Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 87
period in our subregion of potential mountain/plain relationships. In the context of this, the
earlier of the two extreme draughts was the most severe. 4
We assume here that Kirawa, at that time generally under pre-Islamic rulers, developed
during the whole arid period as the first true capital of Wandala. We also assume that during
that time a north-to-south migration took place, which might have also had an impact on the
populations of the Gwoza hills and the pre-DGB area. We know that the DGB sites have
yielded a series of radiocarbon dates with a concentration of dates from AD 1400-1600 (see
MacEachern 2012:52) for that most arid period, and assume that not only a north-to-south but
also an increased uphill migration took place during that time. That uphill migration might
well have initially been triggered by a climate emergency because rainfalls are higher in the
mountains, but it was presumably also influenced by increased slave raiding in the plains. We
think that Kirawa had most likely established itself by then as the main centre of the emerging
Wandala state at the northeastern foot of the northwestern Mandara Mountains.
Our main hypothesis here is that the DGB sites must be linked to that development, and that
they mark the discovery and technological invention of labour-intensive terrace cultivation in
the northwestern Mandara Mountains as a result of the same early climate emergency, which
also induced the Wandala to move their capital to its northern foot. We can only speculate on
how the contemporaneity of the DGB sites and the formation of the early Wandala state
during this period of great aridity must be understood. One possible hypothesis is that it had
to do with food production, not only for the mountain populations but also for the Wandala of
Kirawa, and perhaps even for early trade. We infer in that context that it was the cultivation of
sorghum that was at the root of this, and which might have become connected with increased
animal husbandry for manure production. We elaborate further on that preliminary hypothesis
in the context of our Dghweɗe oral history retold, later in Part Three.
We see in our Table of Contemporaneity, that after 1600AD, more or less suddenly, a rather
wet phase began, which lasted throughout the 17th century. During the early part of this much
wetter period, the capital of Wandala was moved under Sankre to Doulo. We assume here that
this wet period triggered a south-to-north migration, and also from the DGB area into the
northwestern part of the Mandara Mountains. At the same time the DGB sites ceased to exist,
and new immigrants moved into the DGB area from the east, which became part of a bigger
ethnic melting pot, developing into what would become the Mafa of today. 5
We will come back to that second hypothesis again later in Part Three, and invite the reader to
refer back to our Table of Contemporaneity, especially in the chapter about the Tur tradition
in its wider subregional context. This means we have two hypotheses, the first of which is
related above to the early period of extreme aridity during the early 15th century, leading to a
north-to-south migration. It seems that only the second hypothesis, which is the one we linked
to the lasting humid period of the 17th century, has left a lasting trace in the collective oral
memory in terms of traditions of origin. The Tur tradition is the most prominent one among
them, at least from the perspective of the ethnographic data we collected in the Gwoza hills.
Both hypotheses have climate change at their base, and although testing them in the context
of this book is not our main objective, it is still a result of circumstances stemming from the
fact that we have such a variety of valid subregional key sources available. The richness of
our written and archaeological sources to describe a likely shared background history to our
Dghweɗe oral history retold also allows us to make an ethnoarchaological attempt by using
some of our legendary sources from Dghweɗe. We are aware that our attempt is a little bit far
fetched, but we cannot resist, especially since ethnoarchaeology is one of the traditions linked
to the archaeology of the DGB sites (David ibid). Those Dghweɗe traditions of legend allow
us critically not only to use rainmaking, but also manure production, as key features of early
4
According to Maley and David (ibid), Lake Chad had more or less completely dried out between
1400 and 1450AD, which was according to David the first period when the DGB complex was active.
5
I decribe this process in empirical detail in The Way of the Beer, Muller-Kosack (2003).
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