Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 360
We doubt that there is any strict historical value in this chain of travel, but perhaps there is a
phenomenological value in how oral history was constructed as a socio-spatial expression of
local group formation. If we look for example first at Dghweɗe, and then beyond Dghweɗe,
we can see evidence of this. There the bull festival travelled from the recently formed
settlement area of Vaghagaya to the more ancient one of Ghwa'a, meaning it started from
what we have referred to as the more recent southern Dghweɗe and then moved to the more
ancient northern Dghweɗe. There it stopped, because Chikiɗe did not pick it up, and instead it
turned around and reversed in the direction of to the Tur tradition, almost as if it were
returning to the place the majority of the Dghweɗe clans claimed to have originated.
We can also construct a structural similarity with the bull festival coming from Pokoko across
the plain of Koza to the Vreke of the Moskota hills, after it had travelled north from Mineo
and Muktele. We know that the Podoko settled not only in Dghweɗe but also in Guduf, before
they moved across to where they settled to the south of Mora in the east. We infer that this
happened as the result of a famine, perhaps caused by a plague of locusts, at least this was one
of the oral-historical traditions I collected in Zelidva (Muller-Kosack 1994). Unfortunately,
we have no explanation as to why neither the Zelidva, Guduf, Chikiɗe, Chinene nor the
Glavda celebrated a travelling bull festival, while their Mafa neighbours to the east did so, as
did the Dghweɗe, the Lamang and most likely also the Gvoko.
In the northeastern chain of the Mandara Mountains the travelling bull festival ended in
Vreke, while a similar pattern emerged concerning the harvest festival, which we know
travelled from Vreke via the Glavda into the northern part of the Gwoza hills. We remember
that the Glavda once occupied the Moskota hills where the Vreke clan now lives. From
Glavda it continued to Zelidva, again in the same opposite direction to how the migratory
traditions of the clans and lineages claim to have moved in the past, which was southwards,
meaning via Guduf to Chikiɗe but not as far as Dghweɗe. We have already mentioned the
puzzling aspect of travelling communal festivals in general, and want to emphasise again that
the Chikiɗe and the Guduf did not perform a communal bull festival, despite having been so
similar to the Dghweɗe in many other ways.
Figure 21b also shows how the Vreke connected with Moudoukwa, where we know the main
rainmaker (biy yam) of the northeastern Mafa lived. The rainmaker of Moudoukwa and the
chief of Vreke were, according to my Mafa research (Muller-Kosack 2003:191ff), the ritual
initiators of the Mafa harvest festival. We mentioned that the chief of Vreke announced the
harvest festival after he came out of seclusion, and the Glavda picked it up and passed it on to
the northern part of the Gwoza hills. At the same time, the chief of Vreke also announced it to
the rainmaker of Moudoukwa, by ritually throwing a grass used for mat-making towards
Moudoukwa, where the rainmaker would find it in an old grinding stone (ibid). This indicated
that the Mafa of our wider subregion (including the Mafa of the Gouzda area) could now start
germinating sorghum grain to make the beer for their harvest festival.
As for the Mafa bull festival, we know that the Mafa who lived higher up in the hills, that is
the whole of the northwestern massif of our subregion, performed it on a bi-annual level as
the Dghweɗe did, while those along the western foothills and plains of the Ziver-Oupay
massif only performed it irregularly every three or four years (Muller-Kosack 2003:210ff).
What is perhaps significant to us is that the Mafa who lived on the upper mountain ranges
started it, and afterwards it travelled down towards the plain of Koza. We know for example
that the Hide of Tur played an important role in that context, and also need to remember that
for example Gvoko, where the bull festival continued after Dghweɗe had completed it, are a
cross-border ethnic group who also have settlements on the Cameroonian side. This is a
reminder once more of how disruptive the colonial period must have been for the oral
traditions of the travelling bull festival in our subregion.
We pointed out earlier that the Gudule, who started the bull festival in Dghweɗe, did not carry
out the adult initiation rituals (dzum zugune), while not only the other Dghweɗe clans but also
the Chikiɗe, Chinene, Guduf and Glavda did carry out a form of adult initiation. They all had
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