Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 167
That Mathews fails to identify 'Fitire' as Tur becomes obvious where he mentions 'Fitire' in
relation to the Chikiɗe and Chinene, by saying that: 'Werere' [Rire], who was 'being forced to
leave there [Fitire] owing to over-population ... They accompanied the Johode people and left
them at Johode, where there was not room for both, and under the leadership of one Tetire
[Itire] settled on the two Chikide hills.' Mathews’ take from the oral tradition relayed to him
in the mid-1930s was that not only the Chikiɗe but also the Chinene left the 'Johode'
(Dghweɗe) behind. This means that they migrated together from Tur to Ghwa'a, and then left
the 'Johode', but moving on only next door, so to speak!
Here I am not going into all the different oral narratives of how and why the various groups
who came from Tur moved or settled, but only want to illustrate that Mathews takes the view
that after Tur, Ghwa'a was a transitionary station for migrants to arrive and separate again
further north into the Gwoza hills. We wonder how its role as an early arrival zone
contributed to Durghwe becoming a major interethnic mountain shrine. Although Mathews
does not refer to Durghwe, we know that Ghwa'a means mountain in Dghweɗe, and Durghwe
possibly already played a role as an important rain shrine during the dry 16th century,
especially considering that it was the most northerly one in our subregion. We infer that
during that time, southern Dghweɗe was still a pre-Korana place, something which only
changed with the rise of the Mughuze-Ruwa during the much wetter 17th century.
Figure 11 below aims to give an informed geographical picture of what was to become
Dghweɗe might have looked like, with Mathews' 'Johode' as an early arrival zone. Here we
apply our artificial distinction between southern and northern Dghweɗe, and the first thing we
see is that Gharguze is where Korana will eventually emerge, while Gudule is perhaps where
Hudimche will appear. Our assumptions are certainly extremely vague in terms of the
geographical placement of potential settlement areas. We see Mathews' 'Johode' is the same as
Ghwa'a, while Tala Wandala is where Kunde will eventually come about. What we marked as
'Johode' or Ghwa'a in Figure 11, will mark the area we describe in an oral-history sense as the
core of northern Dghweɗe. We see that Irira is at this time still in what will later become
Ghwa'a, but Irira will eventually move on to where the hill part of Chikiɗe is found today. We
have not marked Durghwe separately from 'Johode' or Ghwa'a, but must consider it as a ritual
key element of 'Johode' as Mathew's early arrival zone.
Figure 11: Northern Dghweɗe as early arrival zone and connections within the Gwoza hills
We do not know whether Tala Wandala really existed as a pre-colonial settlement, and
whether it was there before the formation of the Chikiɗe. We remember the legend of KatalaWandala of the hills, and how her montagnard husband had found the 'roots of the sun' from
deep inside the earth, and how he also controlled Durghwe as an important rain shrine,
eventually leading the Wandala no other choice than to leave for Kirawa, because they could
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