Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 393
interlinked. The 'black cows' or 'lusa' were represented by the darke, the dark indigo coloured
woven dress they wore, while the ngwa garda still wore the black and white cotton waistband
called gwambariya, which a man also had to give his brother-in-law wrapped around the neck
of a billy goat if he wanted to start dzum zugune before him. Before that, it was bandoliers
made of tough speargrass weed which were the predominant element of dress. The darke of
the ngwa yiye presumably stood for the advanced stage of successful mountain farming they
were proven to have reached.
The ngwa yiye wore no bandoliers and neither any items of female dress. In place of pakɗinda
rods their war helmets were now decorated with sheepskin strips hanging from the sides. We
were also told, in 1995 by Bulama Tada Zangav from Hudimche, that dzum zugune
performers would try to make their heads look big by wrapping sheepskin around them. We
infer that perhaps this also applied to the ngwa yiye, and there also seemed to be iron objects
used as weapons, ceremonial lances, spears and a sword (magrata). The latter was used by the
ngwa yiye, together with a wooden fighting stick (kiɓa), to force the ngwa garda into ritual
submission at Fkagh Gwatadhe, to establish their seniority as 'black cows' over the 'red cows'
before the race.
We realise that 'tva' for the 'red cows' referred to an orangey-red 2, and that the 'lusa' were
senior to the 'tva', suggesting a strong aspect of gathering strength to defend the land and the
fertility it contained against potential strangers. We remember that soil fertility behind terrace
walls was produced through hard labour over generations, and defending it on behalf of the
whole community was paramount. We also know that the rearing of cows was central to the
production of manure, and that in the past cows were leased to less successful farmers who
kept the manure. Furthermore, cows were often acquired in the first place through iron
production. Whether those who had completed the third stage of dzum zugune were the richest
in cows must however remain an open question.
A good question to ask ourselves would be why the second stage of dzum zugune had more
female aspects in the dress code. Maybe the expressions of femininity and masculinity were
not only a social gender issue, but also a cosmographic expression of the belief system
embedded in Dghweɗe material and immaterial culture. Whether the colour red stood for
femininity and black for masculinity, we simply do not know. Perhaps red represented 'young
and active' and black 'old and mature', but we do not know to what extent the age range of the
performers of each stage differed. In the context of the 'cows', we notice that they were not
called red or black 'bulls', considering that the bull was perhaps the epitome of masculinity.
What we do know is that the ngwa yiye as 'black cows' had no female items in their dress
code, while the ngwa garda as 'red cows' still had to prove themselves and dance back uphill
in gender-exaggerated dress before they could transform into ngwa kwalanglanga.
Dress code and objects for ngwa yiye (third stage of dzum zugune):
• Kba
– war helmet (Plate 56a) decorated with strips of sheep skin
• Darke
– dark indigo robe worn by ngwa yiye (Plate 57i)
• Magrata
– sword held up (Plate 59l) together with kiɓa
• Balwaya
– lance used in war and mock encounters (Plate 59b)
• Zalika
– lance also used to hunt leopards (Plate 59b)
• Ruma
– spear planted into ritual dunghole by rainmaker (Plate 59c)
• Kiɓa
– fighting stick used to threaten ngwa garda (no illustration)
• 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
– eating bowl for celebrating fstaha (Plate 59g)
2
tva-kul-kule (see Chapter 3.22) means an orangey-red and also refers to the red spots of a cow.
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