Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 412
been actively promoted by Christian missionaries since the end of the colonial period (see
Chapter 2.2) and were not part of the late pre-colonial Dghweɗe cosmology and worldview.
In the subsequent section we will present vulnerability to supernatural attacks as being an
integrated part of the Dghweɗe existential personhood structure of the past, and show how the
aspect of gender was embedded in that structure. We will also show how witchcraft was seen
to be weaker and perhaps less intentional than its deadly equivalent sorcery, and will try to
compare positive and negative personality traits by exploring their pathological meanings.
Negative personality traits were perceived as a natural occurrence rather than the result of
sorcery. We will suggest that perhaps negative personality characteristics such as envy might
have contributed to someone being accused of witchcraft. In the area of deliberate
supernatural events, we will attempt to provide an idea of how particularly vicious sorcery
attacks took place while potential victims were asleep. We will discuss how the concept of
divinity (gwazgafte) was applied in the context of 'sacrifices' carried out by sorcerers with the
captured spirits of their sleeping victims. Another aspect under discussion is the implication
of negative sexual connotations in sorcery attacks, and we will explore whether this might
have been an expression of social marginalisation between competing local groups.
In the next chapter section we will present a summary description of personality
characteristics manifested in transformational aspects of existential personhood, and explore
some of the Dghweɗe words to express such supernatural abilities. We will refer to the
supernatural gifts and talents that were once allocated to individuals as part of specialised
lineages. We will also discuss in that context how such abilities of transformational spirithood
were not only attributed to humans, but also to organic and non-organic matter of the familiar
mountain environment. This raises the question of an underlying belief in a form of spirit
agency extending beyond the concept of the spirit of the individual human. We will ask
ourselves how the belief in a transformational spirit world as part of the belief in a
cosmological life force might have been conditioned by the socio-economic environment of
Dghweɗe during late pre-colonial times.
In the final subsection we will explore the tradition of 'oath swearing' and cursing in the
context of individuals accused of witchcraft or sorcery. We will show that these accusations
were once part of the traditional justice system, which also dealt with offences such as
stealing and adultery. We will present the earliest archival source of captain Lewis in 1925,
showing that it involved the accused proclaiming innocence, and will underpin this with
fieldnotes from neighbouring groups, as well as from Dghweɗe itself. We will finally suggest
that the ritual density rooted in the need for a sufficiently high population number for a
functioning egalitarian system of labour-intensive terrace farming might have impacted the
self-concept of existential personhood, by favouring a high degree of individuality in
opposition to the otherwise rigid regime of regulatory rituals required to manage potential
conflict situations.
Reconstructing Dghweɗe ideas around the structure of the mind
Bulama Mbaldawa and elders of Tatsa (1995) explained to me that safa was the word for
soul, and that it meant breath. Bulama Ngatha of Hudimche (1995) pointed out that
everybody had a soul (safa) and if the soul was taken away a person would die, but as long as
the soul was still in the body they continued breathing. He added that their forefathers told
them that the body would turn into soil after the soul had been taken away. We will return
later to why bulama Ngatha talked about the soul being taken away, but first we want to
introduce the reader to the concept of sɗukwe vagha as a complementary element of safa.
While safa not only meant breath but also life, and can perhaps be translated as life force,
sɗukwe vagha (sɗukwe = shadow, vagha = body) meant human shadow and was a reference
to the human spirit rather than the vital principle of the soul. Both safa and sɗukwe could be
taken by a sorcerer, but only sɗukwe could get lost while a person was alive, and safa could
only be taken after the permanent loss of sɗukwe after extreme sorcery had led to the death of
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