Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 182
any Kem Gula left in Kwalika. Unfortunately, our friend was alone with us, and without a
local audience to inspire controversy. It was also important for him to emphasise the
importance of past tribal warfare, and he brought out his warrior gear in which to pose for us.
To reiterate, the Vaghagaya descendants were known to be the most numerous, and they
spread out from Korana by battling it out among themselves, and, if we follow Mathews’
report, they also drove out the Gudule. We learned that the Nagaladiwe-Mughuze lineage was
found in Kwalika, while the Wudza-Mughuze lineage was in Takweshe. In Gathagure we
found the Balngada, Ghweske and Kuɗume lineages, who were also 'sons' of Mughuze, at
least this was what we were told by the majority of our sources. We are aware that this is
largely consistent with Mathews (1934), who also allocated the 'Ghweshe' (Ghweske) to
'Galtaure' (Gathagure), and the 'Ngelediwe' (Nagaladewe) to 'Kolika' (Kwalika), as well as all
the 'Vargei' (Vaghagaya) lineages to the places we have already identified.
We will now introduce our readers to Chika Khutsa's version of the origin of the Ɗagha
Kwadzgara lineage. We referred to them as specialist healer lineage, distinct from the Ɗagha
peacemaker lineage. Chika Khutsa’s oral version of their outsider origin as a lineage of
Kwalika has similarities with the Mughuze and 'Hambagda' story mentioned by Mathews.
However, this time the story was linked to the Kem Gula:
The Ɗagha are originally from Mulgwe and they came to settle in Hambagda. When they settled
in Hambagda they were called Kashgwa. When the Ɗagha people increased in number, they
started to sell each other into slavery. There was a small boy who ran away uphill from that and
was hiding in Kwalika. There he fed the animals of Kem Gula with grass while Kem Gula and his
family were working on the farm. Finally, Kem Gula discovered him and adopted him. Later this
boy made Kem Gula’s daughter pregnant and Kem Gula then gave him land to found his own
home. The Ɗagha people are no longer called Kashgwa but instead are referred to as Kadzgwara.
The narrative has various angles, for example that the Ɗagha were from Mulgwe, which is
more or less the same as Mutube (Figure 4). Another angle is that he refers to the Lamang of
Hambagda as 'Kashgwa', which is an abusive term and should be spelled ksghwaha, meaning
Lamang pancreas. He then points out that it was no longer appropriate to use that word, and
that they were now called 'Kadzgwara'. The whole tenor of the story about the Ɗagha
Kadzgwara is somewhat negative, especially the claim that they had been selling each other
into slavery. We remember, from when Chika Khutsa told us about slavery in Chapter 2.1 of
Part Two, that the Dghweɗe never sold each other into slavery, and that people who ran uphill
to hide from Mandara slave raids in the foothills were never rejected.
The narrative sounds like a mixture of several similar narratives. The Ɗagha boy escaping
being enslaved by his people rather than by a Mandara raid, was subsequently mixed with
him becoming a houseboy of Kem Gula who gave him land after he impregnated one of his
daughters. We remember that 'Ngade' had also married a woman from Kwalika, but according
to our fieldnotes from Hudugum (Muller-Kosack 1994), Ngade died without knowing that the
woman from Kwalika was pregnant. The name of that child was Kajagware Ngade, and was
seen as a descendant of Kwalika, but remained exogamous with Hudugum.
We wonder whether 'Kajagware' is the same as Kadzgwara, who are known in Dghweɗe as
Ɗagha Kadzgwara and were reported to us in Kunde as having been found in the stomach of
Wasa's cow. This made them appear to be not true Ɗagha, but this might have been a
distorted Dghweɗe version derived from one from the western foothills, which is suggested
by our Gwoza notes from 1994. According to these, they had the special skill of turning
unborn children around in the womb. We can further establish from our Gwoza notes that
Ɗagha could be found among most of the Lamang-speaking villages along the southern part
of the western foothills of the Gwoza hills, and that they were well known for their powerful
clan medicine which was often used to defend against Mandara slave raiding.
For example, the earlier mentioned 'Hambagda', a former slave adopted by Ivra/Ighwe, was
known for such feats. The story goes that in Hudugum, by using clan medicine he had
brought with him from Mutube in Margi Mulgwe, he was once able to bring a Mandara to a
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