Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 287
flat roof. We are not sure about the bull stable (8), since it seems to be on the right rather than
on the left side of the upper room (7) where I had expected it to be.
We see that batiw gajije (ancestor room for the grandfather) is hidden under the trees (12).
This house only seems to have two granaries, and I have identified one (13), and marked it as
'father's granary', while the other one presumably belonged to the mother of the house. We
also notice that the roof of thala rests on top of the flat roof (gaɗike), but we can see another
gaɗike next to the upper room (17). There is an unmarked separate room between 7 and 12,
which I have marked in my fieldnotes as an additional room for the father of the house. I have
not marked it with a corresponding number since it seems to be a later addition.
Plate 22b shows the ruin of a traditional house in Ghwa'a, and we can see the base structure of
the foyer with the former central foyer area (hupala) which still contains ritual pots.
Plate 22b: The ruin of a Dghweɗe house showing the base structure of the foyer
We see parts of the front wall (16), the remains of the foundation of thala (3), the house
shrine and some of the sitting stones (a) in front of the granary bases (13). To the left we see
the entrance to the ritual sauce kitchen for the father of the house (9), and behind the granaries
we recognise the entry to the lower room (4) which is for the first wife.
The whole arrangement with pots still standing on top of the base of the granary of the father
of the house (13) looks as if the family members might still carry out rituals in the central
foyer area of this long deserted house. There was a pile of potsherds which I photographed
next to the house (see Plate 39a) to show the small apertures of typical Dghweɗe ancestor
pots. We discuss that image in the next chapter when we compare the small
apertures of Dghweɗe ritual beer pots with similar apertures so characteristic of pots of the
archaeological DGB sites..
Before we move on to describe the physical aspects of Dghweɗe architecture, we will take a
look around the exterior of a house. As mentioned, Dghweɗe homes were farmsteads which
had been adapted to the requirement of terrace farming, and where the very limited space was
an ongoing problem. We will see in the next subsection how the Dghweɗe combined natural
elements of the space, such as rocks and trees, and integrated them into farmyards as storage
or working spaces.
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