Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 323
We do not know how and when the potsherds got there, but they were a genuine part of the
abandoned house where we could see the rest of the stone foundation of the house shrine (thala)
and a circle of sitting stones still in situ. If we take another look at Plate 22b, we can see two
unbroken pots, one on top of the remains of the first wife's granary base and another at the foot of
the father's granary base. The first looks like a pot for brewing beer, and the other one was a
small aperture beer pot the Dghweɗe call tughdhe.
Plate 39a shows a jahurimbe pot in the centre (a) and a sauce pot to the left of it (b). We also see
a beer pot with a broken-off mouth (c) in the bottom left corner, and more potsherds in the centre
bottom of the picture (d). The broken pots look as if they were carefully placed, and we see the
small aperture of the broken-off mouth (e) of a tughdhe pot positioned on top. The two pictures
in Plate 39b show the same broken-off neck of such a ritual beer pot from both sides, and in the
image at the bottom right we can see how the aperture disk (e) forming the mouth was once
placed on top of the neck. We cannot be sure whether this broken piece was from a personal
tughdhe thala, which could have meant that the broken bowl of the pot would have once been
used to dig the grave of the deceased owner. If we assume for a moment that this was the case, it
would be from the personal tughdhe thala of the man who last lived in that abandoned house, the
foyer area of which we presented with the photograph of Plate 22b in the previous chapter.
My Dghweɗe and Chikiɗe
friends were generally of the
opinion that one purpose of the
small aperture was to keep the
beer fresh for as long as
possible, because it was easy to
seal. Dada Dukwa of Dzga
extrapolated further for me by
explaining that when a pot was
full of beer, the funnel above
the mouth might only have
been covered with leaves. He
then added that if they wanted
to keep the beer fresh when the
pot was half empty it was often
sealed with the remainder of
freshly cooked food (millet
Plate 39b: Broken mouth of same ritual beer pot (tughdhe)
mash). He finally explained
with small aperture photographed from both sides
that a corn stalk was often used
to close the small aperture of
such a beer pot before it was
ritually stored away, to keep
the inside of the pot clean for
use next time. The other widely
shared opinion was that the
beer flowed very beautifully
when poured, which indeed
points, together with the need for maintaining freshness, to a well established ritual beer culture.
Plate 39a: Heap of ritual potsherds next to the ruin of an
abandoned house (see also image 22b)
We have seen the need for maintaining freshness in the example of tughdhe kule, when it was
kept above the doorway between the lower and the upper room. This was when the beer needed
to be kept fresh for a second time, after some of it had already been drunk the day before at the
father's grave. Now, after a day or two, the remainder was consumed by the father of the house
and his brothers outside the little ancestor room, before it was sealed with a corn stalk ready to be
stored inside or nearby. We have seen that Kalwaka's tughdhe kule was stored between the outer
wall of the upper room and the ancestor room of the deceased father next to it (see Plate 35b and
35d). However, the first time the beer needed to stay fresh was when the two tughdhe thala were
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