Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 476
and makes talking sounds. It is the diviner who moves the kula kula in the water. The diviner will
then interpret the kula kula and say who were the former mother and father of the twins.
Next the former parents are invited and they now start praising the twins. After that, the former
parents go to Durghwe to pick leaves from the bzaka tree. On the way to Durghwe the former
mother will start ululating. As soon as they are back with the bzaka leaves they again praise the
twins who now open their eyes and start smiling. The former mother will now place the twins on
each of her arms covered with the bzaka leaves and she will take them into the house of the new
parents for the first time.
On the second day the new father of the twins will order two eating bowls (ndafa) and find two
calabashes and fill each ndafa with sour cow milk. Now people come and bring gifts. These gifts
must always be in pairs, one for each twin. They may be salt, potash used for cooking sauce, raw
cow skin which is also used for cooking, etc. The sour milk in the two ndafa eating bowls is for
the former parents.
On the third day there is na all ze (alla = sauce, ze = extract from ashes for sauce making, na’a =
to taste), meaning this kind of sauce can now be eaten. On this day of na all ze, palm seedlings
and other nice food is also prepared and offered to the newborn twins in the ndafa pots and
calabashes. The same day zah yakara, a potage made by mixing guinea corn flour and sour milk,
is prepared. The former parents now fill their ndafa bowls with yakara for themselves, while the
remaining yakara is for the new parents and others. Also on the third day the new and old parents
tie palm leaves [dzadza] around their necks and foreheads, which are removed on the seventh day.
Before na all ze, on the day the twins are born, the new father has to bind sets of guinea corn
stalks into two bundles. A set of two corn stalks is for a twin girl and a set of three corn stalks is
for a twin boy. In the past they used long ones but today only short versions are carried around.
Wherever the father goes throughout that week he has to make sure that the cornstalks rest on his
feet, because these cornstalks are not supposed to touch the ground. People praise the twins and
sing on that day and the father of the twins feels proud.
On the seventh day the twins are brought out of the house again. There will be another big
celebration of cooking food and people gather to celebrate the twins. If twins are born during the
rainy season, people will not go to work on their farms until the twins are brought out again on the
seventh day. This day is called hela da vde (hela = to take (plural), da vde = out).
The birth of twins was obviously a very special event, and I have to admit that we do not
know which parts of the ritual were still performed during my time in Dghweɗe. We
immediately recognise that the former parents of the twins are alive, but we have no idea how
the diviner interpreted the talking oracle in order to identify them. What did dada Dukwa
mean by the former parents, considering that we do not know whether they had lost twins
during their lifetime, or at some point in their family’s history? Perhaps the rituals were not so
much about reincarnation but more about ritual reproduction, and this was a way of keeping
fecundity inside the community. Was it therefore more about the visible phenomenon of
'doubling' indicated by the birth of twins (particularly in the case of identical twins), a view
supported by the pairing of gifts brought by neighbours? Dada Dukwa indirectly confirmed
this view by pointing out that the importance of the birth of twins increased the output of farm
produce.
That the twins could not be brought into the house before the former parents were identified
and presented with the mixture called yakara (consisting of guinea corn flour and sour milk)
in the eating bowls (ndafa), while the new parents were only allowed to eat the leftovers,
shows that the twins had been around before and had now been reborn to new local parents
with the purpose of making them happy. We will see in the section about conception that the
gel-like mixture zah yakara is also a synonym for the mixing of the father’s sperm and the
mother’s menstrual blood in the fallopian tube, bringing about pregnancy. We do not know
whether or not the former father and mother still had to be married, but by seeing them as
representatives of fertility for successful communal reproduction makes it possible to view
them more as symbols rather than actual former parents. Unfortunately I did not explore this
question during my time in Dghweɗe, and we can only speculate as to whether dada Dukwa
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