Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 451
is consumed, the elders up at Durghwe will bring the one who was too old to come up to share the
meat first before they enjoy it themselves.
Next, the cooked meat will be filled into clay pots and now people will traditionally wrestle to get
hold of a share of it. After everything is completed people will dance, play the flutes and sing, also
beating drums etc, to enjoy the occasion.
One thing that needs to be mentioned is that before the sacrifice (meaning the slaughtering), adult
men will run three times around Durghwe. When there was any kind of disease or plague in the
past, for example locusts, a sacrifice to Durghwe was carried out, and the same with smallpox.
Even people from Tur and Gvoko asked the Ghwa’a people to sacrifice at Durghwe in the past.
People from Ghwa’a would then collect [goods] to find a bull or he-goat to be sacrificed to satisfy
such a demand.
One day God himself had come out of Durghwe, by pushing a very big rock down in order to
appear out of Durghwe with his children on his body. Now the people of Ghwa’a had to sacrifice a
white bull. God had a very big head and people were surprised about this. Now he went back into
Durghwe. 2
If someone set fire to the vegetation around Durghwe, this person would have to find a he-goat to
be sacrificed to Durghwe. In doing so he would have to first complete all the other sacrifices in the
house, meaning har ghwe etc. This rule would also apply to the lineage priest (thaghaya) who
would have to do his house-related rituals before he could carry out any sacrifice at Durghwe or
khalale [lineage shrine].
A sacrifice at Durghwe is not necessarily on a fixed date but is rather a matter of divination. The
stone pillars of Durghwe are not just something sticking out of the surface but are rooted deep
inside Durghwe, deep down in water.
Deep in this water, the stone pillars are rooted in a big type of hole comparable with prehistoric
grinding holes. In Dghweɗe such a hole is called ghlawa. Ghlawa is the name of such holes or
grinding stones nearby the house, used for giving water to animals. The one inside Durghwe is
enormous and inside the hole, the already mentioned frog or toad, is sitting.
The water inside Durghwe is so deep that it has no end. Zachariya and Ɗga told us that in the past
they pushed a corn stalk into a well southeast of Durghwe, only to discover that this particular
corn stalk came back to the surface in the sand at a watercourse in Gava [Guduf].
Zachariya and Ɗga started telling the legend of Zedima and the daughter of the chief of Wandala. 3
In the context of this, they said that in the past Durghwe was the only place to find water during
times of extreme drought. People from the whole region would come to profit from that and fetch
water from a place inside Durghwe.
Sacrifices or offerings are always preceded by divination to find out whether Durghwe needed
something. During thagla [harvest festival] they would take the contents of the intestines to throw
towards Durghwe before they could drink the beer of thagla.
Durghwe is not only for Dghweɗe but for every living being, meaning all people. Nobody can take
a stone away from Durghwe. If somebody does, the diviner will find out and the stone has to be
returned, including an offering, for example a he‐goat.
There is no common interethnic sacrifice for Durghwe. The Dghweɗe do theirs first, followed by
the Chikiɗe, and in the past the Guduf also.
The first priest for har durghwe was Viwaya, followed by Btha. Zakariya Kwire and dada Ɗga
could not remember the exact chronological order and only remembered the names: Duwatha,
Ngwiva, Ghuda and Tawana. All these priests were from the Btha lineage, including Viwaya who
was Btha’s father. The others were Nglamude and Gwama Ndura. These two were not from the
Btha lineage and each died after one sacrifice. Now the priesthood came back to the Btha lineage,
first with Ɗawa and then Ghamba. Ghamba is the current priest. Since Ghamba has not enough
animals for the domestic sacrifices that have to take place before the one at Durghwe, he can
currently not sacrifice at Durghwe at all.
2
3
John said during the translation, that he himself remembered this rock coming down from Durghwe.
See tale presented in Chapter 2.1 the chapter section: 'The roots of the sun and the moon legend'.
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