Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 258
to get manure for their farmlands. Compared with shifting cultivation in the plains, in the hills
it would depend more on how one took care of the farmland, but in the hills one could leave
farmland for a while so it would regain fertility. For that one needed enough farmland, which
was not the case, and my friends told me that this was exactly the reason why they took such
great care of the farmland, so that it would remain fertile for generations.
In the past, the ashes of iron production were also used to keep the land fertile, but that was
never sufficient. Only three things could fertilise the land: dung produced by cattle, goats and
sheep, and as the fourth option, modern fertiliser. As we have already pointed out, the change
from animal manure to chemical fertiliser had huge socio-economic implications, something
we attempt to address in the next two chapter sections. We do that by firstly looking at more
recent changes regarding the social division of labour, and also changes in the more distant
past such as iron production. The latter was not only crucial as a technology for tool making,
but was also a way of generating individual wealth.
Men and women and other arrangements
Also in 1995, we conducted an interview with bulama Bala of Korana Kwandame and some
local elders, about the social division of labour, particularly between men and women. Large
parts of the interview are copied below, because it shows with great authenticity the way
bulama Bala explained the ins and outs of how this was organised in general. This time we
have not made any annotated comments, but present the interview more or less as it was
translated into English at the time with the help of John.
Bulama Bala and elders of Korana Kwandame (1995):
When it is time for planting early in the morning the husband gets up very early to go to the farm,
while the women prepare food to carry to him later. If there are children old enough [about 12
onwards] they leave with the father, but if they have a daughter who can already prepare food, the
mother goes with the father earlier.
In the evening the women leave the farm earlier than the husband, to cut firewood to take home.
When she comes home she will go and fetch water. She starts grinding and prepares [together with
her potential co-wives] food for the evening. The husband leaves the farm later and will cut some
grass for the animals in case they are already tied up.
With respect to planting, women can plant anything, but there are a few plants women only can
plant. These are tigernuts, lady’s fingers (ngaɓe = okra), and only women plant eleusine (rata). If
there is no woman in the house, a man can plant these things himself. Generally speaking, plants
mainly used to make soup or sauce are only planted by women.
Maize around the house is often planted by children and mbithe [Hausa: kabaiwa]. Elderly women
or elderly men scatter tobacco seeds behind the house, and after germination they transplant them.
Menstruation does not affect women doing the planting unless they feel unwell themselves. Only
when they give birth are they kept in seclusion for one or two weeks. They are not allowed to do
anything during that period. They only cook then for themselves. That was only in the past and it
is now that boys from the age of 12 onwards go to Maiduguri to find jobs to earn money, like
farming for others, cutting firewood, or working for butchers and selling meat.
The work for women is the same during the planting as well as the hoeing season. Only after the
second hoeing is over do women gather leaves for a soup to dry and store for future consumption.
They also go and cut and store firewood in the bush. During the same period, the men cut grasses
and dry it into hay. They also cut grasses for roofing. In this period between the end of the second
hoeing and the harvest, they see a blacksmith to get sickles and diggers from iron and wood (tka)
to dig tigernuts. It is women who dig them.
Before harvest, an elderly man will sacrifice a he-goat or a lamb. The contents of the stomach will
be thrown into the corn or millet field. The name of the sacrifice is tswila gharghaya (sacrifice on
a hill near the house). Women cook the meat and there is a meal but no beer.
Any woman can brew beer for sacrifice, even a woman from outside your house. A man does not
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