Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 475
Chapter 3.19
The birth of twins and ideas around conception
Introduction
Our main protagonist in explaining the beliefs about twins and the rituals performed when
they were born in Dghweɗe was dada Dukwa, who himself was a father of twins. Dada
Dukwa was about 80 years old when I went to see him in his house in Dzga (Ghwa'a) in
August 2001 to find out about the rituals around the birth of twins. Before I met dada Dukwa
I had already learned a few details about twins from dada Ɗga of Ghwa'a, who first of all said
that the word for twin was ghwala, and that the Dghweɗe were generally happy when twins
were born. Dada Ɗga pointed out that twins had always been welcome in Dghweɗe, whereas
eighth-born children named Zuwala were not welcome and in the past were given away. We
have already learned that an eighth-born child could have fallen victim to infanticide, but
twins and the first child born after twins were not affected by this tradition of the pre-colonial
past.
Dada Ɗga further explained that children born in pairs were called ghwala (twins), and the
younger brother or sister of twins was given a special name, which was Ghamba for a boy and
Pire for a girl. There was no literal meaning of Ghamba and Pire, and neither was there a
literal meaning of the names given to each twin, which as we already know the first was
always named Wasa and the second Wala. 1 Dada Ɗga told me that the Dghweɗe believed that
twins were reincarnations of former twins who had already lived before they entered the
womb (khuɗe) of their new mother. The diviner would reportedly find out who the former
father and mother of those twins had been.
This chapter has two main sections. The first is about the birth of twins and the second is
about the Dghweɗe ideas around conception. They are not necessarily linked, but we have
decided to put them into one chapter, and dada Ɗga will tell us about how the Dghweɗe
believed conception happened. With regard to birth in general, I was told that in the past
every traditional birth took place outside the house, but in the case of twins a special
ceremony had to be performed before the reincarnated twins could be taken indoors for the
first time. Dada Dukwa tells us about this in the following section.
Dada Dukwa on the birth of twins
We will leave intact most of what dada Dukwa told John and me about the birth of twins and
the ceremonies performed. As previously when presenting Dghweɗe notes, we will use the
ethnographic present related to what was recorded, and will then briefly summarise and
discuss each stage. We start with dada Dukwa's description of the first seven days in the life
of newly born twins:
You cannot know whether twins will be born to you before their birth. Only God knows
beforehand. As soon as you discover that twins are born to you, you go to see the diviner in order
to find out who is the former father of these twins. The diviner responsible has to be someone who
uses the kula kula divination method. Kula kula is a kind of talking oracle made from the branch
of the wulinge tree. The kula kula branch is hollow inside and when put in water it moves around
Ekkehard Wolff (1994:88) claims for the Lamang of Hiɗkala that Wala was the older and Wasa the
younger of twins, but all my sources claim the opposite. I double checked this in 2021 by texting a
contact in Gwoza, who confirmed that Wasa was the firstborn of twins, and not Wala, and that this was
the case not only in Dghweɗe but also among the Lamang of Hiɗkala and elsewhere. This conclusion is
equally in tune with my Gwoza notes from 1994, and Wolff might have reversed the two by mistake.
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