Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 313
We have simplified the model, but please refer back to the photographs of Buba's and
Kalakwa's houses in the previous chapter and imagination will hopefully suffice to understand
such a house. We remember that the more ancient sections of the house we photographed
were already partly ruined, and extra effort must be made to imagine a fully functioning
Dghweɗe house as it most likely existed during late pre-colonial times.
Our 3D model shows to a better degree how the animal sheds formed an integral part of the
architecture of the lower and upper room complex. We see the cow shed (5) in Figure 19a,
and the bull shed (8) lowered into the ground, while Figure 19b shows the same for the goat
shed. We see that the bull shed is significantly deeper than the other animal sheds, and we
remember that the bull shed, like the the cow shed, also had a ceiling, which is not visible in
the model. We can only assume that the lowering of the animal sheds was part of the lower
and upper platform construction, and we recognise the steps going up from the foyer area.
It has already been mentioned that a bull was kept enclosed in his shed for two years, to be
fattened and then ritually released and slaughtered, and this will be described in the next
chapter as a key element of the bull festival. In this chapter we are more concerned with the
rituals in and around the house, and we will contextualise the architecture by demonstrating
that not only did the foyer area (hupala) have a strong gender aspect, but this was also the
case for the lower and upper room complex. Besides this we will address the architectural
fluidity, in that greater and lesser sacred areas of the house overlapped. We will start by
listing the three ancestor stones visible in Figure 19c in front of the 'stomach' of thala, which
were placed at the 'lower' or left side when looking from the front of the house, as part of the
more sacred side of the central foyer area,:
•
•
•
kwir dada (ancestor stone for father) - near lower and ritual sauce kitchen
kwir jije (ancestor stone for grandfather) - placed always in the middle
kwir wuje (ancestor stone for great grandfather) - near the 'bed' of thala
The fact that the 'bed' of thala served a child or a young person as a bed next to the 'stomach'
of thala (3a) as the ritually most significant part of the house, seems to show how the sacred
and the mundane overlapped in architectural terms. Unfortunately we hold no information,
other than being told by John, that it functioned as a bed for a child and that it had no ritual
function. The opposite was the case for the 'stomach' of thala, which not only had
anthropomorphic features in the form of eyes or breasts above the three ancestor stones, but it
was also the place where the most important ritual pots were kept. We have seen in earlier
photos from Buba's house that the 'bed' of thala was used as a storage facility for hay, and that
the child's room had become a utility room. Considering that the child's room was also the
place where a new bride was kept in seclusion, we wonder whether the 'bed' of thala did have
a ritual significance after all.
Also, the granaries are religiously endowed architectural features, with retired ritual pots and
retired ancestor stones stored underneath them, and we will present images of the various
granaries. Other parts of the house also had a ritual function, such as the space above the entry
between the lower room of the first wife and the upper room belonging to the husband. The
same applied to the lower loft (gude tighe) found above the lower room of the first wife, and
we will illustrate and discuss this, supplemented by photographs. Our 3D groundplan model
does not show the adobe domes forming the two lofts (gude) of the lower and upper room
complex. Still, we hope to have been able to sufficiently enhance the reader's imagination
regarding the horizontal layout of the relevant social and ritual spaces presented in some of
the following chapter sections.
The three ancestor stones were found in every traditional house
In 1995 Bulama Ngatha from Hudimche explained the social importance of the three ancestor
stones at the foot of his 'stomach' of thala by saying the following:
311
