Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 349
proximity. We need to remember that the international boundary cutting through our
subregion is a result of World War One and has only existed since the 1920s. 5
It is however not so much the bull festival that is central to the Vreke link to Gudur, but the
control of epidemics and diseases. In the light of this, they have a similarity to the Vile clan of
Hiɗkala, who in the past controlled smallpox. Like the Vreke, the Vile used their clan
medicine as a tool of power with their neighbours. However, according to my 1994 field data,
the Vile never had a conflict with the Dghweɗe over this, but always provided them with their
clan medicine if needed and used the Gaske rainmakers of the Dghweɗe in exchange. Also,
the Vile did not develop into a specialist clan founded on the ritual ownership of clan
medicines expressed by powerful status, as did the biy Vreke, who once had, as chief of
Vreke, regional control over the distribution of clan medicines.
My data from Vile provide unclear information about a possible link with Vreke, and only
one local source from Vile confirmed they had originated from Vreke, while all other sources
denied such a connection. There is one interview from Kunde (1995) in Dghweɗe, which
claimed that the Vile were, in reality, Vreke, and that they had moved from Vreke to Vile via
Huduwa. When John and I visited the Mafa of Huduwa, we could not find any such link, but
were told that some of their local clans had direct links to Vreke, while most of them came
from Itire. We can see in Figure 4 that Itire is situated on the foot of the northern slopes of the
Oupay massif on the way to Moudoukwa, which belongs to our DGB research area.
In Huduwa I was told another piece of information, which we mention here because it
reiterates the ritual importance of specialist clans. I was informed in Huduwa that their
rainmakers too were Gaske, because they could claim to be sons of Tasa. I was accompanied
by a Gaske rainmaker from Gharaza, and vividly remember his astonishment. This would
have been common knowledge in colonial times, before the international boundary made
neighbouring villages foreigners to each other, and perhaps it demonstrates how quickly oral
narratives are forgotten if they are no longer shared. The main difference however was that
the Gaske of Huduwa claimed to have originally come from Itire, which connects to the Mafa
rainmakers of Moudoukwa.
We referred to Moudoukwa in the context of discussing Moisel's map of 1913, in the chapter
about the local history of names and places. We only want to summarise quickly here, and
point out that neither the Vreke clan nor the rainmakers of Moudoukwa were of Mafa origin
but were outsiders. They were both from specialist clans and were at the same time the most
important Mafa personalities in ritual terms. The Vreke clan officially claimed a legendary
origin from Gudur, but unofficially they might have come from the Madagali area (MullerKosack 1988), but the Mafa rainmaker of Moudoukwa belonged to the Gozla clan and was of
Muktele origin. 6 As we said earlier, we do not want to go too deeply into this, but feel the
need to point out that specialist lineages or clans could become quite powerful and farreaching. We suggest that the fact that they were known to have gained regional importance
was possibly a development which might not long predate late pre-colonial times. It is our
5
We remember how long the Wandala controlled the eastern plains of todays GLGA, with tribute
payments being taken to Mozogo, as was remembered by dada Ɗga and Zakariya Kwire. Even when
Hamman Yaji was finally arrested, they tried to find protection from the Wandala, before they carried
on with their journey under the leadership of Vaima, first to Dikwa and then to Maiduguri.
6
My Mafa research has shown that the rainmakers of the wider DGB area are all descendants of the
Gozla clan (Muller-Kosack 2003). This shows how unreliable many of our traditions of origin are in a
strict ethnohistorical sense, especially when they are only discussed and taken into account as local
traditions. The northern Mandara Mountains are in this sense like a large puzzle, and the more we look
beyond the local, the more variations in terms of cultural traditions we see emerging. The Gudur
tradition is surely one of them, and takes on different forms. For some reason it has taken its very own
local form in the role the Gudule clan plays for Dghweɗe.
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