Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 509
divining among the Mafa on the Cameroonian side. 3 Whether pebble divination was a more
common practice in Dghweɗe of the past must remain unanswered, and we do not know
whether it was in any way a speciality of the Ɗagha diviners. However we know for example
that crab divination could be done by anybody who knew how to carry it out, which indicates
that it was not the most traditional divinatory practice, indicating that it was a more recent
appearance. It was also known as a more recent divination method among the Mafa of
Gouzda, from where I gave a detailed description (see Muller-Kosack 2003:116ff). According
to my Mafa notes, the specialist who carried out crab divination told me that he learned it
from Margi people (ibid). This points to its more common use in the western plain, while it
seems that pebble divination was more typical for the northeastern rather than the
northwestern Mandara Mountains.
According to our oral sources from Dghweɗe, it was glipa (stick) and mandatha (a floating
Cissus variety) which was in traditional terms the equivalent of pebble divination among the
Dghweɗe, and it was the privilege of the Ɗagha diviners to practice it. With regard to kula
kula or 'talking divination' we know that that this was used to identify the former parents of
twins. The metaphor of 'talking' came from the image of the hollow branches of the wulinge
tree which made a sound while being moved around in the water. It was reportedly a
particular privilege of the Ɗagha Kadzgwara originating from Mulgwe to practice this.
Unfortunately we do not know whether divination with the floating mandatha variety was
especially practised by Ɗagha diviners who claimed descent from the peacemaker lineage,
but the use of many different ritual varieties of Cissus quadrangularis (vavanza) was indeed
one of their specialties as we will learn in Chapter 2.23. As mentioned above, the word
mandatha means 'the calming of things' and this very special variety of vavanza was different
from another very common non-floating variety of the same name which was commonly used
to treat heartburn.
I regret that I did not collect more oral data on divination methods in Dghweɗe, especially
considering that it can be seen not only as a means of establishing liturgical procedures but
also of identifying underlying reasons for past or likely future events. The metaphor to 'read'
or 'hear', depending on the method used, indicates communication with divinity in order to
explore the cause of events, and we therefore also use the word 'language' as a metaphor
which required the diviner as the interpreter of divinity. We pointed out above that we like to
see divination as a cognitive condition of the Dghweɗe belief system, and in that context also
as a historical technology in managing causes of environmental uncertainty, rather than as an
aid of superstition. We like to see divination as a technology akin to a metaphorical 'text'
which determined not only a possible result through the system of its 'reading' or 'listening'
practice, but was perhaps also a major factor in maintaining a shared belief in how divinity
worked. Considering that the Dghweɗe did not have chiefs or kings with a priestly class of
religious specialists but were instead an egalitarian montagnard society, it was not a tool
controlled by a hierarchy or social power structure. Instead it was managed very much on the
level of the individual household or through the power of lineage majorities. The latter
received their entitlement to advise for a certain locality as a result of successful socioeconomic reproduction, in line with the interpretation of ancestral or other collective demands
through the localised promotion and correct management of divinity.
We have mentioned several times the importance of symbolic classification in which numbers
and their counting order seemed to be crucial, and in the context of this it was the numbers
two and three that were of particular importance and as such had a gender perspective. The
other aspect was the left and the right hand used in the context of a ritual, and of course not to
forget the number seven as a lucky number, which was often used when it came to indicating
particularly lucky circumstances of socio-economic reproduction. The number seven also
occurred in the cosmographic perception of seven worlds above and below this world. We
3
Pebble divination was also traditional among the Mofu proper (Vincent 1971) and the Zulgo and
Gemjek (Graffenried 1984:126-130).
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