Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 256
locked-up animals during the rainy season, but also for many other requirements related to the
subsistence economy. By discussing the different types of agricultural terraces and soils, we
will become even more aware of how important dung production was in the past for the
lasting sustainability of their subsistence resource management system.
Terraces and soils
During an interview in Ghwa'a in September 1995, I was told that farming on the hills was
considered to be more productive because beans, guinea corn, millet, tigernuts and other
crops grew better in the hills than in the plains. My friends explained that they were very
accustomed to hill farming, and there were many things they could not cultivate in the plains,
such as tigernuts, which in the plains were often destroyed by termites. Neither was Eleusine
(rata) cultivated in the plains, nor traditional yams. Yams grow much smaller in the
mountains but they have more branches and grow deeper. I loved mountain yams because
they had such a pleasant bitter undertaste and were altogether quite succulent.
It was explained to me that in the past there had been a lot of trouble in the plains, especially
fighting between them and the Matakam (Mafa), and that they captured each other as slaves.
It was also because of their farmlands on the plains that they used to give tribute to Wandala.
The terraces were built by their forefathers and they had continued building them until the
present day. The horses of the slave raiders were able to climb the hills but could not descend
because of the terraces. Seeing the terraces as security features against slavery attacks in the
hills, adds to what we already know from Part Two, such as the watchman system that alerted
people farming in the plains to run back up should the Wandala approach on their horses.
The terraces helped to maintain fertility because the terrace system did not allow water to
remove the goodness of the soils. There was also more rain in the hills. If there was not
enough, or too much rain, they had the Gaske rainmaker to deal with it. Below is the
Dghweɗe word for land fertility and types of terraces, followed by a list of words used to
describe the various soils:
•
•
•
•
guɓe = refers to the general fertility of the land
ghardha = general word for terrace
sawa = high terrace
dugh ltha = small terrace (dugh = small portion of land; ltha = building a terrace)
Dghweɗe had a lot of high terraces, many being more than one metre high. They mostly
followed the natural shape of a hillside, but we also often found very small and rather flat
terraces in very rocky and even less suitable areas. It seems that almost every small portion of
a hillside was seen as potentially suitable for terrace agriculture.
Farming in the hills, I was told in Hembe, needed terraces, whereas they were not needed in
the plains. In other words, it was the environment of the mountains that created the need, but
additional reasons were given to me. For example, to help to retain the water in the terraces
one would put more soil towards the edges so that the water would run slightly back and
therefore be kept within the terraces. It was explained that in this way the fertility would sink
into the terrace and would not be washed away by the rain. This strengthens our hypothesis
that the creation of fertility was a technological matter.
Still, the Dghweɗe did classify natural soils, which is demonstrated by the following list of
soils underlying the terrace system, given to me in 1995 in Ghwa'a:
•
•
•
•
•
hay kurɗe (hay = soil; kurɗe = soft) meaning a soft, but not sandy soil
zighe = sand
klala = soils near rocks, where soils are not so deep
hay riɓithe = clay soils
fri'a = completely rocky and not suitable for farming
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