Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 49
As I consider myself to be an area specialist on the northwestern Mandara Mountains, I have
intentionally not attempted a subregional comparison with other published ethnographies, in
particular from the Mafa area. For this I apologise to my academic ethnographer colleagues,
but such a subregional comparison would have watered down the essence of what I am trying
to achieve with this book. I finally want to say that this is not a book about Boko Haram, but
about the Dghweɗe who lost their cultural heritage as a result of the invasion of Boko Haram.
The fact that I have presented their oral history as being embedded between the DGB sites
and Kirawa as the early Wandala capital, is to encourage future Dghweɗe historians to view
the history from a wider subregional perspective. Consideration of the mountain and plains
environment of the semi-arid zone, so typical of the Gwoza LGA, is crucial in this context.
The other main purpose of this idiosyncratic ethnography of the Dghweɗe is to fill a regional
knowledge gap by integrating the Gwoza hills into the international cross-border history of
the northern Mandara Mountains. This is very important for me, and was the reason the
German Research Foundation gave me the original grant to carry out an ethnographic survey
of the Gwoza hills, which had been neglected by ethnographers for decades. We will learn
that the reason for that neglect lies in the impact of World War One.
Why we use the ethnonym Dghweɗe
Even though Azaghvana, meaning 'I say', is the title of the book, we have chosen not to use it
as the main ethnonym, although it was used as toponym and self-reference by the Dghweɗe in
the past. Colonial sources used it as an ethnolinguistic reference, but this trend was no longer
adopted by modern linguistics, where Dghweɗe is the official term used as an ethnic and
linguistic reference. We can only speculate what the exact time frame for the emergence of a
Dghweɗe identity might be, but doubt that this was only a result of colonial times. Moisel's
map of 1913 is the first to mention the name 'Dohade'. Although it only appears as a place
name among other Dghweɗe place names, it still points to the existence of this name in later
pre-colonial times.
There is the reference by Hall in 1934 to a 'Duhedde clan', which includes many settlements
of administrative Korana Basa and Ghwa’a. Hall’s reference is presumably the earliest one
pointing to the right direction. Mathews (1934) refers to an apical ancestor by the name
'Dofede' and we interpret this to be a reference to Dghweɗe. The name Dghweɗe is indeed the
name of the founding ancestor of all Dghweɗe which is also the generally accepted ethnic
toponym as well as the politically correct reference to their language. Wolff (1971) is the first
to apply the term Dghweɗe as ethnolinguistic toponym and we stick to that too. Also, Frick
(1978) speaks of the Dghweɗe people. Her work is presumably the most important on the
structure of their language, but we will not discuss Dghweɗe linguistics in a deeper way here,
although we present an extensive cultural vocabulary.
There are also some other toponyms which remind us of what is described in the literature as
'joking relationships'. We list them below for historical reasons, but avoid them for reasons of
political correctness. For example, the Lamang could refer to the Dghweɗe as ghad kha,
meaning 'dogs' in Dghweɗe, while the Dghweɗe could refer to the Lamang as ksghwaha,
meaning 'Lamang pancreas' ('Waha' is how the Lamang referred to themselves, while ksgh is
the Dghweɗe word for the pancreas). The Dghweɗe referred to the Zelidva as kraha which is
the word for 'dogs' in Lamang. The Chikiɗe could refer to the Dghweɗe as gavgaha which
means 'faeces' in Chikiɗe, while the Dghweɗe would have referred to the Chikiɗe as raha
which is the Dghweɗe plural for 'fool'. As mentioned, these terms carried an affectionate
connotation and were not just meant to be derogatory.
47
