Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 65
Chapter 1.2
Mapping ethnographic complexities
Survey circumstances and acknowledgments
I want to thank Ulrich Braukämper, who was then still at Frankfurt University, for asking me
to take this survey in the first place, and all the following friends, colleagues and officials
who were supporting and helping me: Jim Wade, a Fali specialist from the University of
Maiduguri, introduced me to Ishaka Zadva at the Gwoza LG. Ishaka made a first sketch of the
then administrative structure of the Gwoza LGA, consisting in 1994 of Gwoza Central
District, Tokombere District, and Ashigashiya District. Jim also introduced me to Umaru
Ibrahim, a Lamang man from Luvua, who as the senior registrar provided me with my first
research permission. During the survey I lived at Daniel and Mary Gula's house in Gwoza.
There I met their neighbour Ibrahim Vile, who became my main research assistant and
Lamang interpreter at the time of the survey. In the initial phase of the survey, to obtain a first
impression of the complex ethnolinguistic situation, I relied a lot on the already mentioned
colonial report by A.B Mathews from 1934. I had received a copy from Nic David and Judy
Sterner, who were both working in Sukur and had already retrieved such reports.
The survey took two months, and in the course of it Ibrahim Vile also introduced me to John
Dabawa as my Glavda interpreter, and to John Zakariya for Dghweɗe. I am very grateful for
this. Without them I would not have been able to conduct the survey. We often used Hausa as
an intermediate language. We had a motorbike and travelled all around the foothills, starting
in Hambagda, then going up to Luvua, Wala, Warabe, Pulka, Wize, Bokko, Nghoshe Kasa,
Chikiɗe, Barawa, and as far as Kughum on the southeastern side. We also went to Kirawa,
Ashigashiya, Atagara, Arboko, up to Zelidva to visit Divili, but not to Ndololo as it had been
completely abandoned decades ago. We also visited Guduf and Gava as well as Ghwa'a and
Korana Basa, and even went to Ngoshe Sama. Over the two months the survey lasted I
became very familiar with the geography and ethnolinguistic situation of the Gwoza hills.
In every village we visited, we recruited, with the help of the village heads, local guides who
knew all the various places of interest, in particular ritual sites, which meant the guides not
only had to be familiar with the administrative boundaries, but also with the traditional places
of interest of those settlement units. After we had mapped boundaries and places of interest of
a village by using a 1:50,000 topographical base map, we organised focus groups in which we
interviewed small groups of locally known oral historians. This was done in the presence of a
public audience, which brought about controversial oral historical versions in many of the
villages. I already knew from my work in Mafa land that there were often underlying
unofficial versions of such oral traditions, and we tried to capture as many oral historical
layers as possible, which we taped and later translated into English. In the course of our work
we discovered and successfully documented the ethnic and linguistic complexities of the
Gwoza hills, and I thank everybody who helped and contributed to this initial part of my
research.
The administrative background structure of Gwoza LGA in 1994
In 1995 I produced a survey report 1, but at this point I will only provide a summary of the
administrative background structure as I found it in 1994. We aim to place the Dghweɗe into
a comprehensive ethnolinguistic context using the ethnographically neglected subregion of
the Mandara Mountains. I also use ethnographic material from that survey report later in Part
1
I deposited a copy of the survey report under Gerhard Kosack (1994): Fieldnotes from the Gwoza
Hills (NE Nigeria), 145 pages, with the library of the Frobenius Institut at Frankfurt University.
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