AZAGHVANA

Gerhard Muller-Kosack


A fragmentary history of the Dghwede of the Mandara Mountains.
A history from the grassroots.



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Book details

Hardback (21,5 x 30,5 cm)
581 pages (with extensive colour and greyscale illustration)
Mandaras Publishing 2021
Ramsgate, Kent (UK)
ISBN 978-1-906168-14-8

Price:

£25 (plus shipping)


About this book

The bulk of this massive tome, generously illustrated (maps, figures, tables, plates), presents what is known of Dghwede culture in twenty-three varied chapters ranging from the material to the ideational, with emphasis on kinship and ritual. Oral traditions — the main legacy of the Gwoza hills montagnards — are at their core and are subjected to critical analysis. A labour of love and fine scholarship, this is the first extended ethnographic account from this region and will be warmly welcomed by specialists for its broad coverage and inferences and, a generation hence, by Dghwede descendants eager to explore their cultural heritage.
(see blurb by Nicholas David)


Amaury Talbot Prize committee special commendation (February 2023):

"Highly commended: An encyclopaedic account of the people of the Gwoza hills, at the northern end of the Mandara mountains in NE Nigeria, this volume presents its ethnography in rich detail. It is valuable all the more since the region has been ravaged by Boko Haram, and remains insecure. The author terms his history ‘fragmentary’ in that context, but the comprehensive treatment preserves a remarkable varied record - a feat of scholarship of great anthropological worth."


Linked content

→ Please visit the Dghwede audio files discussed in some of the chapters