The man-child is exhorted
to be truthful, and the girl to "tell plenty lie," in order to
lead a happy life. Truly a new form of the regenerative rite!
A curious prepossession of the African mind, curious and yet
general, in a land where population is the one want, and where
issue is held the greatest blessing, is the imaginary necessity
of limiting the family. Perhaps this form of infanticide is a
policy derived from ancestors who found it necessary. In the
kingdom of Apollonia (Guinea) the tenth child was always buried
alive; never a Decimus was allowed to stand in the way of the
nine seniors. The birth of twins is an evil portent to the
Mpongwes, as it is in many parts of Central Africa, and even in
the New World; it also involves the idea of moral turpitude, as
if the woman were one of the lower animals, capable of
superfetation. There is no greater insult to a man, than to point
at him with two fingers, meaning that he is a twin; of course he
is not one, or he would have been killed at birth. Albinos are
allowed to live, as in Dahome, in Ashanti, and among some East
African tribes, where I have been "chaffed" about a brother
white, who proved to be an exceptional negro without pigmentum
nigrum.
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