Among The Okyon Tribes Especial Care Is Taken In The Case Of A Woman
Dying And Leaving A Child Over Six Months Old.
The underlying idea
is that the spirit of the mother is sure to come back and fetch the
child,
And in order to pacify her and prevent the child dying, it is
brought in and held just in front of the dead body of the mother and
then gradually carried away behind her where she cannot see it, and
the person holding the child makes it cry out and says, "See, your
child is here, you are going to have it with you all right." Then
the child is hastily smuggled out of the hut, while a bunch of
plantains is put in with the body of the woman and bound up with the
funeral binding clothes.
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.
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