Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 581
Wuts gwazgafte
Main entrance of a house (wuts = in front; gwazagafte = divinity); see
photographs in Plates 44b and 45b for an inside and outside view of a
main entrance; the guts of a he-goat were applied to the outside before
the guinea corn was threshed and brought into the house to be stored in
the granaries; see dedicated section of Chapter 3.12 for a detailed
description of this sacrifice.
Wuts kuɗige
Passageway in front of the kitchen (wuts = in front; kuɗige = kitchen);
see Figure 19c for architectural details: wuts kuɗige tighe (in front of
left kitchen) and wuts kuɗige daghare (in front of right kitchen).
Wuts kuɗige daghare
Passageway in front of upper or right kitchen (wuts = in front; daghare
= upper); see Figure 19c in Chapter 3.12; the right or upper kitchen
was the ritually less charged of the two kitchen areas of a house; see
role of upper kitchen as part of the marriage rituals (Chapter 3.20).
Y
Yerwa
Synonym for Maiduguri; see Dghweɗe legendary account about the
arrest of Hamman Yaji during early British mandateship (Chapter 2.1).
Yew fstaha
'Ritual water' (yewe = water; fstaha = initiation); Sprinkling ritual
water over a bride was called yew fstaha (see also kla dughwe =
marriage ceremony); see Chapter 3.20 for a detailed description of how
the father of the house sat on the corner stone (malga malga) of the
house while sprinkling the ritual water over a future wife.
Yewe/yuwe
Water; rain; apart from animal manure it was the most important
ingredient for successful terrace farming; see also the use of water in
yew fstaha as ritual expression of patrilineal family reproduction as a
key part of a Dghweɗe marriage ceremony (Chapter 3.20); Durghwe
was the most important subregional mountain shrine linked to rain and
water and as such was a representation of the Dghweɗe preCoperenican worldview (Chapter 3.17); twins had a strong link to
water (Chapter 3.19) and so had the rainmaker lineage Gaske who
represented cosmological blessings from above (Chapter 3.8).
Yude
White man; European; see Chapter 2.1 about the legendary Dghweɗe
account related to the arrest of Hamman Yaji.
Z
Za'a ndole ndole
Thread (za'a) made of cowpea fibre tied around the waist of a girl
while in seclusion during a 'marriage by promise' (dugh dzugwa); ndole
ndole means 'promise' and za'a ndole ndole could be translated as
'thread of promise'; see Chapter 3.20 for John's testimony which
includes a detailed description and discussion; according to John the
ritual tying of a cowpea fibre was a symbol of a first marriage; John
emphasised that the seventh-born son from a first wife would remain
the family thaghaya even if his mother left for a secondary marriage.
Zah yakara
Potage made of guinea-corn flour and sour milk; was used for twin
ceremony (see also zahgha = gel-like mixture) to celebrate the rebirth
of twins as symbol of communal reproduction; see oral account of dada
Dukwa for detailed discussion (Chapter 3.19).
Zahgha
General term for a gel-like mixture (see also zah yakara); see dada
Ɗga's views on Dghweɗe ideas around conception (Chapter 3.19); he
describes the solidification of sperm and menstrual blood in the
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