Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 461
was cast out, something which captain Lewis (1925) referred to, and we will discuss this later
in the context of the adoption of eighth-born children introduced by the British.
The concept of lucky and unlucky birth might be helpful here. Table 11 below shows the
Dghweɗe naming tradition according to the birth position of a child, and that the name for the
seventh born was Taɗa while that of the eighth born was Zuwala. The only birth of an eighthborn child which could override the unluckiness of being named Zuwala was if it was one of
twins, or the child born after twins. The older of the twins would be called Wasa and the
younger called Wala, but we do not know whether there was any semantic connection
between Wala and Zuwala. However, if twins were eighth-born children they would survive,
and all the rituals for the birth of twins would have been carried out (see Chapter 3.19). The
same would apply to Ghamba, which was the name for a boy who was born after twins.
Table 11: Dghweɗe naming tradition according to the birth position of a child
Birth position of the child
6th child
7th child
8th child
9th child
10th child
11th child
12th child
etc.
Boy
Kalakwa
Taɗa
Zuwala
Mbthe
Gwama
Ndara or Paɗe
Ndara or Paɗe
etc.
Girl
Kalakwa
Taɗa
Zuwala
Mbthe
Gwama
Ndara or Paɗe
Ndara or Paɗe
etc.
We also note in Table 11 that the Dghweɗe tradition of giving specific names according to the
relative birth position of a child started with the birth of the sixth and ended with the eleventh
child. After the eleventh child, the same names were given. As we can see, there was no
gender difference in names in this tradition. We can only speculate as to why this was, and
why it started with the sixth-born child. In 2001 John explained to me that it had to do with
the reproductive cycle of the first wife which was slowly coming to an end. This explanation
was further supported by the fact that only from the birth of the fifth child onwards would
children have a spirit pot made for them, and they also had to wear a single twisted wrist
bangle for special protection. This presumably implies that there was a keen interest in
making sure that the seventh born was a son who would be the lucky family thaghaya to carry
forward socio-economic success.
Regarding the name Zuwala, it is difficult to see why a child would have been given a name if
it did not even reach the stage of naming, and we can only infer that the name was a reference
to the bad luck carried by such a pregnancy. We do realise however that an eighth-born child
could survive under certain circumstances. Infanticide became illegal from 1925 and such
children were given up for adoption, but we do not know whether the tradition of infanticide
still continued secretly. We can be sure that eighth-born boys and girls fell victim to it during
early colonial times, while only a seventh-born boy could become a ritual custodian
(thaghaya). An eighth-born boy could be a potential thaghaya too, but only if all his previous
brothers of the same 'kitchen' (kuɗige) had died, or if all seven of his older siblings born to his
father's first wife had been girls.
I personally never came across a seventh born called Zuwala, but if we look at some of the
names from earlier chapters, we instantly remember our friend Taɗa Nzige, the senior
rainmaker from Ghwa'a, who was a seventh-born son, while Kalakwa Wila, whose house we
documented (see Chapter 3.11) was a sixth-born child. We can only assume that Kalakwa
inherited the house of his father because his seventh-born brother Taɗa had died, which would
have led to Kalakwa being seen as the seventh-born son (thaghaya) among his older fullbrothers. Unfortunately, we do not know whether a thaghaya by the name of Kalakwa was
considered less auspicious than one called Taɗa, but perhaps it depended on the particular
socio-economic circumstance and whether he was ritually confronted with many crisis
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