Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 98
rain (David 2008:136ff). The reason behind this was that the earliest concentration of the C14
dates put DGB2 into a period of extreme drought, at the beginning of 1400AD.
David's tale does not allow for a link between the emerging Wandala of Kirawa and the
montagnard population of the northern slopes of Mount Oupay (Figure 5). Instead he
constructs his tale purely from the perspective of the local montagnards themselves, brought
about by a newly emerged ritual leader, subsequently resulting in extraordinary stone
structures serving as very large rain shrines. We do not want to reinvent David's tale by
suggesting a link to the emerging Wandala of Kirawa, but feel that there is a missing link in
cosmological terms, which we find in the sun legend of Zedima who controls fecundity as
cosmological blessings from a celestial above and an earthly below.
Our perspective will become much clearer throughout Part Three, when we contextualise the
importance of ritual pairing as an essential part of the Dghweɗe belief system. We will better
understand why the cosmological essence of the concept of ritual blessings, not only from
above in the form of rain but also from below in the form of animal manure, can be
interpreted as an expression of their mixed farming methods. We will learn that the intensive
cultivation of sorghum behind terrace walls is unimaginable without animal husbandry. This
is why first of all we feel that David, by only concentrating on the ritual importance of rain,
missed the point of the cosmological dimension of dung production being the ritual
embodiment of a cosmological blessing from below.
David (2008) describes the underground structure of the DGB sites, and we can also visit a
webshow 8. It is not our objective to discuss the DGB architecture here, but to use the
Dghweɗe example of their most important rain shrine: Durghwe, to which our story of
Zedima refers. We have dedicated a separate chapter on the ritual importance of Durghwe as
a subregional mountain shrine in Part Three, and want here to give only a summary of its
cosmographic underground structure. Durghwe, a natural structure of imposing formation
consisting of three monolithic rocks jutting out in the air, served in the past as interethnic
shrines for the Dghweɗe, Chikiɗe, and Guduf. The stone pillars can also be seen as granaries,
which reach through a rock plate representing a grinding stone deep inside the mountain, to a
storage place for water, with three cosmological bulls there to produce dung for successful
terrace farming (see Figure 27).
We remember that Zedima's people were poisoned by Wandala's daughter while they were
putting the dung on his fields for fertilisation. Zedima had entered the earth through a hole, to
cut the roots of the sun, and then used them to cause a severe drought. Only Durghwe still had
water during that period, but this was not accessible to his father-in-law the chief of Wandala.
That his wife had poisoned his people while they were about to distribute Zedima's manure
onto his terrace fields, is in our opinion cosmologically significant.
The whole tale of Zedima and the roots of the sun illustrates the relationship of the Dghweɗe
to the chief of Wandala, who had no control over the rain without the Dghweɗe. The chief of
Wandala did not poison Zedima, and neither did Zedima kill the chief of Wandala, but only
forced him to leave for Kirawa. This suggests that they needed each other, and perhaps it was
not just about rainmaking, but also about food production and subregional cooperation.
We therefore suggest that the technology of terrace cultivation should not just be linked to
rainmaking, but also manure production in terms of a working ethnoarchaeological narrative.
The two are also interlinked in terms of the social division of ritual labour between
rainmakers and cornblessers, as the two sides of fertility from above (rain) and below (dung).
As a cosmological pair of reproduction by descent, they were not only embedded in the
Dghweɗe worldview, but also in their social structure in the form of specialist lineages where
the ritual management of fertility was seen as a pair of brothers descending from the same
parents, of which one was the son of the legendary daughter of Wandala.
8
http://www.mandaras.info/DGB_NCameroon/index.htm (David & Muller-Kosack 2002)
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