Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 452
Durghwe also has a regional function, for example for Tur and for Gvoko from where
representatives were sent to Ghwa’a to ask for a sacrifice at Durghwe. Ghwa’a people sacrificed
on their behalf, for example a he‐goat. In the past, a man from Tur came to Ɗawa, who was the
uncle of Ghamba, with 30 shillings, and asked him to sacrifice at Durghwe for regional purposes.
This could have been the outbreak of diseases or disruption of the peace or any other catastrophic
event.
Ghwa’a people only sacrifice for Durghwe and the other places in Ghwa’a. Since the [people of]
Ghwa’a do not allow others to sacrifice in Ghwa’a, they cannot themselves sacrifice outside of
Ghwa’a either.
This interview is somewhat disorganised in places. We can see that it starts by emphasising
the calendrical ritual order, starting with the house rituals and then extending to local or even
regional sacrificial unity. Next we indulge in the mysterious powers of Durghwe, which are
linked to bulls, water, stone pillars, and a big toad sitting on a giant grinding stone inside
Durghwe who croaked while people danced on the ground of Tar Durghwe, ground that was
charged with water. We imagine the croaking toad as an acoustic symbol of the sucking
sound the soft ground under Tar Durghwe made when crowds of people moved over it. It
shows that the whole summit area was perhaps geologically underpinned by a large almost
impenetrable rock platform which was thought to be like a giant grinding stone.
Water cannot escape from such a large flat underlying rock near a summit, which seems to
have its own uphill water table, a hydrological phenomenon we also know from Divili on the
Zelidva spur (see Plate 5b ) and from the Ziver massif on the Cameroonian side. Both Divili
and Ziver featured small lakes, more like ponds, that were filled with water throughout the
year, and around those ponds the surface was covered with low grass which felt like walking
on soft bog. Deep inside the bog, groundwater was captured by the flatly-moulded 'grinding
stone' of almost impenetrable rock. This at least is how we interpret the image of a grinding
stone with a toad sitting at the centre. We like to think that the croaking toad was seen by our
Dghweɗe friends as proof of the hydrological independence of Durghwe, pushing the water
down and along the underground passageways by its constant croaking.
Apart from the interpretation of the moulded rock platform inside Durghwe as a grinding
stone for sorghum, presumably a result of erosion, and the interpretation of the three stone
pillars as the three granaries of a house, there is another aspect of the domestic scene that has
been transferred onto the cosmological structure of Durghwe. While the giant toad is new to
us, the bulls are very familiar, although we are puzzled as to the meaning of the various
colours: black, grey and white. We remember 'dark' (lusa) stood for the dark green of wellfertilised crops, and could be linked to successful manure production. It was bulama Ngatha
who used the image of a building (batiwe) in his visualisation of the cosmography of the
world, and saw the living world as the room of a house. This encourages us to see Durghwe
as a domestic building too, with some iconic features such as a grinding stone and three
granaries, and it was significant not only as a rain shrine but also as a mountain water reserve.
This is our interpretation of the cosmological imagination of the Dghweɗe. We know that
bulls played a large role in the ritual promotion of fecundity, which is also represented by the
guts of the sacrificed animal being thrown towards the 'granaries of Durghwe'. In the past guts
were ritually thrown into the guinea corn before it was harvested.
What seems to stand out in our field description is the fact that the ritual throwing of intestinal
matter onto the 'granaries' of Durghwe was a very dangerous task and needed to be done by a
group of elders. Besides this, they only pretended to throw the guts until someone eventually
let go more or less by chance. Our protagonists told us that the people who let go were
expected to die, but we do not know how serious that fear was in reality. It does indicate
however that Durghwe was seen to have mysterious powers, and we were told that some
white men had not been able to climb the rock pillars, and neither could aeroplanes fly
directly over Durghwe. After I visited Durghwe, my friends were keen to find out whether I
had seen one of the cosmological bulls, and I am not sure whether my two Dghweɗe friends
feared I might die had I actually seen one.
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