Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 457
truly underpins our hypothesis that perhaps the DGB sites were also once used to celebrate
the discovery of sorghum cultivation on terraced hillsides by the use of manure. We wonder
whether the underground passageways of the DGB sites might have been used for leading
sacrificial bulls around and sprinkling them with water as part of the ritual promotion of
fecundity. We know that guinea corn needed animal manure to grow well, therefore Durghwe
was not only the cosmological home of water but also of guinea corn.
In the next chapter we will revisit the concept of the seventh born (thaghaya) as the lucky
one, and will contrast this with the symbolism of the eighth-born child which in the past could
even fall victim to infanticide to ensure the survival of other children. We will show that in
our opinion the seventh-born son as the lucky one cannot be understood without also
discussing the possible reasons for the eighth born not being allowed to survive. We have
already discussed the exposure of the Dghweɗe of the past to climate and other environmental
emergencies, and we know how important it was for an independent man to be able to fill all
three granaries in preparation for economic freedom in the face of potential catastrophes
which could often result in death. Avoiding bad luck was an important underlying concept of
Dghweɗe ritual thinking, and what could have been a better way forward for the promotion of
good luck than connecting it to the birth of children, but this is only one way of looking at it.
Conclusion
In the bigger picture of the previous chapter about worldview and cosmology, this chapter
aimed to explain the importance of Durghwe as a mountain shrine, not only as a place of
worship but also as possibly the most important identifying mark of montagnard culture. In a
way Durghwe had its own personality, and therefore seemed to demand ritual attention, not as
part of the regular ceremonial calendar, but whenever it was needed according to divination.
We were told that Durghwe had a regional reach beyond Ghwa'a, and we pointed out that the
emphasis of our protagonists that people came from as far as Tur to initiate a sacrifice at
Durghwe, could be connected with the Tur tradition of origin relevant to many groups of the
Gwoza hills. Despite Durghwe having such importance to our wider subregion, the ritual
responsibility for it rested with Ghwa'a, and there with the seventh born (thaghaya) of the
Btha lineage, as custodian not only for Durghwe but also for other group sacrifices of Ghwa'a.
We connected the importance of Durghwe with the place 'Johode' (Ghwa'a) as an early arrival
zone for groups who claimed an origin from Tur, for example the Chikiɗe, and we also
acknowledged the interethnic impact of Durghwe on its immediate mountain surroundings.
We tried to establish the cosmological importance of Durghwe as an intramountain shrine, not
only due to its visibility but also due to its exclusive rootedness in the deep primordial water
of this otherwise aridity-prone most northern part of our wider subregion. We were able to
establish that the German explorer Heinrich Barth might already have referred to Durghwe as
Mt Legga, and we presented a reconstruction of Barth's likely view of the chain of the Gwoza
hills and the Tur heights together with the Ziver-Oupay and the Sukur massif. We highlighted
the contrast in his view of the mountain tops from the perspective of the plains with the
intramountainous perspective of the Dghweɗe and their neighbours, including their need to
manage the high ritual density of their egalitarian terrace farming societies of the semi-arid
environment. We pointed again to the ethnoarchaeological model of the DGB sites, being
seen as 'watch or water towers' (mandaras.info/research 2002) but there we failed to
acknowledge the importance of dung production so essential to bind the fertility provided by
water to create soils behind man-made terraced walls. We wanted to underpin our view with
the worldview of our Dghweɗe friends, who remembered that this world was once seen as a
cosmological building. We stressed that the DGB sites might also once have been inspired by
a similar intramountainous environment where not only the ritual importance of height and
visibility, but also primordial rootedness in water was important.
We emphasised again the specific geographical position of Ghwa'a, being sandwiched
between the DGB area along the northern slopes of the Oupay massif and Kirawa, as part of
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