Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 169
seen more as a common ancestor. Also, 'Johode' was used regularly, indicating that Ghwa'a
was indeed the early arrival zone of what would later be referred to as Dghweɗe. We are
therefore more or less certain that Ghwa'a started as a pre-Korana settlement from where
other migrants from Tur moved on, to later form the Chikiɗe and the Zelidva, and perhaps
even the Guduf. Whether there was a pre-Korana settlement called 'Tala Wandala', where
Kunde later formed, or whether there was intermarriage between the Wandala of Kirawa and
pre-Korana Dghweɗe, is much less certain.
We also tried to link the Tur tradition of the Dghweɗe and the Gwoza hills with the wider
subregion, by looking at the Ziver-Oupay massif and the heights of Tur as a topographic unit.
In the context of this, we considered the proximity of the DGB complex along the northern
slopes of the Oupay massif, overlooking or perhaps 'overseeing' the northwestern Mandara
Mountains as far as Kirawa. The eastern intramountainous plain between the Gwoza hills and
the Moskota hills might have once represented an important connection leading to the DGB
sites from Kirawa, although we have no more than circumstantial proof of such an ancient
link. One potential factor for such circumstantial evidence is the migratory traditions of the
wider subregion, which all point to strong south-to-north routes, in the context of which we
referred to the Tur heights as a migratory highway. 6
The Tur heights and the Ziver-Upay massif are embedded between an earlier western
migratory uphill tradition from the southern end of the Tur heights, and later immigration as
far as the top of the Ziver-Upay massif and the DGB area from the east. This led to the
Mafasation of many smaller groups there, and also to the integration of the Wula-Sakon as a
major earlier immigration originally from the west. Also, we identified the Godaliy tradition
as the only emigration from the DGB area into the Gwoza hills. This was seen as the last
group to have been ritually in charge of DGB1, being the most recent and largest site of the
whole DGB complex. The earlier uphill migration from the western plain onto the Tur heights
point to Margi and Lamang roots, both uphill and along its western foothills.
In terms of a temporal frame, we used our Table of Contemporaneity (Chapter 2.1) and
pointed to a palaeoclimatic contemporaneity between the very humid 17th century, not only
for the end of the DGB era, but also regarding the move of the Wandala capital from Kirawa
to Doulo. Besides this, we attempted to link our wider subregional migratory traditions with
that wet century, and suggested that the Godaliy tradition would have been most likely more
of that period, while we consider the formation of the Mughuze-Ruwa to be at a later point in
the same period, perhaps at the same time as the Wula-Sakon becoming Mafa. We showed
that the expansion of the Vaghagaya into what was previously known as Gharguze was
presumably the most recent oral memory event we recorded, a view supported by our Ghwa'a
protagonists who still referred to it that way.
We derived from the above scenario that the pre-Korana Dghweɗe speakers had their
headquarters in Ghwa'a and that Durghwe most likely already played a key role as a mountain
shrine during the earlier last arid period of the mid- to late 16th century (about AD 1550 to
~1600). We previously suggested that this period could be hypothetically linked to the 'Pagan
usurper' brother of Umar, perhaps revitalising the DGB area with a particular interest in the
impressive DGB1 site. Looking at our Table of Contemporaneity, we notice that the previous
hundred years, that is the period from 1475 to 1525, had been less arid, but there is no specific
migratory tradition from our oral sources which we could connect to that early period.
Still, assuming that the heights of Tur were an ancient migratory highway, we infer that
people moved along it at that time, perhaps even in both directions. We can also infer that
6
That the Mafa inhabitants of DGB15, as the highest DGB sites, connected themselves with the Tur
tradition, shows that we possibly need to include the heights of the Ziver-Upay massif as also
belonging to the Tur tradition. My Mafa notes (Muller-Kosack 1988) from the top of the Ziver massif
show similar Sakon traditions as in Nduval, but there were no DGB sites found on top of Ziver.
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