Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 498
back to late pre-colonial times. At the beginning of Part Three we distinguished the late precolonial period as the time after the expansion of the Vaghagaya-Mughuze in southern
Dghweɗe, replacing 'Gharghuze' by forming what would later become administrative Korana
Basa. We remember that at the end of the late pre-colonial period Gwoza town did not exist
as a centre, and that it was Ashigashiya with the link to the Wandala of Doulo and then Mora
with Mozogo as the place where the Dghweɗe brought their tribute payments in the late 19th
century. We therefore hypothesise that marriage by promise was the ideal primary marriage
and the two other ways of marrying in Dghweɗe for potential secondary marriages were late
pre-colonial traditions or earlier.
We also need to consider that some key aspects of John's account might have been influenced
by his Christianity, for example his reference to the three stacks of solid food as 'wedding
cake', or his statement that the thread of cowpea fibre was the main symbol of a marriage by
promise. After all, we cannot exclude the possibility of the cowpea thread being seen by John
as similar to the function of a Christian wedding ring, which might point to the underlying
assumption that a primary marriage included the promise to endure. We doubt that the ritual
of the cowpea thread had such a meaning, but unfortunately we do not have any oral evidence
for that view, and neither do we have any data on how common divorce was in a traditional
marriage by promise. It is possibly reasonable to infer that it was not a romantic marriage
commitment, but that the aspect of endurance had a more practical socio-economic role in
promoting lasting friendship between interrelated extended families across the paternal and
maternal sides of different exogamous patrilineages that had created long-term marital
planning units.
Conclusion
In the chapter about marriage rituals in Dghweɗe of the past, we touched on many themes
with which we are already familiar, such as the aspect of liquid food as a symbol of
conception and the ritual importance of water as an expression of fecundity and socioeconomic reproduction. Another point is the gender aspect of the architecture of a traditional
house, where the association of the role of the first wife with the left-hand side of the foyer
links to the most sacred part of the foyer area, while the right-hand side of the foyer was of
less importance. The seclusion of a bride in the children's room next to the right or upper
kitchen in one context suggested a secondary marriage, but also a primary marriage in which
the wife of the groom’s father was already using the lower kitchen. Also, the fact that a bride
was sprinkled with ritual water while sitting on one of the foundation stones bordering the
foyer and the lower room of the first wife of the father of the house appears ritually
significant.
We saw the number three as an indicator for the preference of a boy as the firstborn child, and
the family priest (zal jije) coming to the house and libating sorghum flour in water over the
ancestor stone, in that way initiating the bride to the house of the father of the groom in her
new exogamous patrilineage. We remember that it was the seventh-born son of the first wife
who inherited the house, and that the father or husband of the house was referred to as zal
thaghaya, meaning not only father of a seventh born but also husband of a first wife.
It was ideally a marriage by promise which led to such a first wife becoming the mother of a
seventh-born son (thaghaya), and her significance was evident in parts of the marriage ritual,
in particular when a small boy ran to the ritual male sauce kitchen and a small girl to the ritual
beer kitchen of the first wife, there to consume the shares of the broken ‘wedding cake’. This
solid food was another ritual dimension of the marriage celebration, given after the three days
of seclusion during which only liquid food was allowed. The solid food was presented in
three stacks, pointing again to the wish for a boy to be born as the first child. We can only
guess that the seclusion and the liquid food were linked to a fasting ritual, while the
subsequent solid food was linked to feasting or the celebration of harvest yield. We know that
crisis management was a key element of successful Dghweɗe terrace farming, and that one
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