him to live with
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