Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 463
The seventh born and the system of inheritance
After establishing that theoretically any son could become the seventh born (thaghaya), we
realise that even the youngest son of the most recent wife could inherit the house after the
death of his father, providing that he was the only remaining potential family thaghaya. The
sequence would have started with the sons of the first wife, followed by those of the second
wife and so on, if none of them had survived by the time the father died. This implies that any
son could have transformed into the bearer of socio-economic hope by becoming a family
thaghaya. We have no oral data about all possible scenarios, apart from the fact that a certain
sequential order had to be maintained in order to become the family seventh born and
inheriter of the farm. In this section we present an ideal scenario of the system of inheritance
historically practised by the Dghweɗe, where the seventh-born son of a matrilateral 'kitchen'
not only inherited the house and infields but also passed their rights down along branches of
direct relatives for generations.
In 1998 John explained that the general word for inheritance was wura and that it had no
literal meaning. It included the farmland, trees and cattle of a man's father, but could also
include the widow of a brother and his female children. The reason for this was that the
potential bridewealth from the marriage of a daughter of a deceased brother went to the one
who had inherited that daughter. Wura further included the property assets of any other male
relative of a father who had no son. For example, wura of descendants with the same father
and mother could inherit land even if the link went back many generations. This rule only
applied however if the patrilineal descent derived from the same matrilateral 'kitchen' of fullbrothers and was continuous.
Figure 28a below shows an example of such an intergenerational inheritance, and we refer in
this context to the seventh born who inherited as seventh-born brother, because all brothers
descended from the same 'kitchen' in terms of genealogical origin. The example shows five
relatives who shared the same father (F) and mother (M) five generations ago, consisting of a
senior brother (S), the next younger brother (A), followed by the seventh born (T) and the two
youngest brothers (B and C). Five scenarios of five generations of uninterrupted descent from
all five of their ancestral 'kitchen' brothers are presented, and the intergenerational seventh
born (T) is highlighted, who is still entitled to inherit by following the sequential order
determined by which thaghaya among them is marked as having died (D).
Figure 28a: Five scenarios of intergenerational inheritance of land through the same 'kitchen'
Scenario 1
Scenario 2
Scenario 3
Scenario 4
Scenario 5
F=M
______|_____
| | | | |
S A T B C
¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦
¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦
D T T T T
↓____↑
F=M
______|_____
| | | | |
S A T B C
¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦
¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦
T D T T T
↑__↓
F=M
______|_____
| | | | |
S A T B C
¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦
¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦
T T D T T
↑__↓
F=M
______|_____
| | | | |
S A T B C
¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦
¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦
T T T D T
↑__↓
F=M
______|_____
| | | | |
S A T B C
¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦
¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦
T T T T D
↑__↓
This illustrates that the seventh born (T) who inherits from his seventh-born relative who died
(D) is always from the branch of the next older 'kitchen' brother five generations ago. The
only exception is if the seventh-born (T) direct descendant of the senior 'kitchen' brother (S)
has died. Scenario 1 illustrates this, showing an uninterupted line of intergenerational descent,
and it is the branch of the original seventh born (T) who inherits in this case. In Scenario 2 it
is the seventh born (T) representing the uninterrupted lineage branch of the ancestral senior
brother (S) who inherits and not the seventh born (T) descending from the ancestral seventh
born (T). If we compare this with Scenarios 3, 4, and 5, we recognise that the same
intergenerational pattern continues throughout the model.
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