Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 347
the beer, and after that everybody else can follow suit as they like. The following day the thagla
beer is enjoyed communally and traditional dances take place. The trumpet and other musical
instruments are played. This goes over three days. On the day of dancing people wear their
traditional dresses. During thagla, slaughtering only takes place for communal consumption, and
not for any ritual purposes of the house. Those who do not have sorghum to prepare beer for
thagla can use sorrel (bathi'a). They grind bathi'a and cook it to make a sauce, as a statement to
God that they do not have anything. Or they grind ndighuva, which are the seeds of the fruit of a
tree used to cook a sauce. They throw the unwanted particles on the path as a statement that they
do not have anything.
The day before the thagla beer is consumed, some elders and all mature men go up to Durghwe
where they slaughter a he-goat or a bull. Young men will run around Durghwe while the elders
throw the intestines of the slaughtered animal towards Durghwe. Most elders would pretend to
throw, and finally someone would really throw the intestines, and this would mean that this person
would die in the same year. Now all the others would throw as well. The young men would also
blow the trumpet and flutes. After the meat was cooked, the elders would eat before the young
men. The young men would also do wrestling and fight in a playful way over the meat. Some of
the meat would be brought back from Durghwe to give to men and boys for tasting at home.
Everyone would be back now from Durghwe and thagla would begin at Nwiva Gaduwatha's
house, who was thaghaya of Ghwa'a at the time.
The beginning of thagla was called tikwa thagla. Tikwa refers to any liquid being poured over the
three ancestor stones. The next day the main celebrations would start. The grain used for the beer
of thagla can only be from the wife's granary if the husband has done har ghwe. If he has not done
har ghwe yet, meaning in particular during a guinea corn year, he has to go to his neighbour to
borrow corn to prepare beer for thagla.
There are two types of stores for unthreshed guinea corn, gudahiya and gamaka. Gamaka is a type
of hangar where millet is also stored. In the case of guinea corn for threshing being stored in
gamaka, one can use guinea corn from the wife's granary even if one has not been able to perform
har ghwe in that guinea corn year. If a man has stored it in gudahiya, one can only use guinea corn
from the wife's granary if her husband had performed har ghwe. It would have to be this way,
otherwise the ritual would be spoiled and even the beer would not be good.
During a millet year, a man could take corn for preparing the beer of thagla from his wife's
granary without any problem, because har ghwe was not performed during a millet year. During a
millet year, a man could even use sorghum from his own granary.
Zakariya Kwire's account makes it clear that thagla was performed during both years, and that
the ritual complications of preparing the beer of thagla only occurred during a guinea corn
year. Because har ghwe was in the past done only during a guinea corn year, the beer of
thagla for such a year could only come out of the wife's granary if her husband was wealthy
enough to perform it. In this sense, it was the reproductive capacity represented by his first
wife which gave him the potential to be a successful husband and father of a seventh born (zal
thaghaya). He relied on the guinea corn from his first wife's granary to celebrate his success
as head of a family. Only if the guinea corn for threshing was stored in his gudahiya (hiya =
guinea corn) 4 as the correct storage facility did that mean something. It would have spoilt the
ritual if it had not been done in that way. We can see the aesthetic sense of Dghweɗe's ritual
culture shining through Zakariya Kwire's statement when he says that in that case even the
beer would not have been good.
We do not know whether the sacrifice to Durghwe as part of the harvest festival (thagla) was
only done in a guinea corn year, but assume that this was the case. The account once more
confirms the overall ritual importance of guinea corn in Dghweɗe ritual culture, something
we know from other parts of the Mandara Mountains. Another aspect was the wrestling and
playful struggling over the sacrificial meat by the young men, and that parts of the meat were
taken back to the farmsteads to feed the men and boys, but not the women and girls. Also, the
ritual sequence of thagla is confirmed by this account, by placing it clearly before the bull
4
We are not sure whether it should be ghuda hiya, meaning 'cutting' as in harvesting the guinea corn.
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