Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 441
Chapter 3.17
The importance of Durghwe as a mountain shrine
Introduction
This chapter is about the importance of Durghwe as a mountain shrine. We admit we do not
know whether the word Durghwe has a literal meaning, but we do know that the shrine had an
interethnic dimension and that the three rock pillars on the summit represented the Dghweɗe,
the Chikiɗe and the Guduf. Unfortunately we do not know whether this highest mountain of
the central massif of the Gwoza hills was referred to as Durghwe only by the Dghweɗe. The
German explorer Heinrich Barth might have referred to it as Mt Legga while travelling down
the western plain in early June 1851. I visited Durghwe twice between 1994 and 2010, but
never explored the rocky parts of the summit with the rock pillars which were difficult to
access, and only walked up from Ghwa'a and then walked and climbed around the summit
area to explore the various views. I also failed to write down which pillar represented
Dghweɗe, but strongly think that it was the most southern one and that the one in the middle
was for Chikiɗe while the most northern pillar represented Guduf.
We begin this chapter by showing pictures of Durghwe I took in the late 1990s, to obtain a
better impression of the summit and its surroundings. By first emphasising the visibility of
Durghwe from an intramountainous perspective, we will show its unique topographical
position and then examine the cartographic history of its visibility from the western plain. We
will try to reconstruct Barth's view from the various points he mentions in his text and map of
1857, and also present Petermann's first map of this part of 'Central Africa' from 1854, which
in our opinion incorrectly reverses the positions of Mt Legga and Mt Magar. However, it was
more Barth's mention of 'Mt Deladeba or Mt Dallantube' which left a lasting legacy, still
appearing as 'Dalla Duba' on early British maps in 1923. It was still referred to as 'Dalladibo'
by Mathews in 1934. Mathews also used the modern reference 'Zediva' or 'Zlediva' (Zelidva)
and claimed that they came from 'Johodo' (Ghwa'a), which brings us back to Durghwe.
After exploring the historical cartographic context, we will present part of an interview that
John and I conducted in Ghwa'a in 1998 in which Durghwe was the focus of our interest. We
have intentionally singled out the oral account about Durghwe from the chapter about the
spatial distribution and custodianship of local shrines, and present it here in order to stress its
significance for the understanding of Dghweɗe cosmology. We have reorganised the
presentation of the interview to make it easier for the reader to follow, but have left essential
grammatical and syntax imperfections untouched to retain the atmosphere of the field
situation in which the interview was taken. The original interview was carried out on a tape
recorder and then translated with the help of John. It contains some annotations from when it
was translated and written down in English.
The interview puts great emphasis on the regional significance of Durghwe, and also gives a
good idea of its cosmographic relevance, which we will reconstruct from the oral accounts of
our two main protagonists. Then in a subsequent chapter section we will try to present a
model of Durghwe from a field sketch capturing its reconstructed cosmological imagery, and
discuss it as a possible ethnoarchaeological model with which to better understand the ritual
function of the DGB sites. In our opinion, Durghwe represents all the key elements we found
to be of great ritual importance for the promotion of montagnard fecundity, such as water,
guinea corn, three bulls, a grinding stone, three granaries, and of course its role as a natural
refuge in case of environmental crisis. We will attempt to present the model of Dghweɗe
cosmography we imagine to have still been in place during late pre-colonial times, which
encompasses early June 1851 when Barth travelled down the western plain.
439
