Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 85
This book is explicitly about the temporal embeddedness of Dghweɗe oral history, and not
about the DGB complex or the history of the Wandala of Kirawa. Therefore we want to keep
this section short, and introduce the reader to the importance of the DGB complex in terms of
its contemporaneity with the emergence of Kirawa as the early capital of the pre-Islamic
Wandala. The main purpose of this is to position the Dghweɗe as a key group of the Gwoza
hills in between the two, guided by the hypothetical attempt to link the development of the
two parts of Dghweɗe, Ghwa'a in the north and Korana Basa in the south, to a shared
contemporary past of extreme cyclical subregional climate change. For this reason we move
on to discuss the way we have constructed the Table of Contemporaneity below.
It is apparent from the structure of the table, that we have combined early written and oral
historical sources from 1724/23, with results from archaeological radiocarbon dates, together
with palaeoclimatic data. Our palaeoclimatic data, for which Maley's (1981) work from Lake
Chad is used, will be the most important general background source to connect and compare
Dghweɗe oral history sources. The table starts at the left side with a list of pre-Islamic
Wandala rulers of Kirawa, who we already discussed in the previous section. We see
Agamakiya, the son of Zedva and Gaya, still living in Ishga-Kawe (see Figure 1) and we
mark him as the son of a stranger. We will return to that in Part Three, when we compare this
fact with the Dghweɗe tradition of outsiders as founders. Similar to the Dghweɗe tradition,
Gaya is a stranger who came from the east, which is most likely an invention in order to begin
the dynastic line of the Wandala rulers in 1723/24 as a result of Islamisation.
Table of Contemporaneity - combining written, oral, prehistoric and palaeoclimatic sources:
Pre-Islamic
Dynastic
Relationships
First ruler was
son of stranger
Son
Son
Son
Son
Brother
Son
Son
Son (known
as 'Umar')
Brother of
'Umar'
Son of 'Umar'
Son
Son
Brother
Brother
List of
Wandala
rulers
Agamakiya
Abalaksaka
Bira Misa
Zare
Aldawa
Barara
Agaldawa
Akutafa Tahe
Aguwa
Fagula
Ankre Yawe
'Pagan
usurper'
Akutafa
Aguwa Gaku
Aldawa
Wandala
Akutafa
Kataliyawe
Sankre
Islam becomes the official
religion of Wandala state
PreIslamic
Capitals
IshgaKawe
Kirawa
Kirawa
Kirawa
Kirawa
C
L
I
W
Lake
Chad
Levels
285 m
Level
years
AD
~1375
D
G
B
?
Source
years
AD
1723/24
Early
written
sources
Chronicles
S
A
A
A
283 m
280 m
281 m
282 m
~1400
~1425
~1450
~1475
C
C
C
C
1723/24
1723/24
1450
1723/24
Chronicles
Chronicles
Fra Mauro
Chronicles
Kirawa
Kirawa
Kirawa
S
S
A
283 m
283 m
282 m
~1475
~1500
~1525
C
C
C
1723/24
1723/24
1529
Kirawa
A
281 m
~1550
C
1723/24
Chronicles
Chronicles
Leo
Africanus
Chronicles
'Under
siege'
Kirawa
Kirawa
Kirawa
A
280 m
~1575
C
1723/24
Chronicles
A
A
W
280 m
282 m
286 m
~1575
~1600
~1625
C
C
?
1576
1582
1723/24
Ibn Furtu
Anania
Chronicles
Kirawa
W
286 m
~1650
?
1723/24
Chronicles
Doulo
Doulo
Doulo
Doulo
Doulo
W
W
W
A
A
286 m
286 m
286 m
282 m
280 m
~1650
~1675
~1700
~1725
~1750
?
1723/24
1723/24
1723/24
1723/24
1723/24
Chronicles
Chronicles
Chronicles
Chronicles
Chronicles
In the same table row, further to the right, we see the Lake Chad water level very high at
285m, and we have to its left a column called CLI, meaning climate, which has 'W' for 'wet'
linked to Agamkiya's time. This means that we have allocated to him the tail end of an
enduring wet period which lasted for hundreds of years (see Figure 16). This very long humid
phase extended from 1200AD onwards, then was interrupted, and led during 1300AD to a
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