Very Young Children They Do Not Attempt To Keep, But Throw Them Away
In The Bush Alive, As All Children Are Thrown Who Have Not Arrived
In This World In The Way Considered Orthodox, Or Who Cut Their Teeth
In An Improper Way.
Twins are killed among all the Niger Delta
tribes, and in districts out of English control the mother is killed
too, except in Omon, where the sanctuary is.
There twin mothers and their children are exiled to an island in the
Cross River. They have to remain on the island and if any man goes
across and marries one of them he has to remain on the island too.
This twin-killing is a widely diffused custom among the Negro
tribes.
There is always a sense of there being something uncanny regarding
twins in West Africa, and in those tribes where they are not killed
they are regarded as requiring great care to prevent them from dying
on their own account. I remember once among the Tschwi {324} trying
to amuse a sickly child with an image which was near it and which I
thought was its doll. The child regarded me with its great
melancholy eyes pityingly, as much as to say, "A pretty fool YOU are
making of yourself," and so I was, for I found out that the image
was not a doll at all but an image of the child's dead twin which
was being kept near it as a habitation for the deceased twin's soul,
so that it might not have to wander about, and, feeling lonely, call
its companion after it.
The terror with which twins are regarded in the Niger Delta is
exceedingly strange and real. When I had the honour of being with
Miss Slessor at Okyon, the first twins in that district were saved
with their mother from immolation owing entirely to Miss Slessor's
great influence with the natives and her own unbounded courage and
energy. The mother in this case was a slave woman - an Eboe, the
most expensive and valuable of slaves. She was the property of a
big woman who had always treated her - as indeed most slaves are
treated in Calabar - with great kindness and consideration, but when
these two children arrived all was changed; immediately she was
subjected to torrents of virulent abuse, her things were torn from
her, her English china basins, possessions she valued most highly,
were smashed, her clothes were torn, and she was driven out as an
unclean thing. Had it not been for the fear of incurring Miss
Slessor's anger, she would, at this point, have been killed with her
children, and the bodies thrown into the bush.
As it was, she was hounded out of the village. The rest of her
possessions were jammed into an empty gin case and cast to her. No
one would touch her, as they might not touch to kill. Miss Slessor
had heard of the twins' arrival and had started off, barefooted and
bareheaded, at that pace she can go down a bush path.
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