Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 422
If somebody is identified zalghede by a Ɗagha diviner he will be accused by the person who is
suffering from sorcery. A zalghede normally denies. If he denies the elders will get involved.
There will be three or four more confirmations by different Ɗagha, before the elders decide to
curse the person. To curse somebody is called ghawaghawa. To do that, the elders will now go to
the cursing place in their settlement which is generally referred to as vakwaɗa (swearing place).
The accused is taken to the swearing place where he will swear (waɗa). He normally swears that
he is not a zalghede. Most of the time the person who is accused will cry the whole night at the
cursing place before the elders come and gather the next morning and ask him to swear. There are
several ways to swear. The most usual one is for the accused to turn himself round three times
naked. Another one is to throw a piece of black clothing used for burial at him. This means he will
be buried. He will say: 'God prove to them that I am not the one, but if I am the one I shall die'.
Now he turns himself round three times. If he is the one he will die a few months later, or
somebody within his family will die. If he does not die the bad luck will follow the accuser, but it
will never follow the diviner.
This is all I have from Dghweɗe about the tradition of oath swearing and cursing in the public
arena. We know however from our archival records that proclaiming innocence in public has
a long tradition, not only in Dghweɗe but also in most other communities in and around the
Gwoza hills. The first to refer to what he calls the 'Method of Proclaiming Innocence' was
captain Lewis (1925). He provides us with short descriptions as part of a comparative listing
for many of the local communities. We only quote what he has to say about 'Johode' (ibid):
An old rope (native) is tied around the head of the accused on top of which is placed a new
calabash and on top of the latter is placed a small branch of the 'Makariya'-Tree. Their place of
swearing oaths is an open space to which place a goat is taken and tied to a stake. The accused
then says – 'If I have committed this crime, may I not find food. If I am innocent may my accuser
or one of his house-holders die.' If nothing of this sort happens to the accuser in three days the
accuser has won his case and the accused 7 is subject to certain penalties decided by the elders.
Lewis makes no reference to sorcery, but refers to other wrongdoings in the locality, for
example 'stealing'. Considering that his report is called 'Customs and Mode of Life about the
Hill Pagans', we infer that his main objective in 1925 was to establish what kind of customary
law might be suitable for the population of the Gwoza hills. After all, it was the first official
report listing all the different local communities. We already referred to captain Lewis' report
in Part Two in the chapter about colonial history, and also at the beginning of Part Three
under the chapter: 'Names and places'.
It was part of my 1994 survey to map what I called 'places of ritual interest' at the time, and I
established that most communities had a swearing or cursing place. Those places included
actions such as stealing, adultery, evil spirits and witchcraft as main subjects of contention. If a
person was accused of any such offences and did not speak the truth in public, that person risked
death. It was also believed that someone who felt guilty for any such offences would have
avoided passing such local swearing places, because by doing so they would have risked their
life. As reported by Lewis and also confirmed by John, it was the accused who had to swear an
oath of innocence, and it was left either to divination or subsequently to the belief in divinity as a
supreme supernatural agency to punish such a person found guilty by ordeal.
The custom of cursing and the subsequent intervention of the supernatural did not only occur in
the context of a public trial by ordeal, but it also happened inside families, and as such has
entered the annals of oral history. We remember the case of Dugh Viye, the daughter of Hembe
and first wife of the outsider Mughuze-Ruwa. She was the mother of Vaghagaya, the ancestor of
the largest lineage group in Dghweɗe. She was accused by her co-wives of being a witch, and
when her son Kwili'a doubted her innocence, she was so angry she cursed him and said he would
not grow in number. She subsequently decided to leave completely, carrying Vaghagaya on her
back, but was unable to continue because of a stone Vaghagaya held in his hand. The stone was
so heavy that she had to return and proclaim her innocence. This incident gave her the name
The original reads: '... and the accuser is subject to certain penalties...' I concluded that it should read:
'... and the "accused" is subject to certain penalties...', otherwise it would make no sense.
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