Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 222
its end with the end of the rainy season as the meteorologically active part of the year (viye).
Those activities are the same in both years, including fertilizing the fields shortly before
planting, whereas roofing only happens during the guinea corn year. We see that the
'Slaughtering period' of he-goats is followed by the 'Bull festival', and finally 'Ritual planting'
indicates the beginning of the new guinea corn year.
Table 5b: Table showing the Dghweɗe calendar linked to the Gregorian calendar
May
June July Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec Jan
Feb
Mar
April
>Rainy season (viye)
>Dry season (kalyagha)
Guinea corn year (vaghiya) - 1995 new moon was on 29 May and 6 moons later on 22 Nov
|1M |2M |3M |4M |5M |6M |7M |8M
Millet year (vagwira) - in 1996 new moon was on 16 June and 5 months later on 11 Nov
|1M |2M |3M |4M |5M |6M |7M
Planting period
First and second hoeing and
Harvesting and
Clearing the
ripening period
threshing period
terrace fields...
...before
June July Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec Slaughtering Bull
Ritual
planting
period...
festival planting
Fertilizing
Roofing
Start dzum zugune
If we compare these activities with our Dghweɗe calendar presented in Table 5a, we see
which of the ritual activities are only done during the guinea corn year. We already know that
the 'Slaughtering period' of he-goats was most likely done in the past only during the guinea
corn year. Finally, we have the section named 'Start dzum zugune' at the bottom right, and
remember that this was traditionally done during the end of a millet year, but this too is
contentious as we find out later.
Towards the end of the chapter we find bulama Ngatha's comprehensive account of the
various calendrical activities as he saw them. There he says that most rituals were performed
at the end of a guinea corn year. This is reflected in our typical calendar where I noted the dry
season to start with November, and we can see that this is about the time when the ripening
ended and the harvesting and threshing period began. We now go through the various rituals
of our earlier listing. In the context of this we will see that several rituals were no longer
performed. We will also point out aspects of change in the ritual calendar, making our
calendar a typical one, and as such more a reflection of how things were done in the past, a
transformation of this calendar having already happened when I interviewed bulama Ngatha
in 1995.
For example, Bulama Ngatha did not say much about 'Ritual planting', but we know from
Taɗa Nzige, the senior rainmaker, that he ritually planted guinea corn during the dry season,
that is before anyone else thought of planting it. This meant that this kind of ritual planting
was only done by the senior rainmaker, while harvesting was also ideally started by the
various rainmakers, but that was less ritually essential. Taɗa Nzige also pointed out that
seasonal circumstances could lead to different starting times of planting across Dghweɗe, and
this was one of the reasons ritual planting was done so early in the year. We will get back to
the subject of 'Ritual planting' again later, but have provisionally placed it between 'Clearing
fields' and 'Fertilizing', meaning bringing out the animal manure before the actual planting
started.
Then there was tikwa kupe, a ritual performed in the context of the harvest of guinea corn. It
was done by older men before consuming the newly-harvested sorghum, reportedly after the
senior rainmaker had performed his tikwa kupe. We need to mention in the context of tikwa
kupe that sometimes people had to perform it without waiting for their local elder to have
done his first, the reason being that the guinea corn did not ripen across Dghweɗe at an equal
rate. The same applied to the ritual listed as tswila, which was performed in both years. We
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