Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 348
festival, although those who performed the bull festival that year did not themselves have to
perform thagla.
Finally, Zakariya Kwire mentioned the house of Nwiva Gaduwatha, who was the custodian
of the land (thaghaya) of Ghwa'a at the time. We see later, in the description of adult
initiation (dzum zugune), that his house played an important role in some of the stages of this
(see Chapter 3.14). We know that the celebration of dzum zugune had ended years before the
bull festival. Unfortunately we do not have a list of the thaghaya or custodians of Ghwa'a
over time, so we cannot say when and for how long Nwiva Gaduwatha lived. It does however
confirm that thagla was no longer performed during my time, because when I was there the
already mentioned Ghamba Vunga was thaghaya of Ghwa'a.
We have identified thagla as a harvest festival in the calendar section, and perhaps this is the
best way to view it. It was dedicated to the community as a whole and was done before the
bull festival, while during the millet year it was done after threshing but without any ritual
elements, at least as far as we can say from the little we know about it. It was a festival which
embraced the community of Dghweɗe as a whole and was done every year, but it too had
long disappeared. Perhaps it lasted longer than the bull festival, especially in its non-ritual
version as it was done during the millet year, which might be the reason why some of my
friends in Korana Basa (1995) thought it was only done in the millet year.
It seems that only the sacrifice for a deceased father (har ghwe) had survived, and was already
performed annually during my time, but it most likely ceased with the arrival of Boko Haram.
In a way, it was the last remaining ritual linked to the slaughtering period, and it had
indirectly replaced both the harvest festival (thagla) and the bull festival (har daghile). The
harvest festival was originally performed annually but it had no specific sacrifice of the house
attached to it, apart from a communal one for Durghwe during a guinea corn year. The bull
festival was bi-annual only and in the past had substituted the harvest festival during a guinea
corn year, but only for those who could afford to sacrifice a bull, which made the bull festival
the most important communal festival of the past. This was not the same across the Gwoza
hills, as there are additional wider subregional complexities such as the late pre-colonial role
of the Vreke clan of Moskota or a possible past link to the Mafa rainmakers of Moudoukwa.
Bull festival among Dghweɗe neighbours and its wider subregional complexities
The first thing that stands out when comparing my 1994 and 2000/2001 field data concerning
the Gwoza hills neighbours of the Dghweɗe, is that the Chikiɗe, Chinene and the Guduf did
not seem to have celebrated their bull festival as a travelling communal event as the Dghweɗe
did. This was despite them being otherwise very similar, as we have seen for example with
the architecture of their houses. These three similar montagnard neighbours neither had any
link to Gudur, and they only celebrated the bull festival on the level of the individual
household. For example, the Guduf stall-fed their bulls for manure production for up to five
years before they released and sacrificed them. The same seems to have applied to all the
other groups, in particular around the northern edge of the Gwoza hills including the Zelidva
and Glavda, while the Lamang of Hiɗkala (Vile, Hambagda and Hudukum) shared a
communal bull festival that started in Vile. As in Dghweɗe, this was celebrated in a bi-annual
cycle during a guinea corn year, but neither have we any record of a link to Gudulyewe or
Gudur among them.
This makes the Dghweɗe and the role of the Gudule unique in our area, and therefore we look
across the international border, in particular to the Vreke clan of the Mafa from the Moskota
hills. They are the closest neighbouring group with a strong link to Gudur, and also claim past
marriage links to the groups of the Gwoza hills, to whom they refer as Godaliy. The Vreke of
the Moskota hills also have links to Kughum, which is the only Mafa village of the Gwoza
LGA, and most likely Huduwa too, the latter being across the border in Cameroon. Kughum,
Huduwe and Vreke are next-door neighbours of the Gudule in the southeastern corner of
Dghweɗe. If we take another look at Figure 3 and Figure 4 we recognise their geographical
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