Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 390
the father of a house would sit on one of these when he initiated a promised girl into his
patrilineage by sprinkling water on her as the future wife of his son (see Chapter 3.20).
We remember the gender aspect of the architectural layout of the foyer, with the ritual sauce
kitchen for the zal thaghaya next to it. The fattened bull, one of the most powerful symbols of
manure production, would be imprisoned with his rear in the lower room of the first wife, and
slaughtered over the foundation stones of the upper passageway. The various female aspects
of the dress code of the ngwa kwalanglanga seem to underpin a similar aesthetic inclination
of Dghweɗe material culture, and it might therefore be no coincidence that the ngwa
kwalanglanga carried out the fstaha in their houses before performing the next stage ngwa
yiye near the ritual dunghole at the rainmaker's house. The chronological sequence of dzum
zugune coincides with other ritual performances beginning in the family home before socially
and spatially reaching out into the wider community at local places of worship.
We also want to state at this point that we do not know the identities of the participants of
fstaha, for example whether zal fstaha would be a senior brother or the zal ɗuf ɗala a junior
brother, or the specific social relationship of the unmarried girl who held the dedicated beer
pot suteke. Neither do we know who the two persons were who sat on the stools twice
refusing the ritual beer, and nor do we have any idea who received the portions of food from
the calabash. We do not know whether the ancestor stones received a share of the fstaha beer,
and which of the extended family would have been responsible for that. What we do know is
that much food and beer would have had to be prepared, because many people from far and
wide would have gathered at the houses of the ngwa kwalanglanga on that day.
Dress code and objects for the two steps of the second stage of dzum zugune:
Ngwa garda (first step)
• Kba
• Garda
• Pagbagha
• Vghe tuwighe
• Gwambariya
58b)
• Ndange
• Tikwa ghriɓa
– war helmet
– rope of speargrass (tharɗe) worn around neck (Plate 57c)
– cowrie leather strips worn diagonally across chest (Plate 57d)
– sheepskin with cowrie decorated tail (no illustration)
– alternating bands of black and white cotton around waist (Plate
– ceremonial iron carried by ngwa garda (Plate 59k)
– ceremonial wooden stick carried by ngwa garda (Plate 59i?)
Ngwa kwalanglanga (second step)
• Kba
– war helmet (Plate 56a)
• Pakɗinda
– here worn on each side of war helmet (Plate 54e and Figure 23b)
• Dhambaɗa
– white cow skin strips worn diagonally across chest (no illustration)
• Kwalanglanga – brass bells hang on iron chains from waist (Plate 58a)
• Gjuwa
– 'old skin' for females, several layers are put on hips (Plate 51a)
• Dhambaɗa
– white cow skin strip is also worn around waist (no illustration)
• Jahurimbe
– bowl with decorated stand is used for fstaha (Plate 59a)
• Suteke
– ritual beer pot held by girl during fstaha ceremony (Plate 59f)
• Mathpasta
– girl holding suteke wore this headband during fstaha (Plate 52b)
• Kwata
– calabash for celebrating fstaha (Plate 59h)
• Vde
– wooden stool used for celebrating fstaha (Plate 59e)
• Ndafa
– sauce pot for celebrating fstaha (Plate 59g)
This at least confirms that another aspect of traditional wealth was about sharing. Zakariya
Kwire and dada Ɗga, our main protagonists who remembered dzum zugune, pointed out that
someone who wanted to perform dzum zugune had to plan it very well in order to have
enough guinea corn in his granaries. All three granaries needed to be full when a man reached
the second stage, to provide enough food and beer on completion of dzum zugune. They said
his neighbours and relatives would therefore have been helping him to fill his granaries in
order to be ready for it. This indirectly confirms the importance of the communal aspect of
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