Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 504
heads', and we can only assume that in 1955 Reynolds possibly over-analyses the system of
'Clan Councils' originally suggested almost 16 years earlier by Eustace. In the context of this,
seniority in terms of succession is over-emphasised as the traditional way of any form of
succession including the system of inheritance, and by doing so both Eustace and Reynolds
remain entirely oblivious of the role of the seventh born (thaghaya). We can only infer that
this was done to promote 'self-governance' as an administrative tool, a simplification of
Dghweɗe culture which was for the purpose of 'pax britannica', as Reynolds often frames it.
We will not go any deeper into district officer Reynolds' analysis of Dghweɗe social
organisation, but want to give his example taken from the 'Johode incident', in the context of
which Reynolds demonstrates how the power of 'the Gidegal' could be lost if the majority of
the members of the lineage he allegedly represented lost confidence in him:
Should he, in pagan opinion, abuse his position or commit some impropriety and his supporters
and hence his authority. Once the Johode incident began although Bulama Fulata was their
Gidegal he had completely forfeited the confidence of the members of the locality and
consequently had no more authority over them. In some respect he may be considered as the
executive officer of a council of lineage heads.
We remember the role of bulama Fulata from our comparison of the official colonial and oral
versions of the killing of lawan Buba from Chapter 2.2, and at no point was bulama Fulata
referred to as having been 'the Gidegal' of 'Johode' (Ghwa'a). He did have the position of
bulama, and was also referred to as 'senior hamlet head' who had, together with 'his three
fellow hamlet heads', been levying taxes on the villagers and behaving in a generally
autocratic manner. The report continues to state that complaints about them had not been
taken on board, either by the British touring officer or the district head. We know that bulama
Fulata was also almost killed in the Ghwa'a conflict of 1953, but we have absolutely no idea
on what grounds Reynolds, a couple of years later, based his opinion that he was 'the Gidegal'
of the locality. We think this is an exaggeration, and will now try to illustrate that there were
neither any 'lineage heads' nor 'Gidegal' chiefs in late pre-colonial Dghweɗe, but that there
was indeed a majority system called gadghile (majority) which was able to exercise power in
emergency situations.
In Chapters 3.4 and 3.9 of Part Three we showed how the Vaghagaya as the most recent precolonial lineage expansion eventually defeated the Gudule, drove them out of Gharaza and
established themselves there as the largest lineage group. We demonstrated how the system of
the seventh born and earth priest had been passed on to Var ga Ghuna, but that the actual
lineage shrine of Vaghagaya was found in Korana Kwandame where Vaghgaya as seventh
born had reportedly inherited his father's house. There was no role of the firstborn son as
senior hamlet head in controlling any demographic majority represented by the Vaghagaya,
an oral historical conclusion which does not however automatically exclude the possibility
that issues of gadghile as an expression of the power of majority might once have existed
among the various localities of the descendants of the Mughuze-Ruwa clan group.
Unfortunately we never asked in Korana Basa, but know from our research in Ghwa'a that the
power of majority known as gadghile did indeed exist there, and we will demonstrate this
now.
First we have to admit that our data on the concept of gadghale in Ghwa'a are very limited. I
only started to explore its meaning during my last field session in 2009/10, when I asked John
to go around and collect information about it. The first thing we established was that the word
gadegal or gidegal as a colonial institution was indeed remembered as a kind of village or
hamlet head, but there was no evidence for its pre-colonial use in that way, while the word
gadghale was only remembered as a pre-colonial concept of lineage majority. We were told
that its meaning worked in terms of the population number of a local lineage or even an ethnic
group, and not for a chiefly office. In the context of this, the concept of gadghale could be
quite far reaching, and some of our Dghweɗe sources claimed that the Dghweɗe had once
been the most numerous group in the hills and therefore were able to form a decision-making
majority. However it was not about making decisions on behalf of others, but more that as the
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