Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 171
Chapter
3.4
The Dghweɗe house of Mbra
Introduction
From the perspective of most of my Dghweɗe friends, Mbra is the mythical ancestor of the
Tur tradition and Dghweɗe is considered to be one of his 'sons'. This is the reason he is
referred to as Dghweɗe-Mbra. We learned in the previous chapter that Ngra is a synonym for
Mbra, meaning something like 'first man' or even 'black man', and is most likely derived from
the Hde word gra for friend and generic man. The word was also used in a derogatory way by
the Fulbe, who allegedly translated it as 'my naked friend', but it was most likely initially used
as 'Gra' by the Hide of Tur when referring to themselves. We adhere here to our Gvoko and
Kwalika sources, who considered Ngra to mean 'first man' who came from Tur, also speaking
of the Hide-Ngra, Gvoko-Ngra and Dghweɗe-Ngra. However, as pointed out above, most of
my Dghweɗe friends considered Mbra to be the name of a mythical ancestor from whom they
all descended. In that sense, we refer to Dghweɗe as one of his 'sons', and therefore as
Dghweɗe-Mbra. Dghweɗe popular tradition nevertheless seemed to vary as to whether or not
the legendary Mbra himself ever came to the Gwoza hills. There is one tradition that refers to
a place halfway up to Gvoko as 'Mbra's water'. Nearby here we find a ruin of a house which
Dghweɗe like to claim was once 'Mbra's house', which I chose as the title for this chapter.
Constructing a Dghweɗe lineage tree is not easy, because there are quite a few contradictions,
particularly at the upper end or maximal level. Here we use the term ‘lineage’ in a technical
way, by showing lines of descent from 'fathers', and in which we describe co-descendants as
'brothers' and descendants as 'sons', without implying that they had a biological relationship.
This means that someone might become a 'brother' ancestor by becoming integrated into the
Tur tradition, following the meaning of 'Ngra' as described. We have already seen this in the
context of our tree of Tur traditions across the Gwoza hills, where Wandala-Mbra appeared as
a 'brother' of Dghweɗe-Mbra. However, we will see that the lower and more diverted it gets in
our description of the Dghweɗe house of Mbra, the more genealogically specific the lines of
descent will become.
We begin by presenting a Dghweɗe lineage tree as a kind of a constructed compromise. We
start by critically reviewing Mathews' results on the Dghweɗe and point out his mistake about
Mughuze's position in relation to his 'father' Ruwa (Mughuze-Ruwa). We also present
explanations concerning Mughuze and Mbra, in which some of our local sources were
mistaken, and correct them in the light of the bigger picture assembled with help of some of
our main protagonists. We then discuss in a separate section how many 'brothers' Dghweɗe
had, and reiterate the highly metaphorical meaning of the use of the word 'brother' as a
reference to ancestors on the upper level of the Dghweɗe lineage tree. We also discuss the
genealogical position of 'Ngara' and wonder whether it is a repetition of 'Ngra', and we finally
decide to view him as 'father' of Thakara, the great Dghweɗe ancestor of Ghwa'a.
In the next chapter section we discuss the Mughuze-Ruwa of southern Dghweɗe, and the
Thakara of Ghwa'a, by going into greater detail concerning the oral histories linked to them,
in particular that of Vaghagaya as the most recent and most successful of Mughuze's 'sons'.
We continue to consult Mathews’ accounts about Mughuze's alleged link to Kwalika, and a
conflict he had with Hambagda, and Korana who was a 'son' of Vaghagaya, and not, as
Mathews claims, a 'son' of Mughuze. In the section on Vaghagaya, we tell the story of his
mother Dugh Viye, daughter of Hembe and first wife of Mughuze, describing how she was
accepted as Mughuze's first wife by her jealous co-wives. This led subsequently to
Vaghagaya's sons Kurana and Kandile becoming founders of what would later become
Korana Kwandama and Korana Basa, and also Hudimche in the case of his half-brother
Kandile.
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