Obanje

Zahara Fisher

==== An __**ogbanje**__ or //obanje// is basically a child that is born only to die a few years later. Then, the child is reborn again and again. This child brings a lot of grief and emotional and physical distress to its family. Nigerians believed that the ogbanjes were evil. There are very few that believe in them anymore, but there are some. In reality, these children that were dying so quickly had sickle cell disease. This disease can kill people at a very early age if it isn’t treated. ====

Facts:

 * ====ogbanje are revenge-driven, chronically ill and engaging in repeated cycles of birth, death, reincarnation ====
 * ====When studied, there were 100 children classsified as ogbanje. 70 of the 100 had the sickle cell disease ====
 * ====The medicine men believed that the only way to get rid of an ogbanje was to mutilate the dead child and then bury it in the Evil Forest. ====
 * ====If the child lives past puberty, it is not an ogbanje and will live. ====
 * ====Female circumcision was also sometimes thought to rid a woman of an ogbanje ====
 * ====By finding and destroying the Iyi-uwa, the connector of ogbanje to its evil spirits, one could ensure that the ogbanje would never plague the family again. ====



Picture URLs: http://www.empowher.com/files/ebsco/images/si55551158.jpg http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/nn232/MuguMagu/Ogbanje.jpg http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_G2vd8aeVqpc/S7rf1EjdxmI/AAAAAAAAAKI/sw7Y98jXHFk/s1600/iyi-uwa.jpg

Website URLs: [] [] []