Abiku

The term abiku indicates a particular type of possession describes at the Yorubas (people of Nigeria).

Anthropological description

The abiku term is applied at the same time to certain spirits which can come to have the children, and also to the children who are inhabited by these spirits. They incur a vital risk, that to be " rappelé" with death. One speaks about abiku in a family for example, when several children died, one says whereas it is the same child who leaves and who returns (in local cosmogony, the children are in fact of the ancestors which returns). It is a question for the family of practicing traditional treatments intended to move away the spirits, to make them offerings, and to protect the children against their return.

Literature

  • the novel the road of the hunger , the writer Nigerian Ben Okri tale history of a Abiku child.

Refer

  • MSN Inserted entry one Abiku
  • Ilechukwu STC. Ogbanje/Abiku: culture-bound construct off childhood and family psychopathology in West Africa has. African Psychopathology 1990-1991; 23 (1): 19-60.
  • Jones, Gertrude. Dictionary off Mythology Folklore and Symbols . New York: The Scarecrow Near, 1962.

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