posted
Ogbanje: I think every Igbo person must have heard this term used before but what does it mean. It probably means different things to different people. I am aware that it has been used as a form of insult, however the origin is from Igbo belief about children termed Ogbanje who share certain characteristics. The most important being the tendency for these children to have a short life span which often is interpreted as an attempt to tease the parents of these children.
I have to admit that I am not an expert on this phenomenon, but my take on this (which is only a theory) is that the concept of Ogbanje is that it is just a combination of sickle cell disease covered with several layers of mythology. I will try to explain why I believe this to be the case.
Firstly, this concept exists in areas of high prevalence of sickle cell disease, such as in Ghana and amongst the Yoruba where I believe the term is Abiku. In the North of Biafranigeria, I believe this concept is almost unknown.
Secondly, these children are normal at first but with age are afflicted with recurrent episodes of physical ailments ultimately leading to death. This is similar to Sickle cell disease which manifests only after the replacement of the foetal (baby) haemoglobin F with the sickle haemoglobin SS or Sc.
In addition, if you trace the descendants from families with Ogbanje, one is likely to find individuals with sickle cell disease. It is my view that with more awareness of Sickle Cell disease, I am unaware that people are still being diagnosed with Ogbanje.
What do you think?
Posts: 8 | From: Orlando, Florida. | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
Thanks for bringing up this topic. I have never had a doubt that Ogbanje is a range of unrecognised(by africans) hereditary conditions. On my first post medical degree visit to Africa, a lady came to see me. Her story was that she had had three babies over a p0eriod of five years and all three died. The local diagnosis was that those children were ogbanje and they kept coming apparently to punish the woman. The local soothsayer said the woman was evil and neede to offer sacrifices to the gods. The local pentecostal churches promised deliverance. The most disappointing was the reaction of the local gynaecologist who did very little to diagnose the conditions the babies had. The local gynaecologist knew the babies all had jaundice at birth. It never occured to him to do a differential diagnoses of haemolytic disease of the new born and offer appropriate advice. Although this lady was well off, she chose a private gynaecologist. I said to her she was better off going to a local teaching hospital because even medical students could have diagnosed the problem.
Posts: 621 | Registered: Mar 2001
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posted
Still on Ogbanje: apart from early death, I also remember a range of behavioural problems associated with this phenomenon. I remember seeing one particular girl (when I was growing up in Nigeria)crying endlessly saying she saw strange things that suggested she had some form of functional or organic psychosis. If a child suffering sickle cell crises was crying from severe pain, how would the african tradional medical experts tell?
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posted
Sickle cell anemia is an autosomal recessively transmited gene defect, whose symtoms are very similar and in most cases identical to the symptoms displayed by the African Ogbanje. All genes in the body are couples, there are 2 genes of every type where one is contibuted by the father and one by the mother. A gene deffect that is recessive means that the defect gene does not cause any problems in the presence of a good gene. If you have one good gene and another bad with a reccesive defect, that defect will not be manifested. Only when both genes are defect will the symptoms of a congenital dissease be observed. So it is with sickle cell anemia. Parents who both have one defect gene (AS) do not show any symtoms of the disease but are carriers of the defect gene, which can be passed on to their children. If the child happens to get the S (defect) gene from both parents, then the child would be SS (sickler) and that child would in all probability die before getting to the age of 18. The defect gene alters the oxygen carrying capacity of the blood and also changes form, function and life span of the red blood cells. From the standpoint of evolution, prevalence of the defect S gene is rampant in Africa as the gene in its recessive form gives an increased resistance agains plasmodium parasite and hence malaria, so affected people have higher survival chance in malaria infested tropics.
Now it is obvious that parents with AS genotype have a one in four chance of having a sickler child. If the first child dies of sickle cell, it is very lickely that the second will do so also, and the third etc, thus starting a vicious cycle of child death, which to our distant forefathers could have had only a spiritual explanation, hence "Ogbanje" More so as the parents as well as some lucky siblings are sympton free. In medical circles Ogbanje has long been identified and associated with sickle cell anemia. That is why it is law in Nigeria to determine your genotype before you can be married to avoid marriage of 2 AS genotype carriers. It is left for us to educate those back home in the villages who dont know better that Ogbanje is infact a systemic disease and can be prevented by simple measures.
___________________ Biafra is inevitable.Illegitimis nil carborundum. Posts: 760 | From: europe | Registered: Jan 2005
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posted
This is a very enlightening discussion. It promises to throw a great deal of light upon the ailment known in Yoruba as Abiku. Unfortunately, the discussion will be ruined once our resident voodoo psycho-logist/psychiatrist, Waypoint1biafra, jumps in and starts dispensing his quackery in dismembered grammar on the subject.
Posts: 65 | From: Good Old USA | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
Kudus to you all for this very enlightening discussion as I have always without the benefit of medical ambience believed that what the Igbo call Ogbanje to me could literally be in proximity with what the Americans term Multiple Disorder Personality. The sickle-cell argument makes a whole lot of sense to me. Thanks to our medical practitioners for clarifying this. At times like this one should question why losers like Paris Hilton (whose claim to fame came by way of grand-dad dough) should be noticed and treated with more accolades than those in the vanguard of saving lives, our scientists?
CSE, did that lady finally take your advice and did she succeed on her next attempt?
___________________ BIAFRA: The land of my ancestors now, yesterday and always. So it will be! Posts: 2483 | From: Ala Igbo | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
This Discussion hit home, as a child my sister and I had Ogbanje removed from us. I was probably 4 or 5 years old when it happen. I can still remember that woman with her razor blade cutting my palms open. The funny thing about it, is that my older sister was the first, they removed her's from her face, so when it was my turn I covered my face with one hand, The woman tricked me to show her my other hand. She proceeded to cut that hand open.
I think Ogbanje means different thing to different people like CSE alluded to. sometimes certain behaviors by a child is consider Ogbanje. My maternal grand mother may her soul rest in peace. She was the one that brought the lady that operated on my sister and I. So Ogbanje doesn't always mean that the child will die at birth. My sister and I are living proof that Ogbanje is not always about children dieing and keep coming back.
posted
Well permit me to ask then what were the reasons for the operation being carried out on your sister and yourself. What where the reasons given by your late Grandmother and others for doing the operation in your case? Did you find out and if so please share with us.
___________________ Biafra is inevitable.Illegitimis nil carborundum. Posts: 760 | From: europe | Registered: Jan 2005
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I never found out in any details, I guess base on my limited knowledge I think ours was based on Behavior. Today since I have my own kids, it is probably something I will term as hyber-active child or too much sugar, if will.
posted
It is my opinion that with time any child who did not comform to a set way of behaviour was labelled Ogbanje. I think as Biafra mentions these included some of the children who would be labelled as hyperactive and even those with ADHD. The Label Ogbanje has even been applied to people with frank psychotic illness.
Despite this, it is my opinion that the classic description of Ogbanje fit in with sickle cell disease.
On a lighter note,Biafra I think your people should ask for a refund as several years after the removal, you are still instilling fear into some people even in cyber space.
Posts: 8 | From: Orlando, Florida. | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
Yep! There is no doubt about it. Ogbanje or no Ogbanje, our man, Biafra, is the nightmare of Igbo Efulefu everywhere.
Thank God for that!
___________________ No Biafran will be permitted to play Mother Theresa to the Yoruba and Hausa-Fulani, but play Osama Bin Laden to the Igbo or Biafrans! Posts: 1182 | Registered: Mar 2001
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I am not sure if that lady didn't remove all of it. May be she left that part of it that can't stand Igbo efulefus. I do agree that as medical technology creat more awareness in Igboland, people will started seeing it from a different point of view.
quote: CSE, did that lady finally take your advice and did she succeed on her next attempt? MeBiafrian
I don't know if she did or what the outcome was if she did. I will ask my mother who arranged the consultation. I think the consesus opinion is that everyone who was strange or unusual in childhood was likely to be labelled ogbanje.
Lumping all disorders into one mysterious phenomenon is not restricted to childhood disorders. I also discussed with a family where the mother had a right sided hemiparesis and associated change of colour on one part of the face. She was going home one evening when she felt a sharp pain and never recovered. The two arms of the family namely the traditional and christian wing were evenly split on what they believed was the cause of her illness. One half believed she was slapped by the devil. The other half believed some malicious enemy was responsible. Neither wing thought of effective treatment for the cerebrovascular event(stroke).
Multiple personality disorder or dissociative personality disorder as it has come to be known since 1994 is essentially a collection of symptoms of hysteria more commonly seen among females just as ogbanje.
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posted
This posting/topic is very informative to say the least. I have never really given much thought to it. So, thanks to the medicos that have explained Ogbanje to us.
One other aspect of Ogbanje (at least from anecdotal references) is that they are said to be very uncannily beautiful, they are mostly women (there could be males too)always soft- spoken and kind of ephemeral. Did I hear wrong?
___________________ Speak softly, but carry a big stick - Teddy Rosevelt. Posts: 18 | From: New Berlin, WI | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Great topic and great enough to draw me out from ROMland.
I'm disturbed that we are seeking to substitute the macabre ogbanje phenomenom with some unproven hypothesis.
You are all honourable ppl and so your reputations are not on the line and you will not be the first set of mordernists and scientists that detest the paranormal and supernatural to the point of trying to offer such simplistic arguments that portray our great grans as ignorant, ingloriuos and dubious people.
But there questions begging for answers... 1) why did the simple exhumation of some funny stone(iyi uwa) result in gene mutation that suddenly made death-prone sicklers live as long as their parents in land-locked Ogidi? a) Was Biafra's minimal blood loss the same as the total blood exchange that have been administered to anaemic sicklers? 2) I don't know what mighty river is in Eke-akpara in ngwa land where one "madam Ho-Ha" routinely treats ogbanjes from the hinterland?
___________________ Awo's political idea was based on the assumption that any town beyond Owo was Igbo or Hausa. Awo was not socialised; he was not a good mixer because he did not have the opportunity, which the secondary school offered. ~TOS Benson, Baba Oba of Lagos Posts: 2644 | From: United Kingdom | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote: why did the simple exhumation of some funny stone(iyi uwa) result in gene mutation that suddenly made death-prone sicklers live as long as their parents in land-locked Ogidi?-Ohafia Udumeze
Did that happen in your own experience or have you been tempted to report hear say?
And nobody is trying to make our ancestors look foolish, but if our gramps were infalible and all knowing then why do we not continue with killing of twins, human sacrifice and female circumcision?
Why do you take chloroquine or halfan when you have malaria? Why not mkpuru ogwu (dogonyaro) in Kai-Kai as gramps did?
Like Biafra has said Ogbanje is many things to many people some psychological, some behavioral, but in its characteristic form it involves cycles of child death, which have been linked to sickle cell anemia and thats not a slight in any way on our forefathers. Neither is it simplistic. It is rather simplistic to call any symtoms you cannot otherwise explain "Ogbanje". Nobody is denying the paranormal or supernatural either, but it does not mean that everything you do not understand is supernatural.
___________________ Biafra is inevitable.Illegitimis nil carborundum. Posts: 760 | From: europe | Registered: Jan 2005
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posted
Some Historical Perspectives: Sickle Cell History Although the HbS gene is most common in Africa, sickle cell disease went unreported in African medical literature until the 1870s. This may be because the symptoms were similar to those of other tropical diseases in Africa and because blood was not usually examined. In addition, children born with sickle cell disease usually died in infancy and were typically not seen by physicians. Most of the earliest published reports of the disease involved black patients living in the US.
African tribal populations were all too familiar with the disease and created their own names for it. It is interesting to note that the tribal names all carry repeating syllables -- possibly to symbolize the repeating painful episodes. Such names include ahututuo (from the Twi tribe); chwecheechwe (from the Ga tribe); nuidudui (from the Ewe tribe); and nwiiwii (from the Fante tribe). Many tribal names were also imitations of the cries and moans of the sufferers or formed such phrases as "body chewing" or "body biting" which described their terrible torment. In one West African tribe, children who died soon after birth were called "ogbanjes" meaning children who come and go. The tribespeople believed that an evil spirit was trying to be born into a family with ogbanje children, but the babies bravely died to save the rest of the family from the demon. Some tribes had as many as 40% of the people carry the sickle cell gene.
Long ago, in the mosquito-infested tropics of Nigeria, traditional healers of the Ibo tribe devised strategies to prevent infant deaths. Tribe members believed some families were cursed with ogbanje, or repeater children--babies who die in infancy and are then reborn to the same parents. To persuade a child to stay when first born, some healers would offer sacrifices or make a small mark on the baby's face. Others, according to biochemist Stuart J. Edelstein, would remove the end of the little finger on the baby's left hand.
Edelstein, who documents the finger-cutting practice in The Sickled Cell (1986, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass.), says many of the Ibo babies who died in infancy may actually have succumbed to infections as a result of sickle cell anemia.
Sickle cell disease stems from an inherited abnormality in hemoglobin -- the oxygen-carrying pigment in blood -- leading to elongated, or "sickled," red blood cells that clog the small blood vessels. Pneumonia and other infections often claim the lives of babies with the disease. In older children, it can stunt the growth of fingers and limbs. The fact that people with sickle cell anemia often display one or more shortened fingers could have led the Ibo to think a short finger might be necessary for survival beyond infancy, reasons Edelstein, of the University of Geneva in Switzerland.
Social Science and Medicine, May 2001, vol. 52, no. 9, pp. 1403-1416(14)
Nzewi E.
Abstract:
The Igbo of Nigeria believe that everyone 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 second article by Edelstein confirms BIAFRA`S account that the cut could be done on the face or the left hand as happened to him and his sister.
___________________ Biafra is inevitable.Illegitimis nil carborundum. Posts: 760 | From: europe | Registered: Jan 2005
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