Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 70
main language. In 1994 it was explained to me that it was more a dialect of Wandala proper
that was spoken there, referred to as Abaiwa. We see that Wandala was spoken all around the
northern foothills of the Gwoza hills, which is in Pulka, and half of the village of Bokko. The
other half of Bokko was then inhabited by a majority of Glavda speakers.
We also see that the languages spoken in the village of Chikiɗe overlap. While the Chikiɗe
speak Guduf, which is locally often referred to as Afakbiya, the Chinene speak Cena, also
known as Nakacha. We also see that a section of Chikiɗe village is inhabited by Glavda
speakers. I was told locally that Cena is a mixture of Guduf and Glavda, but we do not know
when it came about. However, the existence of Cena is perhaps another good argument as to
why the historical and geographical aspect of language development is so important among
the ethnic groups of the Gwoza hills, as they are in such close vicinity to each other.
Ethnicity based on village and ward boundaries
If we compare Figure 3a and Figure 3b, we can see how ethnicity and language overlap in the
administrative villages of the Gwoza LGA. Perhaps at this point we need to remind ourselves
that each administrative village is marked as such, by having its own village head, who in
1994 in turn reported to their district heads either in Gwoza town or Ashigashiya.
We remember that Dghweɗe was at that time entirely part of Gwoza Central District. This
brought about a conflict of interest between the inhabitants of Korana Basa, whose village
head lived in Vile (Hambagda), while the village head of Ghwa'a lived in Barawa in the
eastern plain, but still had to report to his district head in Gwoza town. We can see that the
dominating ethnicity along the western foothills and adjacent plain is Lamang. This extends
as far north as Wala, where only one ward is still occupied by Lamang, but due to the
majority of Zelidva in Wala, the village head was also a Zelidva man. In 1994, Zelidva was
still the dominating ethnicity in Wala and Warabe, and we can only assume that this is still
the case now.
In Pulka there was historically a Guduf ethnicity, but my survey shows that the spoken
language was perhaps more important to the local identity than ethnicity. We remember that
Wandala was spoken in Warabe, Pulka, and Bokko. There had been a south-to-north
migration during pre-colonial times, which according to oral history brought Guduf speakers
to Pulka, perhaps even before the Zelidva. The latter came originally from Dghweɗe to settle
in Ndololo and Divili, where they adopted Lamang. We point this out to hint at the oral
historical complexities of the ethnolinguistic situation of the Gwoza hills. We can see that it
appears geographically extremely nested, like in Bokko also, where the greater part had a
Zelidva ethnicity, even though they were Glavda speakers.
A similar situation occurs in the village of Chikiɗe. The Chikiɗe as an ethnic group speak
Guduf, while the Chinene, who were in terms of their tradition of origin closer to the Chikiɗe
than to the Guduf, speak a language called Cene. Finally, both the Amuda and Ganjara, who
were oral-historically cornblessers and rainmakers, speak Glavda. We learn more about their
ritual function in the chapter on specialist lineages in Part Three. The Glavda themselves have
in ethnic terms Ngoshe and Agapalawa as their main villages, however the Ganjara occupied
a small portion of Agapalawa, but also speak Glavda (see Figure 3a).
This is all very diverse, but it might be that none of it is relevant any longer. It was already
more or less historical when I carried out the survey. I am also convinced that it would not be
possible to carry out the same survey again, now that the Boko Haram atrocities have led to
the dispersion of the local population. To again retrieve the same level of information from
the collective memory of our oral sources, would be an impossible thing.
I mentioned earlier how we organised focus groups in every village, together with Ibrahim
Vile, my main research assistant during the survey. These days have gone and the local mix
of people of the eastern plain of the Gwoza LG are displaced, and more preoccupied with
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