Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 389
a dramatisation by the zal ɗuf ɗala as a self-encouragement towards becoming ngwa garda
before they grew too old to win.
Moving on to the dress code of the performers of the second stage, we note that from now on
a war helmet (kba) was worn, which in the case of the ngwa kwalanglanga was decorated
with a pakɗinda on each side. We know that normally only one pakɗinda was worn, and only
by a married woman, and that it would hang over the front of her waistband. There was
another item of female dress worn by the ngwa kwalanglanga, consisting of several so-called
'old skins'. These were usually only worn by older women (presumably women who had
passed menopause) and hung over their backsides. Now they were turned inside out and
packed in layers over the hips of the ngwa kwalanglanga, with the intention of making them
look large and elevated.
I failed to explore a possible interpretation of this,
and can therefore only say that the wearing of
The fibre-filled metal female dress items might indicate the importance
rods of the pakɗinda of adult women to the men who were about to
(a) dangled from the progress through the stages of dzum zugune. One
sides of the kba war item is something worn by married women of
helmets worn by the
childbearing age, as shown on the war helmet in
ngwa kwalanglanga
while they danced Figure 23b, and the other is worn by older
women beyond that age, turned inside out and
back uphill.
worn over the hips to make them look heavy. We
know that the ngwa kwalanglanga danced up the hillside and that they were showered with
sorghum flour and flour of tiger nuts by women, at the place called Fkagh Ɓag Haya, after
they had danced at the house of the custodian and seventh born of Ghwa'a, their lineage and
local earth priest (thaghaya).
Figure 23b:
We also remember the young unmarried females, dressed in mathpasta headbands made from
palm leaves, holding suteke beer pots with small apertures, during the fstaha ritual in the
individual houses of the ngwa kwalanglanga. The young girl could be seen to indicate the
opposite of the 'old skins', and perhaps the pakɗinda rods dangling from the war helmets
represented the ambition of wanting many heirs. The stages in the reproductive age of women
might have represented good luck for the prosperity and welfare of a large family, wished for
by a husband and potential father of a seventh born (zal thaghaya). We remember that the
eighth-born child could fall victim to infanticide or be cast out, indicating the risk attached to
not being able to feed everyone in times of crisis. We will discuss this further in Chapter 3.18,
but mention here that twins were not included in the category of the eighth born and never fell
victim to that tradition, which underpins reproductive success indeed being an integrated part
of the Dghweɗe cosmological belief system.
Before moving on to discuss the dress code of the third stage ngwa yiye, we want to discuss
whereabouts in the house of a ngwa kwalanglanga, the fstaha ritual was possibly performed.
We have already given a detailed description of fstaha, and we know that the ngwa yiye
performed it at the ritual dunghole near the senior rainmaker's house after he had planted the
spear ruma. We infer that the main difference was that one fstaha was celebrated inside the
house while the other one was in public, but both were directly or indirectly connected with
animal manure, this being the key material of pre-colonial wealth creation, central to which
was the achievement of a surplus for long-term food storage.
We will go on to discuss the public setting the ngwa yiye used for their fstaha near the ritual
dunghole next to the rainmaker's house, but now need to remind ourselves of the most sacred
area of the house, which was the foyer. Since we do not know exactly where the fstaha of the
ngwa kwalanglanga was performed, we can only assume that it was on the sitting stones in
front of the three granaries. Another possibility is that the ngwa kwalanglanga sat on the
foundation stones separating the foyer from the lower and upper room complex. For example,
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