Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 336
bulls were slaughtered in a guinea corn year, but if someone who did not have a full storage
basket could not perform har ghwe, he could instead do ɗuf ɗala. This was a ritual that did
not involve the sacrifice of a he-goat or any other domestic animal, and consisted only of a
beer libation to the three ancestor stones. The beer was then communally consumed as in a
har ghwe ritual. We already know that the ɗuf ɗala ritual could even be carried out during the
next rainy season of a millet year, but according to bulama Bala it had to be done before har
gwazgafte came up the following guinea corn year.
The ritual application of guts and stomach contents seems to be typical, in particular for the
ritual calendar covering the period between harvesting and threshing, which shows the
importance of the production of manure for the cycle of ritual events. Unlike a deceased
father complaining of neglect in a he-goat not being slaughtered for har ghwe, as in the dream
of bulama Ngatha, it is now gwazgafte as a representation of divinity which seems to make
the demand. This is also indicated by the spatial context of the area in front of the main
entrance called wuts gwazgafte, marked by the wooden sticks bound together as door posts on
either side. As we have seen in Buba's example, har gwazgafte not only involved the
application of guts and stomach contents of the sacrificed he-goat to the main entrance and
the temporary storage facility, but efficient management of the limited space outside a house,
which had to be ritually separated at specific waypoints with the aid of thorns.
Before har gwazgafte, the harvest ritual tswila was carried out, being the throwing of
intestinal contents of a sacrificial he-goat into the ripe guinea corn. No beer was brewed for
tswila, and it was followed by the tikwa kupe ritual, which had to be performed by older men
only and consisted of old and newly harvested sorghum grain being ground together. The mix
was then dissolved in water and some of it poured over the ancestor stones, before it was
shared and communally consumed (see Chapter 3.8 again for the calendar details).
The above illustrates what bulama Bala had explained, namely that in the past meat was
consumed in ritual contexts only, unless an animal had died. The other main function of
domestic animals was to produce manure for making good soil for successful terrace farming,
preferably nearby the house. We have referred to that part of a settlement as khuɗi luwa,
meaning the 'stomach of the settlement'. The individual household was, in that context, the
base station of a farming system in which religion and agriculture had become very closely
intertwined. The element of the house shrine (thala) referred to as 'stomach' (khuɗi) is
semantically analogous to this, and as we see in the next chapter, the roof of thala is even
more so as a cosmological symbol of successful reproduction, somewhat like the 'crown' of
successful terrace farming when it was ritually raised above the homestead and decorated
with items of personal wealth during the bull festival.
For our chapter about working the terraced land, bulama Bala had summarised a range of
sacrifices involving a he-goat, all of which were all related to the house. In the context of this
he also listed a sacrifice called har ghaya, meaning slaughtering for the house. He spoke of
this as the public aspect of har gwazgafte, after the road was unblocked again and relatives
and neighbours could arrive to help celebrate the successful storage of guinea corn in the
granaries. Bulama Bala also distinguished personal sacrifices of he-goats from the obligatory
sacrifices, and mentioned in that context the personal spirit pot sakgharhfire above the bed of
the father of the house. He referred to this as a har batiwe, meaning the sacrifice for a room,
rather than one concerning the whole house. Another personal sacrifice he mentioned was
chuwila, which was against the fear of bad luck, and it involved a sacrificial he-goat or a live
chicken being revolved three times around the person's head before it was slaughtered.
Bulama Bala said that the decision of which animal to use was decided by divination, but we
have neglected the context of divination for all the rituals related to the house, as I failed to
research them.
We will end this chapter on slaughtering a he-goat for divinity (gwazgafte) by repeating a
quote by bulama Ngatha (1995) about har ghwe. This quote again demonstrates that har
gwazgafte had to be performed before threshing, and that the slaughtering of a he-goat for the
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