Abiku, when the word comes up, what comes to ones mind is , a child that keeps coming back after dying, though the literal meaning is one that is born to die. For some Nigerian tribes, they call these children ogbanje.
In traditional African “written and oral mythology”, there are some set of advanced spiritual Souls who come to earth for a more special reason. This set of Souls are known as Ogbanje (in the Igbo language). The Ogbanje child ideology is a person who is incarnated from the Marine World and possesses some sort of mysterious powers to command their desires.
This could sound primitive, but it is real , especially the Yoruba race. Abiku is a Yoruba word that can be translated as “predestined to death”. It is from (abi) “that which was born” and (iku) “death” Some children over time reborn to the same mother with the previous look, sex, complexion and structure. Owing to ephemeral nature of Abiku life, Abiku completes several consecutive life-cycles with one mother. In some reality cases, the Yorubas, in one of their traditional ways of deterring Abiku from death after reborn deface such children either by cutting their finger, ear or a deep mark in the face or back. To a great surprise in most cases, the Abiku on reborn would have those marks whether on the face or back.
The Yorubas’ also call Abiku some pleading-names like; Duro-Orike, Durosinmi, Durojaiye, Igbokoyi, Jokotimi, Malomo, kosoko, etc to plead with them not to die again and to allow them stay with their parents. It is believed that Abiku plummet the fortune of their parents and their great joy is to see their mother cry when they die, severally because the tears running on their mothers’ face are valuable in the spirit of Abiku. Abiku time in human life is always short and their deaths mostly occur at the time of their joy like marriage, graduation etc.
Abiku refers to the spirits of children who die before reaching puberty; a child who dies before twelve years of age being called an Abiku, and the spirit, or spirits, who caused the death being also called Abiku.
Not only is an abiku a spirit of a child who dies young, the belief is that the spirit returns to the same mother multiple times to be reborn multiple times. It is the belief that the spirit does not ever plan to “stay put in life” so it is “indifferent to the plight of its mother and her grief. The spirits themselves are believed to live in trees, especially the iroko
Emere and Abiku are the kind of children according to the Yorubas’ belief who make a certain pledge concerning their life duration with their mates in the spirit world. At the expiration of the time, he/she dies and re-unites with their mates. Some oral tradition also confirm that some Emere among them must have married one of their mates and probably bore children over there (in the spirit world). In coming to the human world, the Emere could find it difficult to get married and bear children.
Research shows that if such person is eventually married and conceived pregnancy, somebody who refers to as spiritual husband (Oko Orun) will have sexual intercourse with her in the dream and this will result to miscarriage. This remains one of the factors responsible for barrenness among women according to Yoruba tradition and the solution to it, is proper spiritual consultation.
An ọgbanje is a term in Odinani (Igbo: ọ̀dị̀nànị̀) for what was thought to be an evil spirit that would deliberately plague a family with misfortune. Belief in ọgbanje in Igboland is not as strong as it once was, although there are still some believers.
Its literal meaning in the Igbo language is “children who come and go”. Sometimes the word ọgbanje has been used as a synonym for a rude or stubborn child. The word ọgbanje is often translated as changeling, due to the similarities they share with the fairy changelings of Celtic and broader European mythology. Some theorists have hypothesized that these conceptions serve as mythological ways of understanding what were once unknown diseases that often claimed the lives of children (such as SIDS and sickle cell disease),[citation needed] as the inheritance of these diseases within families may have led people to conclude that the children involved were all incarnations of the same malevolent spirit.
It was believed that within a certain amount of time from birth (usually not past puberty), the ọgbanje would deliberately die and then be reborn into the next child of the family and repeat the cycle, causing much grief. It is also believed that ọgbanje are born into the same immediate family all the time; it can even be born into an extended family. Ogbanje can be born into family from a spirit between gestation and birth. Another way is by being introduced to an ọgbanje group.
The evil spirits are said to have stones called iyi-uwa, which they bury somewhere secret. The iyi-uwa serves to permit the ọgbanje to return to the human world and to find its targeted family. Finding the evil spirits’ iyi-uwa ensures the ọgbanje would never again plague the family with misfortune. The iyi-uwa is dug out by a priest and destroyed. The child is confirmed to no longer be an ọgbanje after the destruction of the stone, or after the mother successfully gives birth to another baby. Female ọgbanje die during pregnancies along with the baby, while male ọgbanje die before the birth or death of a wife’s baby.
Ogbanje/abiku refer to people who are believed to cycle rapidly and repeatedly through birth and death. A consecutive familial sequence of births and deaths of infants is construed as the same child dying and being born over and over again. The Igbos believe that ogbanje results from subversion of human destiny by willful alliance of the newborn with deities who guard the postulated interface between birth and pre-birth (spirit) existence, while the Yoruba attribute many abiku to possession of a pregnancy by spirit pranksters most often referred to as emere. Surviving persons manifest abnormalities of psychological life with vivid fantasy life or dreams characterized by the presence of water, orgiastic play with unfamiliar children, and frightening contact with a water goddess -mammy water. Labeled children and adolescents often exhibit manipulative, histrionic dissociative, and other maladaptive behavior. They may also be gifted. Contradictory and facultative practices of excessive indulgence of and ostentatious hostility towards ogbanje/abiku children are described but are better understood as exhibitions of acceptance of life and rejection of death
What the easterners from Nígeria call ogbanje and the yorubas, abiku are believed to be children from a spiritual coven. It is said that they are children of the wood demons “ebora inu igi”, and they are also said to be habitats of ancient and large trees, for example, the iroko trees. These children are said to have made a covenant that when they are born in real life, they will definitely come back to their folks. This in turn inflicts pain, sadness, and poverty on their earthly parents pending the time they are on earth. And when they are set to go back to their coven ‘egbe’, they start falling sick, a strange kind of sickness, one which there will be no remedy for, till they eventually pass away. When the parent of this child has another child, there is a belief that the dead child is the one that has returned to continue the cycle of torment.
Once an experienced or elder around notices the weird signs around this child, the child is given a mark, not the usual tribal mark, one that leaves the child with an ugly scar. This scar is made to make the child look ugly once the child goes back to their coven in the supernatural world. Also, once the parents have another child that comes with the ugly scar or anything similar to what was made on the dead child, the newborn is given significant names like Malomo(don’t go again), Kokumo(will not die again), Durojaiye or Durotimi(stay and enjoy this world or stay will me),
The Igbo of Nigeria believe that everyone is ogbanje (reincarnates) but malevolent ogbanje differ from others in being revenge-driven, chronically ill and engaging in repeated cycles of birth, death and reincarnation. This study examined culturally defined symptoms of 100 children classified as malevolent ogbanje; and investigated their family history and child mortality experience. There was concordance between cultural descriptions of malevolent ogbanje and symptoms as manifested in sickle cell patients. Hemoglobin analysis showed that 70 of the 100 children had sickle cell disease (SCD); while 68 families had death-related names.
The symptoms associated with Igbo cases of reincarnation, high child mortality rates, and the high prevalence of sickle cell disease among children classified as malevolent ogbanje all support the conclusion that the symptomatology and early mortality experience are related to sickle cell. Names with themes of death were prevalent in families of children described as malevolent ogbanje. The findings are discussed with reference to cultural resistance to SCD as an explanation for malevolent ogbanje and the implications for the health care of children with SCD in Nigeria.
The role of adequate nutrition in the life of children from zero to five years has been said to be responsible for the reduction of ‘abiku’ (a Yoruba belief of child reincarnation) cases. In the past, cases of infant and child mortality were rampant and with little explanations to serve as reasons behind their death, thus heightening the belief system in ‘Abiku’. The term ‘Abiku’ means a child who is born to die. It is believed that such a child enters into the womb of the same woman and is reborn severally until marks and incisions have been made on its body to prevent it from coming back again. In Igbo language, it is referred to as ‘ogbanje’’.
Instead of any belief system, unqualified birth attendants, inadequate knowledge to severance of umbilical cord, infection, pneumonia, malaria and bad water amongst other unhealthy practices were responsible for the high rate of child and infant mortality. This was revealed by performance and development consultant with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Dr. Noel Ihebuzor in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, during a media dialogue on Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH).
Ihebuzor who lamented the sad occurrences of the past due to lack of enlightenment, said knowledge has increased over the years and people are now knowledgeable about best practices when it comes to nutrition in the right proportion, access to availability of clean water, adherence to hygiene practices, use of insecticide treated mosquito nets to avoid malaria and sanitation among others. He said the spirits believed to be behind ‘abiku’ didn’t go because they were fought to a standstill, but because the right things, such as research, training and re-trainings, as well as enlightenment were carried out without knowing that they would bring solutions to the ‘abiku’ syndrome.
