Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 205
diagram. We see that on both sides, male siblings and female siblings are included regardless
of whether they are full-siblings and half-siblings. While the sons (a) will be founders of new
lineages, the daughters (b) will become members of their future husbands' lineages when they
marry.
Figure 13b illustrates that the relationship term jije (grandfather) also applied to the sons of
the mother's brother (MB) of ego, and we see the son of the co-wife of ego's mother (M)
showing the link to her brother (MB) and the sons of his two wives. We have not marked all
the jiji connections on the paternal side of ego, but know that they formed the basic
congregation when worshipping the deceased grandfather (jije) as part of the calendrical ritual
cycle.
Figure 13b: Illustration of mother's brother's sons also being referred to as jije (grandfather)
We interpret this cross-generational use of the relationship term jije as significant, since it
seems to highlight the social cohesion expressed in the har jije (har = slaughtering) ritual,
being the sacrifice of a he-goat made by the extended family to ritually feed the deceased
patrilineal grandfather. We will learn in Chapter 3.11 that the most important shrine of a
house was referred to as the 'stomach', which was where ritual pottery was stored for carrying
out the sacrifice for a jije over the foot of the ancestor stones. The zal jije pot representing a
deceased grandfather was filled and kept overnight in the ritual beer kitchen of the first wife,
before the family priest acting as zal jije libated some of it over the kwir jije (ancestor stone of
the grandfather). Figure 20b in the following Chapter 3.12 shows the way of har ghwe (ritual
for a deceased father) which was similar in many ways and was carried out shortly before har
jije, these being the two main calendrical rituals of the house.
A Dghweɗe model of local group formation
Figure 14 below is an attempt to illustrate how classificatory genealogical ties (ksage) run
across local ties (kambarte), while the local core element (kuɗige) forms the starting point that
can at any time disconnect from local ties (kambarte) but stays interconnected via
genealogical ties (ksage). It is a very rough diagram of how the local group structure
reproduces itself geographically while carrying patrilineal kinship ties along with it.
In the diagram we see the example of a kuɗige splitting off from an existing kambarte,
symbolising that it is about to form the core of a new kambarte. Our model does not put it
into another local context but we imagine that this is what is about to happen.
Although now locally disconnected, the kuɗige will stay part of the same ksage in
genealogical terms. As such it will remain gwagha and zbe to the three old kambarte and
ksage connections, depending on the circumstances of previous intermarriages. We learned
earlier that gwagha is related to ancestor-centred patrilineal exogamy, while zbe refers to egocentred matrilateral exogamy as the result of previous marriages between families up to four
generations in the past but only two generations during my time.
We also see that brothers of the splitting kuɗige will remain skmama in the context of the
existing ksage, genealogically linking all the geographical kambarte that appear to be locally
nested. All the skmama in the model are on the potentially deceased father's line across the
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