Dawn in darkest Africa

by John H. Harris

MOTHERHOOD

The birth of children is in primitive Africa rarely attended by anything abnormal. If a native nurse is confronted with complications, she immediately throws up the case in despair and appeals to the witch doctor, but normally the birth of children is taken as quite an ordinary part of the daily life. One day we were passing through a native village, and there, lying on a plantain leaf, were two chubby little twin girls but half-an-hour old; the mother was sitting close by “resting.” This picture was so beautifully simple that my wife went with a boy to bring up the camera and plates, but on arriving at the spot in about twenty minutes the woman had picked up her twins and carried them home! That is primitive Africa, but in the coast towns where African womanhood delights in corsets and other European follies, the suffering at childbirth is in many cases almost as acute as that amongst the European community. With several Congo tribes, the belief is firmly rooted and put into practice that in order to change the colostrum flow to that of milk, co-habitation is essential.

With many tribes throughout West Africa, the period of lactation is prolonged; frequently the mother nurses the child until it is two, three, and even four, years old. A case of adultery was brought before the District Commissioner’s Court at Ikorodu in Southern Nigeria in April last year, and in the evidence it came out that the accused woman was suckling a child four years of age. The District Commissioner ordered her to cease nursing the child within three months.

The death rate amongst the young children in West Africa is very high and no doubt arises from the deplorable manner in which they are brought up. There is practically no attention given to diet or cleanliness, with the result that any disease which attacks a family quickly spreads through the community.

Amongst the Dagomba of the Northern territories of the Gold Coast colony, the woman who has given birth to a child leaves her husband’s compound and goes to that of the father-in-law, taking the child with her, where they stay for a year. At the end of this period the wife and child return to the home of the husband and father.

Twins

TWINS

It is a mistake to assume, as some writers do, that the taboo on twins is a prevailing custom amongst West African tribes. The distribution of the taboo is extremely erratic. Twins are unwelcome in the Northern territories of the Gold Coast, yet the reverse is the case amongst the Egbas of Nigeria. In the Congo territories, twins cause the greatest joy to a tribe and the mother is lauded wherever she goes, whilst amongst the tribes of the oil rivers of Nigeria, the birth of twins is regarded as the most fearful calamity which can fall upon the community.

In the Upper Congo regions, the traveller may frequently see two earthenware pots hoisted on forked stakes which have been driven in the ground, one on either side of the path, and these are in honour of twins born in the nearest compound. Every person passing by those pots will religiously pluck two leaves and throw one at the foot of each forked pole as a votive offering to “Bokecu” and “Mboyo,” as all good twins are named.