Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 226
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
possibly Hausa: market day in Barawa
Dghweɗe: no meaning known
Dghweɗe: market day in Kirawa
Dghweɗe : market day for women in Gwoza
lamisa
thame
sarda
ruma ga nisha
We can see that five days are references to local market days, while 'Monday' is most likely
derived from Hausa. 'Friday' has an unknown meaning. This shows that counting the days of
the week by number was not a Dghweɗe custom, and therefore cannot be linked to the
Dghweɗe habit of applying the number seven as a symbol of reproductive success. Instead,
the seven-day week was most likely not a pre-colonial feature at all, but the result of either
Islamic or/and colonial influences, considering that our Table 5f only lists five market days.
In addition, the reference to Barawa market day was also most likely derived from the Hausa
language, which indicates that Barawa is historically the result of a resettlement scheme, and
only really developed after national independence in 1960/61. Even so, Gwoza, having the
most important marketplace occupying two days of the week (Wednesday and Sunday),
presumably only developed during colonial times. Kirawa however might have a much longer
significance for the Dghweɗe, most likely even reaching back into earlier pre-colonial times.
We do not know whether Ashigashiya also had its day of the week in the past, considering
that it lost its function as a central place in Gwoza in the earlier days of British rule.
Two field accounts about interacting with the seasons
Below are two oral accounts, translated and with comments, to introduce our readers to the
views of two of our Dghweɗe friends, bulama Ngatha from Hudimche and rainmaker Ndruwe
Dzugume from Gharaza. They are in the ethnographic present, including field annotations in
round brackets '( )', while square brackets '[ ]' mark post-field annotations. The first account is
about the agricultural seasons and the related ritual calendar, while the second is primarily
concerned with the role of the rainmaker in the calendar. The second account also explores
my interest in understanding the practical knowledge of the rainmaker as a professional
observer of weather and climate in our semi-arid subregion.
Ndruwe Dzugume had already pointed out to me in 1995 that most of the rituals which once
related to the seasonal activities of the Dghweɗe had more or less vanished as a result of the
new global religions. Ndruwe Dzugume's account will therefore give us a lively insight into
how interaction with the seasons can almost be taken literally, considering how he ritually
interacts as rainmaker with the active agricultural season of the growing period. Much of this
will become clearer while we continue to contextualise and reconstruct an understanding of
Dghweɗe terrace culture throughout Part Three. We are keen to draw an ethnographically
convincing picture of the interactive role of rainmaking in Dghweɗe culture during late precolonial times. One important feature is that the rainmaker specialist lineage presumably by
then had the function of starting ritual planting for all Dghweɗe.
Bulama Ngatha's description of the bi-annual calendar
The description below was given to me in September 1995, which might be a reason why it
starts with the harvesting rather than the planting period. The latter was the traditional start of
the Dghweɗe year. It is also a guinea corn year, and Bulama Ngatha of Hudimche explained
some of the rituals which would traditionally be performed, although we are not sure how
many of them were still performed or were done so in a modified way. One of the
modifications was presumably that har ghwe and even har jije now also happened during a
millet year. We already pointed out that the sacrificial slaughtering of he-goats for the close
male family ancestors was most likely to have more strictly belonged, during late pre-colonial
times, to the ritual calendar of the guinea corn year.
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