Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 423
Bughwithe, and Vaghagaya became the one who increased in number while Kwili'a did not. This
example shows that the belief in a supernatural agency as an integrated part of personhood also
appears in legendary accounts, as a justification of oral historical events related to late precolonial local group formation.
The example of Dugh Viye/Bughwithe (see Chapter 3.4 and Chapter 3.20), the first wife of
Mughuze-Ruwa and mother of Vaghagaya, reiterates that the importance of population
number was embedded in the belief in the supernatural as a transformational personality trait.
Mughuze-Ruwa was an outsider and in his case it was not himself but his first wife who
triggered the ordeal of proclaiming innocence. Her sense of injustice impelled her to return,
because the supernatural symbolised by the stone in her son’s hand forced her to succeed. It is
almost as if the stone by its supernatural heaviness represented a personality trait of its own,
which prevented her from leaving so she had no other choice than to return and stand her
ground. Subsequently her son Vaghagaya became thaghaya (seventh born) and he reproduced
in great number, becoming as such the legendary expression of the transformational power of
the supernatural stone he had held in his hand.
The Bughwithe/Vaghagaya story could be interpreted as a conflict arising from competition
rooted in environmental factors related to labour-intensive farming and high population
density in an egalitarian society. It seems that proclamation of innocence following such a
witchcraft accusation needed to be regulated within a traditional justice system, and the
frequency of swearing and cursing was perhaps an expression of that very density. It required
a highly regulated ritual system which allowed at the same time for cooperation as well as
strong competition. This in turn might have also brought about highly individualised
personality traits and a strong belief in the regulation of the supernatural dimension of
personhood, in which struggles took place in the celestial world above as a mirror image of
environmental conditions and risk management issues in this world.
Conclusion
In this chapter we showed first of all that the worldview of the Dghweɗe cannot be separated
from the attempt to understand their ideas around personhood. We found it difficult not only
to translate the words safa (breath, life, soul) and sɗukwe/sɗukwe vagha (human shadow,
human spirit), but also to translate gwazgafte (divinity and God, or Supreme Being) as
structural conditions of existential personhood. We emphasised the underlying fluidity of
these concepts, and have been able to establish that the concept of the spirit (sɗukwe) played a
greater role in the context of witchcraft and sorcery, since it was believed that it was sɗukwe
which could be affected by it rather than safa. However we were also told that the soul would
not survive if the spirit was entrapped or permanently lost. We highlighted how Christianity
influenced ideas around the ideas of soul, spirit, God and heaven as part of colonial and
Christian influences in the Dghweɗe language, and also likely pre-colonial Islamic influences
which we exemplified by the Arabic word for evil spirit shatane or shaitan.
We discussed the vulnerability of the spirit, and concluded that this stemmed from an
underlying belief in an aspect of divinity and God (gwazgafte) as a celestial dimension of
personhood which sorcerers could employ to abduct the spirit of sleeping individuals. In the
context of this, only male sorcerers (zalghede) had the power to kill. We highlighted the more
powerful male-gendered aspect of sorcery, and that it needed a gwal ngurɗe (specialist healer)
who himself could be a potential zalghede to safeguard such a lost spirit. We further explored
whether the Dghweɗe distinguished an individual who was affected by sorcery from an
individual who might have been naturally mentally confused. We had to admit that we do not
know enough about the difference between the concept of witchcraft and that of sorcery, but
indirectly hinted at the possibility that witchcraft, the weaker form of supernatural attack,
might not only have been caused by females. In the context of this we suggested that
witchcraft might have been less intentional than sorcery.
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