Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 161
that they all derived their ancestry from a mythical 'first man' from Tur. In a way, this view
puts a greater emphasis on a shared geographical ancestry across the heights of Tur into the
Gwoza hills, which also included the Wandala.
There is another version for Ngra, which I collected during a hiking tour across the heights of
Tur in 1996. A local man wearing a typical Tur leather cap explained to me while working in
his fields that he was 'Hide-Ngra', and that Ngra meant 'black man' in the sense of racial
origin, and that it had nothing to do with where they came from. 2 Our Hide friend pointed out
that what they all had in common was that they originated from 'Ghwa Gulo', which is mount
Gulak (see Figure 4). He said that they were in terms of ethnicity closer to the Gvoko, but in
terms of language closer to Lamang speakers. We will not go any deeper into that here, but
will briefly return to the role of mount Gulak and possible early connections with the Margi
of the plain of Gwoza (west of Disa), in the next chapter section.
Our tree of Tur traditions across the Gwoza hills lists Ngara and Ghweshe as link ancestors
descending from Dghweɗe. We will see in the next chapter that we have moved Ngara to
become the link ancestor between Dghweɗe and Thakara, while Ruwa appears as the 'father'
of Mughuze, although we know that Mughuze began as an outsider. Ghweshe most likely left
from Ghwa'a before the Mughuze-Ruwa grew into a dominant lineage. We know that
Ghweshe too was an outsider in what would eventually become the Zelidva. It was Ghweshe's
son Zadva who maintained Dghweɗe as a ritual language in Zelidva, a custom which survived
into modern times (Muller-Kosack 1994:53,76f). However, we know that today the Zelidva
speak either Lamang, Wandala or Glavda, and not Dghweɗe. We have also mentioned Fte
Kra as someone who moved from former Gharghuze to settle in Zelidva. Our Tur tradition
group tree also includes the Wandala, who, as we have already mentioned, were believed to
have once lived in what would later become Kunde.
We will learn, in the next chapter about the Dghweɗe house of Mbra, how Tasa appears as codescending founding ancestor to Dghweɗe, and that he might have been included in the Tur
tradition afterwards. This is of course only my view, but that possibility will be demonstrated
later for Gudule in a hypothetical case scenario. We have already seen in the previous chapter
how they might have become incorporated into the Tur tradition by means of inner tribal
warfare. The expansion of the Mughuze-Ruwa indeed suggests that the local increase in
number involved the incorporation of the previously more numerous but now defeated
Gudule. If we follow Mathews (ibid), the same might have also applied to Hembe.
The fact that Mughuze himself was adopted, and as such was an outsider, suggests that the
Tur tradition had a very strong uniting function and should not be taken too literally in
genealogical terms. As a shared tradition of origin from the south, it might have had more of
an identity regarding social function, in the sense of belonging rather than descent from the
same ancestor in Tur. From such a perspective, Mbra as the mythical ancestor and image of
'first man' as in Ngra, connects the tradition of a common origin from Tur, not only as a place
but also as a migratory direction. The latter also points to the topography of the landscape in
question, in which the Tur heights can potentially be seen as a migratory highway along
which local group formation took place along the way.
If we look at the northern Mandara Mountains as a whole, we realise they are much more
difficult to access from the west than from the eastern mountain range. In the east, they
This translation of Ngra reminds me of the ethnic synonym 'Gra' for the people of Tur (MullerKosack, fieldnotes 1987). I subsequently found that the word 'Gra' means 'friend', and generic 'man' in
Hde (Eguchi 1971:204). Eguchi (ibid:195) adds in a footnote that the Fulbe used the word gra to refer
to the Hide as their 'naked friends', presumably because they thought gra meant 'child from the same
stomach' in Hide. This sounds a bit confusing but it seems that the Fulbe used the word 'Gra' as a
reference to the populations of the Tur heights in a derogatory way because they did not dress in the
same way as they did. Our friends from Gvoko and Kwalika made no reference to the Fulbe use of the
word but only said that Ngra as 'first man' was a syonym of Mbra.
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