Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 165
Finally, we want to mention the circular arrow distribution around mount Kirawa, showing
the Wandala tradition coming in from the northwest to Kirawa, indicating Ishga Kawe (Figure
1) as their place of origin, at least according to the Wandala Chronicles. There is another
arrow going in both directions into the eastern intramountainous plain, towards the DGB area
and back. This acknowledges that the Wandala were also part of the Tur tradition, as our
Dghweɗe friends of Ghwa'a relayed to us. We see further that the Wandala of Kirawa spread
their influence around the eastern and western parts of the Gwoza hills, as well as to the
northeastern part of the Mandara Mountains.
The significance of the Godaliy tradition
The Tur tradition is not the only south-to-north migratory tradition into the Gwoza hills, as
there is also the Godaliy tradition from the northern end of the DGB area. We see, in Figure
10, that it points towards the Gwoza hills and the Dghweɗe, but we do not know the stations
of its migratory path. We know that the only other evidence for the word Godaliy being
applied as an ethnonym for the Dghweɗe is from the Vreke clan of the Moskota hills (Figure
4). The Vreke claim to have intermarried with the Godaliy in the past. We discuss the ritual
role of the Mafa chief of Vreke (biy Vreke = great Vreke) in the bull festival chapter further
on. We will show how the biy Vreke started the harvest festival for the Mafa and also for
some groups of the Gwoza hills area, in particular the Glavda, but not for the Dghweɗe. This
raises the question of whether Godaliy was more of a general ethnic toponym used for all
montagnard groups of the Gwoza hills. As far as we could establish, the Dghweɗe themselves
were not familiar with the Godaliy tradition of the Mafa.
The etymology of Godaliy can only be a matter of speculation, but my best bet is that it is a
transformation from the Fulani word gaadal for Cissus quadrangularis (Blench 2020), which
plays a huge role in the ritual culture of all groups in and around the Gwoza hills. The Fulani
word gaadal is also very close to the Fulani word godali for Urginea maritima (ibid), which
also had ritual uses in Dghweɗe. We describe both plants in greater detail in various contexts
later, and learn that they could also be mixed as medicine to ritually enhance the growth of
crops (Plate 20a). In particular, Cissus quadrangularis was used in Dghweɗe by the specialist
peacemaker lineages, and we remember that Vaima swallowed a powerful variety of vavanza
(Cissus quadrangularis) before leading a montagnard delegation to Maiduguri in the 1920s, as
described in Chapter 2.2.
The earliest mention of the above is as 'gadali' by Mathews in 1934, where he names the
Amuda in the eastern plain, and also the Hiɗkala clans at the western foothills as important
ritual owners of the plant. Mathews might not always refer to Cissus quadrangularis, but
sometimes to Urginea maritima, but translates gadali incorrectly as 'cactus'. He was not aware
that the word might have a Fulani root. Therefore it is possible that the Mafa adopted the
word from the Fulani as an ethnic toponym, and applied it to the people of the Gwoza hills
who were known for their highly developed ritual use of Cissus quadrangularis.
This view is also indirectly confirmed by another example, in which a Fulani word
presumably led to the ethnonym Glavda. 5 We will list and discuss many of the ritual varieties
of Cissus quadrangularis in Chapter 3.23, but explore its role as popular clan medicine in
chapters leading up to that. For example, Mathews (ibid) claimed that the outsider founder
Mughuze received a powerful version of it from one of the Hambagda clans (Chapter 3.4).
In 2003, when I collected evidence of the Godaliy tradition in the DGB area, I was told that
they had left the DGB area before the Mafa arrived, and that they were considered to be the
It is interesting to note that the ethnic name Glavda can be derived from the Fulani word ghavda for
Ficus platyphylla (Blench 2020). Ficus platyphylla, Ganji tree in Hausa, plays an important role in the
tradition of origin of the Glavda (Muller-Kosack 1994), and can be referred to as their identity tree, as
their local ancestor lived under a Ganji tree, which served him and his wife as shelter after their arrival
near Gava (see Figure 3), at a foothill of the intramountainous eastern plain of today’s Gwoza LGA.
5
163
