Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 538
We also need to remember that the production of charcoal was very important in the late precolonial past, and that there was a socio-economic link between the production of iron and the
production of manure regarding an increased ability to be able to lease out cows. A cow was a
key element of bridewealth, and often only paid after the birth of the first child. Considering
that the parents of a potential groom and bride had already planned the marriage (gifts had
been given by the father of the groom), future conflict over unpaid dowry was not uncommon.
This was why a Ɗagha peacemaker treated the pot called vavanz maghzhime with vavanz
skwe, and buried it in the terrace field of someone who had failed to pay a dowry. A similar
conflict had occurred when John's father became angry about his son being denied the girl
who had been promised to him as his first wife, despite the plans he had made with the family
with whom his son could intermarry according to the rules of patrilineal and matrilateral
exogamy. At that point of the failed marriage arrangement, no family priest had yet carried
out the libation over the ancestor stones to promote the marriage as a lucky one for his family.
We know there was the hope of having a seventh-born son from such a desirable marriage by
promise, and we conclude that there could be much expressed anger or conflict when such a
long-term marriage plan failed.
The use of a skwe owned by someone who had inherited it as part of a family tradition, or as a
result of belonging to a specialist lineage such as the Ɗagha peacemakers or the Gaske
rainmakers, made social conflicts linked to the reproductive capacity of families and local
groups a potential cosmological issue. This implies that the concept of skwe had a wideranging meaning, that it was not to be confused with sorcery but was part of the religious
sphere, which is confirmed by John's statement that evil and bad luck could have been sent by
divinity. Consequently it was important to exercise control over good luck in the sense that
prevention was better than cure. Doing man skwe as part of the calendrical rituals, such as
when the husband and father of a family home sacrificed to his immediate paternal ancestors
and his personal god and house god, was the best way of preventing bad luck starting to grow
destructive roots.
Conclusion
The ritual density of Cissus quadrangularis (vavanza) and its role as an identity-giving plant
indicates the ritual culture of the Dghweɗe people of the past. It is however legitimate to ask
whether their Mafa neighbours' reference to Godaliy indicates that it is more a late precolonial development, at least if we accept the linguistic evidence of the likely Fulani origin
of the word. There were not only Cissus quadrangularis (vavanza) and Urginea maritima
(huɓa) both showing connections to the ethnonym Godaliy, but also what we identified as the
euphorbia variety the Dghweɗe called mahida, which was classified separately from vavanza
and huɓa. However, the vavanza varieties were the highest in number and the most complex
in ritual application, which is supported by the fact that we were able to list over twenty of
them in Ghwa'a alone. Most of the ritual varieties were owned by the Ɗagha peacemaker
lineage, but there were other local lineages of non-specialist descent who also owned such
clan medicines. These too were specifically referred to as skwe, meaning that as a result of
ritual ownership linked to patrilineal descent they could ritually cause, deter or treat specific
forms of evil.
We discussed the concept of man skwe being the avoidance of bad luck or evil by the
adherence to the ritual calendar dictated by the Dghweɗe mixed farming system. In the
context of that we reminded ourselves that water mixed with guinea corn flour was not only
used by the Gaske rainmaker lineage in their skwe to libate over the rainstones, but it was also
used by family priests to libate over the three ancestor stones when a wife was initiated into
her future husband's lineage. We know that most rituals of the house were carried out after the
harvest and that they moved in chronological sequence from the house as a place of worship
to the outer farmyard. It seems that the more successful and expansive a local family group
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