Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 353
from above and from below’, by trying to make connections to their cosmological view of the
world. We can therefore interpret the statement of our Gudule protagonists, in that even
though they played no role in starting the harvest, it was still the Gazhiwe lineage which
traditionally owned the ritual vavanza (Cissus quadrangularis) for increasing the yield of
guinea corn and millet, which people would attach to plants before the harvest. This was often
also done before threshing, and was explicitly not linked to the growing period but instead to
the yield, especially the yield of guinea corn. Even though the other two specialist lineages,
the Gaske rainmakers and the Ɗagha peacemakers, were both in possession of the same
vavanza, it was the vavanza of the Gazhiwe which was considered to be the ritually most
powerful version. We interpret this as an example of a typical ‘blessing from below’ linked
here to the Gazhiwe or Zhiwe as being one of the sons of Gudule who stayed behind after
they had decreased in number to the point of being finally defeated by the expanding
Vaghagaya-Mughuze.
It was further explained to me in Kunde (1995), that it was as if the Gudule were the seventhborn son (thaghaya), while the descendants of Thakara (the ancestor of the Dghweɗe of
Ghwa'a) were the firstborn son, and this was the reason why the Gudule had the role of
starting many sacrifices. This is another possible way of explaining the ritual importance of
the Gudule from a Ghwa'a perspective, namely by not seeing the Gudule as first settlers but as
a specialist clan that not only had the right to first perform har ghwe, but also to start the bull
festival on behalf of all Dghweɗe. We already know, from the house as a place of worship,
that it was thaghaya who was served first by his oldest brother in the sacrifice to a deceased
father (har ghwe). In this way the descendants of Thakara maintained their oral-historical
seniority, by describing themselves as 'senior brothers of the Gudule'.
This explanation also confirms why the Gudule were not involved in certain other activities,
such as ritually starting planting. We remember that it was the descendants of his brother Ske,
the rainmaker lineage Gaske, who in the past started the ritual planting of guinea corn at the
beginning of the growing period. We will see further below that it was the role of the Gudule
to start the process of putting guinea corn into the water to make the ritual beer to be served
during the bull festival. In my opinion it is important to understand the qualitative difference
of the division of ritual labour between the two legendary sons of Tasa. One was responsible
for managing rainfall during the growing period, while the other was responsible for ritually
managing the yield during the harvest followed by the responsibility of opening the cycle of
sacrifices connected to the subsequent slaughtering period.
We obtained an altogether alternative view of Gudule from Kunde, in the claim that the
Gaske and the Gudule had not been 'brothers', but that the Gudule were more related to the
Vile clan of Hiɗkala. The same group of elders from Kunde thought that Gaske was a twin
brother of Ɗagha, and not a son of Tasa at all. We described in Chapter 3.7 the tendency of
our various Dghweɗe protagonists to describe the cosmological pairing of rainmaking and
cornblessing by using the concept of twinhood. That our Kunde friends claimed that the
Gudule were more related to the Vile of Hiɗkala, is perhaps another way of seeing the Gudule
as a specialist clan in the context of their ritual position, their ownership of the best clan
medicines for increasing the yield being a source of that entitlement. We know that the
Gudule once owned a special medicine for population growth, which they tried to take with
them to Gudulyewe after they were outnumbered by the descendants of Mughuze-Ruwa, but
were convinced by the Mughuze-Ruwa not to leave completely, perhaps for that very reason.
Mathews mentions the shrinking Gudule in his account of 1934:
The Gudile [Gudule] ancestor is Mangala, whose son Gudile lived where Korana Basa is now.
When Korana Basa people came and increased in size, he left and went to live where Haraza
[Gharaza] is now. Similarly, when Haraza people came and increased, he moved to where Gudile
now is. They claim to have been first settlers at both Korana Basa and Haraza.
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