Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 549
It is important not to underestimate the historical impact of the two different colonial systems
on the ritually interconnected wider subregion, and how following independence this situation
has also influenced the ethnographic research of the two parts that are now divided nationally.
The international boundary represented by the Kirawa river for instance separates the
Moskota hills from the Gwoza hills, and it was almost impossible to find sound oral historical
evidence of the role the ritual Moskota chief of Vreke once played in relation to the Gwoza
hills. The same problem occurred in relation to the southern border that the Dghweɗe shared
with the Mafa of Huduwa, and the Gaske rainmaker of Gharaza who accompanied me there
was surprised to learn that the Mafa referred to their rainmakers in same way as the Dghweɗe,
but traced their oral historical origin to the Mafa rainmaker of Moudoukwa. There was a
further oral historical hint we did not follow up but will mention here, which is that Zakariya
Kwire of Ghwa'a pointed out that the main mountain of the Muktele area was considered by
the Dghweɗe of the past to be 'the house of rain'. There was also some cross-border oral
historical evidence in relation to the Podoko who were considered to be former inhabitants of
the Gwoza hills, and my ethnographic research in the Muktele and the Podoko area revealed
the existence of pots with small apertures. Other than that, I could find no such evidence in
the DGB area itself or to its south, which indirectly confirms that most of the evidence of
material and immaterial culture to be found in the northern Mandara Mountains is indeed of
late pre-colonial origin.
All these interesting and inspiring wider regional oral historical references that might still
have existed in the collective memories of the Gwoza hills have now come to a brutal end due
to Boko Haram using the mountains as hiding place. To date it is still not safe to visit the
Gwoza hills, and I am pessimistic as to whether any collective memories and material culture
will be able to be found and interconnected once it is safe to visit again. This is why we have
presented this fragmentary history of the Dghweɗe from the grassroots in such great detail,
and I want to suggest here again, being an outsider and representative of western culture and
education, that the truth is not what we want to believe but what we search for and uncover,
and then review and examine. The fact that I am an outsider might be a hindrance, because I
do not speak Dghweɗe and I do not feel Dghweɗe, but the other side of the coin is that I feel
that what I have discovered tells me something about my own culture.
It tells me that in the face of increasing man-made climate change driven by western-style
industrialisation, the post-Copernican view of the world is not automatically more sustainable.
This was already the case during colonial times when chemical fertiliser was seen as progress,
while the animal manure on which the farming system of the Dghweɗe depended became an
anachronism that ought to be left behind. Now we realise that the reverse is the case and far
too much chemical fertiliser is used, and there is an overproduction of animal dung due to
overconsumption of meat which causes problems on a global scale. I therefore want to
encourage my Dghweɗe and Gwoza hills friends, who most brutally lost their mountain
homeland through the actions of religious fanatics and terrorists, to remember with pride the
pre-colonial way of life of their montagnard forebears as it is presented and interpreted in this
book. They struggled and did not get everything right either, but they knew how to reproduce
and survive in a culturally rich and sustainable manner.
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