Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 265
One reason for that change was that many people bought chemical fertiliser at the market.
People were no longer interested in animal manure because they had mostly switched over to
industrial fertiliser. Industrial fertiliser was considered to be more effective, and many local
people came to the conclusion that the rearing of animals had become far too costly. John was
of the opinion that industrial fertiliser was not sustainable because it was washed out from the
terraces by the rain.
Our friends said that another reason was the increase of the human population. There was no
longer so much bushland for cutting grasses. If there was bushland available, it was often very
far away. Also, young people were going for town jobs in the plains, to earn money to spend
in the market economy instead of producing manure for subsistence. This in turn reduced the
workforce in the hills. I was informed again that people only used manure to fertilise
farmlands near their houses. This of course implied that they did not use it on land far away
because it was more convenient to farm as close to the house as possible. This most likely
also changed with the use of chemical fertiliser, which could be brought out anywhere.
The above highlights how important distance was in maintaining the fertility of cultivated
land, and it led to the labour-intensive system of terrace farming. This in turn presumably had
the potential for conflict. The spatial density of the manured infields allowed for only limited
expansion, because all other households nearby were doing the same. For a farmer to expand
his infield would have been extremely difficult because his next-door neighbour frequently
shared the same platform on a hillside settlement. We think that in the past such situations
contributed to conflicts, leading to lineage expansion, as shown in the cases of the Washile in
Ghwa'a and the Vaghagaya who eventually replaced Gharguze by expanding across Korana
Basa.
We are not sure how many cows and new calves were released after the harvest, or whether it
was mainly goats and sheep. Neither do we know very much about the rearing of animals
during the dry season. Perhaps some cows were kept closer to the house and still fed with hay,
but this is speculation, and perhaps they ventured to the outer fields or even to the bush. I
seem to remember that it was often the job of boys to herd them there. It was pointed out to
me that the rearing of animals during the dry season in areas near the Mafa of Huduwa
(Figure 3) included security measures, and that the local Dghweɗe people took special care of
them there. They arranged among themselves to watch over livestock to prevent them being
stolen, especially in the border areas between settlements.
This was for the greater good, and the following expressions of collective ways of taking care
of domestic animals were quoted to us in Korana Basa (1995):
•
•
Taking care of cows and bulls in that way is called nagh tha (tha = cow; cattle) and of
goats nagh ghwe (ghwe = goat).
Taking care of animals generally is called nagh-dgahtha (dgahtha = general term for
domestic animals).
Another problem with animal rearing was baboons, because they could kill a domestic
animal, but we are not sure whether this would only apply to goats and sheep. There were
reportedly certain parts of the local landscape where there were lots of baboons, mainly areas
with rocks nearby. I have seen boys herding cows on a flat place near rocks during the early
dry season. We were told that people killed baboons to protect their cattle. It was pointed out
to us that they never consumed them.
John knows a lot about mountain farming because he was brought up in Ghwa'a and only left
after his teenage years. In the next chapter section we present his assessment of changes in the
management of livestock, land resources and trees, in a piece we wrote together in the context
of my interview with him. John already held a degree in economics from the University of
Maiduguri in 2006 and this assessment combines his academic and local knowledge.
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