Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 481
the single tap on the forehead of each parent who attended the funeral meant that the forehead
marks also represented the number one, and if that was so, what it might have meant. 4 The
Dghweɗe of the past practised ritual doubling or pairing, and twins were not only seen as a
divine representation of this, but also as a phenomenon which needed to be ritually managed.
The single mark of sorghum flour on the foreheads of twins might also have represented the
number one, but perhaps it was more in the form of divine doubling or pairing of reproductive
hope. Successful sexual relations between men and women were a result of a mutual process
of orderly marital exchange of females between exogamous patrilineages, and if reproduction
was unsuccessful, ritual promotion and treatment was required. We remember from Chapter
3.16, about Dghweɗe cosmology and worldview, that even God was seen as having a 'wife'
and 'children', and a single old man without children was cosmological image of sterility and
death.
Figures 29a/b/c illustrate the different aspects of the locking device (ngage), the marks of
guinea corn flour on the foreheads of twins, and the aperture of a girl's twin pot representing a
clitoris. We invite the reader to also consult Plate 42a for a twin pot for boys. It is not certain
whether twin pots were replaced and became larger once a male or female twin reached
adulthood, considering that they themselves became responsible for carrying out their annual
buh dungwe rituals of marking the forehead, but strongly assume that this was the case, while
the original small twin pots remained under the granaries of their parents.
Dada Dukwa further emphasised that when twins gave birth to twins the same rituals would
apply, but that there were no special performances when twins got married. With regard to the
original divination on the birth of twins, dada Dukwa added that the diviner would not only
establish who were the former parents of twins, but also try to find out whether the twins were
reborn for good or for bad. He said that if they came for good they came for peace for the
mother and father. He further added that if they were not intended to stay long, they would die
after a short life. Unfortunately we do not know whether he thought this was a bad sign, but
dada Dukwa said that if they came for bad, the twins' parents would die soon, or both the
twins and their parents would not live very long.
The above paragraph seems to make clear that twins were viewed ambivalently by the
Dghweɗe, and that special rituals had to be carried out to make sure that they did not bring
bad but only good to the local community into which they were reborn. That the former
parents were ritually involved presumably underpins the collective aspect, but what also
needs to be taken into consideration and has been stressed before in this book, is that the
background was an egalitarian patrilineal society of terrace farmers embedded in an
4
We will explain in Chapter 3.22 why the Mafa of the Gouzda area added a hidden number one to the
number two (even) that a firstborn girl represented, and did the same with the number three (odd) for a
firstborn boy. They argued that the hidden number one was a representation of the invisibility of
divinity, making a firstborn girl number three (odd) and a firstborn boy number four (even). Wolff
(1994:81) provides us with a reversal of the ritual allocation of numbers three and four as part of a
Ɗagha ritual involved with saving an abducted spirit, by linking three pieces (odd) of Cissus
quadrangularis if the person is of 'male birth order' and four pieces (even) if the person is of 'female
birth order' for a successful healing session. We will revisit this later in Chapter 3.21 in the section
about divination, and show that by 'male birth order' and 'female birth order' Wolff means the gender of
the first child born to the father of the patient suffering from what I call here 'lost spirit syndrome'.
Wolff also mentions the application of single pieces of Cissus quadrangularis rubbed onto the forehead,
heart and each finger of the patient. We will also explore in 3.21 what Wolff might have meant when
he cited the Lamang belief that erectile dysfunction was a symptom of 'lost spirit syndrome'. Perhaps
men's fear of losing sexual potency as progenitors can be compared with the hope of the communal
reincarnation of twins, which also links to the funeral rites of their former and future parents.
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