Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 471
In 2005 I asked John to research this, and although the result is rather limited, it does throw
light on an interesting situation in terms of the subregional distribution of the tradition. We
will also use Ekkehard Wolff's (1994) account of this subject in relation to the Lamang of
Hiɗkala, but Wolff does not link the seventh and eighth-born children to the concepts of lucky
and unlucky, and neither does he mention a seventh-born son having any role as earth priest
on the level of ancestral descent.
Wolff (ibid:134-142) only describes the role of the seventh born, and also refers to him as
thaghaya (he transcribes it sləghaya) being the one who inherits the lion’s share of his father's
property, and points to the first wife having to be the mother in the case of family thaghaya,
while he points out that the seventh born of a second wife would succeed if the first wife
could not provide a seventh born. He also points out that a seventh-born son became identical
to a firstborn son if a first wife gave birth to no other son, and further explains that a seventhborn great grandson could still inherit from his deceased great grandfather as seventh born. In
addition, Wolff lists the shares a firstborn and seventh born would receive in terms of
farmland and farm animals, particularly regarding the inheritence of cows (ibid 141). In the
context of this he also speaks of 'black fingernail children', which seems to be a Lamang
expression for any other sons who might end up inheriting what was left.
If we compare this with John's oral data about the Chikiɗe, the closest neighbours of the
Dghweɗe, we realise that they do not put any emphasis on the seventh born, but in their case
it is the youngest son who inherits the house. This indirectly implies that it is very unlikely
that they considered the eighth-born child an unlucky birth. On the other hand, the Lamang of
Hiɗkala practised the same system as the Dghweɗe, meaning the seventh-born and eighthborn child had almost the same cultural and ritual significances as among their uphill
Dghweɗe neighbours. The only difference is that Wolff (ibid) does not mention the role of the
seventh born as earth or lineage priest, but this does not imply that they had no such ritual
function for their local descent group. Neither does Wolff in any way connect the significance
of the seventh born with that of the eighth born as we have done in this chapter, but Wolff
(ibid:94ff) gives us a detailed description of the infanticide of an eighth-born child which
confirms that such an unfortunate child was indeed drowned in a bowl of water.
Wolff (ibid) gives a further reason as to why an eighth-born child fell victim to infanticide or
was cast out, by claiming that it was rooted in the belief that eighth-born children would cause
not only all other children, but also the parents of eighth-born children to die. This indirectly
confirms our hypothesis that was connected with population control as a result of possible
overpopulation in times of crisis. Wolff’s oral source from Lamang is from 1969, and also
describes how in the past an unwanted eighth-born girl could be brutally scapegoated by her
birth family and their neighbours. Such an eighth-born Lamang girl was brought out to the
rubbish dump and people pretended to kick her, saying 'May you harm yourself'. One of the
reported reasons for this was that the family were upset that they could not raise bridewealth
from such a girl.
As with the Chikiɗe, also with the Guduf (at least according to Renate Lukas 1973:140), it
was the youngest son who inherited the house, while we know that the Zelidva considered a
seventh-born son a lucky birth. The Zelidva saw him as the one to inherit the house, and
claimed a similar ritual status for him as in Dghweɗe, but allegedly they did not practice
infanticide of the eighth-born child. It is difficult to judge whether perhaps in the past they did
practice infanticide as the Lamang and the Dghweɗe did, especially considering that they
claimed not only early Dghweɗe but even earlier Lamang roots. On the other hand, the
Chikiɗe and the Zelidva share the same tradition of having ancestral roots in Ghwa'a.
According to our oral historical reconstruction from Ghwa'a (see Chapter 3.5), it was Ghwasa
who came and shortly after arrival was adopted by the Zuwagha, a Lamang-speaking local
group in what would later become Zelidva. Ghwasa's grandson Kumba Zadva eventually
became the founder of the Zelidva as we came to know them. The overall oral historical
narrative suggests that both Ghwasa as outsider-founder of Zelidva, and Irira as founding
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