Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 350
preferred view to link it to the formation of the Mafa as the largest ethnic group after the
DGB sites were abandoned.
Before we discuss the role of Gudur in our wider subregion in a little more detail, we want to
highlight the link between the Vreke and the Glavda and their utiva celebrations, an annual
festival bearing a lot of similarities to thagla in Dghweɗe. Coming from Vreke, where it was
called matamai, it travelled to Glavda and from there to Guduf, Chikiɗe, Chinene and
Zelidva, but not to Dghweɗe. It did however include all the Glavda villages in the eastern
plain, in particular Atagara and Agapalawa. The Glavda occupied the Moskota hills before
they were driven out by the Vreke, presumably in the context of the expansion of the Mafa.
Based on my Mafa and Gwoza hills research, I make the claim here that the Vreke clan was
incorporated by the Mafa. We think that their role in starting a travelling annual festival for
the northern Gwoza hills and the intramountainous eastern plain goes back to a time when
they shared the Moskota hills with the Glavda.
This is the reason why we find the unofficial version of the Vreke having originated from the
Madagali area to be the more convincing one, especially since the official Gudur tradition
might well be a geopolitical myth of later pre-colonial origin. David and Sterner (2005) argue
that the Gudur tradition was based on the ritual importance attached to it by some of its
montagnard neighbours, and as such was a result of population dispersions caused by the
Fulbe expansion across the region during the 19th century. However, we believe its
development must be linked to a longer historical process, which needs to be understood in
the context of the ethnogenesis of the Mafa and not only the Fulbe expansion.
It is important to realise in this context that the Mafa consist of many clans of different ethnic
origin from the western and the eastern fringes of the northern Mandara Mountains. I have
studied the organisational processes of their political formation in detail within the DGB
research area (Muller-Kosack 2003). Specialist clans or lineages are not only responsible for
rainmaking or cornblessing, but are frequently in possession of many different types of clan
medicines. As such they serve a whole variety of purposes among which the promotion of
fecundity is surely a central one, especially while under the regular threat of a bad harvest
caused by periods of aridity and/or locusts, or any other plague or epidemic disease.
Regionally administered clan medicines can become more legendary when they are
represented by chiefly personalities. My research in Vreke (unpublished fieldnotes from
1988) shows that the announcement of the bull festival by the chief of Vreke was secondary
to his role as representative of the chief of Gudur, and central to this was the clan medicine
that the chief of Vreke collected from the chief of Gudur. The narrative goes that he regularly
travelled to Gudur to collect it, and subsequently distributed it on the way back. The last
Vreke who ever travelled to Gudur was Gatama Ngoye, which was about 50 years before
1988 when I collected my field data in Vreke. This implies that it was some time in the late
1930s or early 1940s. We do not know for sure whether he actually went to Gudur, or only
travelled through parts of Mafa land to distribute his clan medicine known as kule.
His journey was reported as being a spectacular event, with a whole entourage accompanying
him, and I also found evidence of it from collective memories of people in my main Mafa
research area of Gouzda. Concerning the bull festival, the chief of Vreke had to wait until it
had moved sufficiently northwards along the eastern side of the plain of Koza, namely from
the Mineo to the Muktele, before he could announce it for the Moskota hills. This reiterates
that the Vreke clan of Moskota did not particularly connect the bull festival with the Gudur
tradition at all. On the other hand, the chief of Vreke was very important when it came to
announcing the harvest festival matamai, which happened after he had endured a month-long
period of seclusion indoors, from which he was ritually brought out as part of a public
spectacle (Muller-Kosack 2003:191). This marks him as a potential divine entity for the
promotion of a good harvest, and as mentioned, his ritual announcement of the harvest
festival expanded across the eastern plains and into the Gwoza hills, even as far as Chikiɗe.
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