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.
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