Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 43
A comprehensive summary of the three parts
Because of the different historical and source-related content, this book about the Dghweɗe is
structured in three main parts. Part One is about the Gwoza hills before Boko Haram, and
aims to describe how I remember them during my time. It covers the years between 1994 and
2010 and also provides us with a summary of the ethnolinguistic complexities of the Gwoza
LGA. Part Two is concerned with the pre-colonial and colonial background history of the
Gwoza hills as part of a wider sub-region by relying on the various key sources available. Part
Three is an attempt to retell the Dghweɗe oral history based on ethnographic field data.
Part One consists of two chapters. In the first chapter, we want to introduce the reader to the
geographical setting of the Gwoza hills by going on an imaginary journey around the foothills
and then across the heights of the hills. We start our journey in Pulka by first going down the
western plain as far as Limankara and then travel from Pulka down the eastern plain as far as
Barawa. From there we take a hike up to Ghwa'a in Dghweɗe and continue from there via
Korana Basa southwards to Gvoko. Next, we look at the issue of mountains versus plains, so
typical for the Gwoza LGA. We introduce the reader to some of the local geographical and
administrative intricacies and how they were linked to the already existing social conflict
between Muslims and Christians in the plains. We close that chapter with a short description
of how conversion to a more fundamentalist version of Islam also started to became an issue
of conflict in parts of the hills from 2005 onwards.
Chapter Two of Part One is more substantial in terms of data presentation because we want to
take a closer look at the local administrative, ethnolinguistic and demographic complexities of
the Gwoza LGA. This is achieved by introducing the reader to three thematic maps I designed
from my 1994 ethnographic survey results, by applying the boundaries of the administrative
settlement units of the time as a cartographic background. We describe the ethnolinguistic
situation by comparing languages and ethnicities and connect them with the various
administrative divisions as they were in 1994. We finally present population and resulting
population density estimates in the light of the geographical divisions between mountains,
western plain and eastern plain. In the context of that, we identify the eastern plain as more
conflict-prone due to having been further away from the centre and therefore more remote in
terms of a less developed infrastructure.
In Part Two, we attempt to construct a subregional background scenario of a shared past
which Part Three will use as a hypothetical pre-colonial and colonial historical setting. Much
of the oral history about the Dghweɗe traditional way of life goes back to pre-colonial times
and we want to propose a diachronic framework in which we plan to see and describe those
oral historical traditions which would otherwise just be tales of an atemporal ethnographic
past. To use the ethnographic present by presenting oral data as if they were synchronic has a
long tradition in ethnography. We too will write in the ethnographic present but only while
quoting from fieldnotes, not when we re-examine them.
We start Part Two by introducing the reader to the early written sources about the foundation
of Kirawa as the first Wandala capital in the region and the first mention of the Wandala, also
known as the Mandara. These early written sources go back to the 15th and even 14th
centuries AD, and we link them with the radiocarbon dates of the already mentioned DGB
sites. The latter is a complex of terraced platforms with underground passages, stairs and
chambers situated in a significant number along the northern slopes of the Oupay massif, just
to the south of Dghweɗe. From there one can overlook the Gwoza hills and the eastern plains,
with the Kirawa and Moskota rivers as the main dividing watercourses. A Table of
Contemporaneity will be produced by using palaeoclimatic dates from the expanding and
retreating flat waters of Lake Chad to the north of the Mandara Mountains. To do this a list of
Wandala kings will be produced, taken from latest translations of what became known as the
Wandala Chronicles, an Arabic source from the early 18th century. We will suggest that
Ghwa'a, as the earlier part of Dghweɗe, already existed during the 16th century AD.
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