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Born to Die: Witchcraft and Infanticide in Bariba Culture
Carolyn F. Sargent
Ethnology, Vol. 27, No. 1. (Jan., 1988), pp. 79-95.
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BORN TO DIE: WITCHCRAFT AND INFANTICIDE IN BARIBA CULTURE
Carolyn F. Sargent Southern Methodist University
Anthropological inquiry regarding witchcraft and sorcery has
predominantly emphasized the articulation between concepts of
misfortune and social structure (cf. Evans-Pritchard 1937; Turner
1957; Marwick 1965; Simmons 1971). Increasingly, evidence of rapid
urbanization in the Third World has provoked students of indigenous
cosmology to address the implications of such features of the urban
environment as ethnic heterogeneity and new social and political
pressures for indigenous belief systems (Croce-Spinelli 1982;
Hopkins 1980; Wyllie 1973; Mitchell 1965). In one such study of
faith healers and folk healers in Central Africa,
Jules-Rosette (1981:127) echoed Mitchell's (1965) classic study
of the "meaning in misfortune for urban Africans" and described the
perpetuation in urban environments of theories of well-being that
refer to indigenous cosmology. Similarly, the influence of
indigenous cosmological beliefs evolved as a consideration during
research on obstetrical care decisions among rural and urban Bariba
in People's Republic of Benin, West Africa (Sargent 1982, 1984). In
this research, the significance of Bariba cosmology for medical
decisions made within the parameters of national policy constraints
emerged. This paper focuses on one set of beliefs central to
obstetrical care practice and traces the modification in these
beliefs and practices occurring in response to the growth of a
multiethnic urban environment within a nation-state. Thus the data
demonstrate the process of cultural transformation enabling the
persistence of indigenous medical and cosmological beliefs in the
context of multiple medical resource use.
Research among urban Bariba in Benin signals continuing concerns
with concepts of witchcraft and sorcery characteristic of rural
Bariba society (Sargent 1982; Lombard 1965). Crucial to an
understanding of these concepts concerning the causation of
misfortune in society is the practice of infanticide, associated
with a belief in witch babies whose presence may be detected at
birth. Infanticide represents a response to notions of good and
evil, normality and abnormality that are intrinsic to Bariba
understandings of social order. Thus an assessment of the ideology
of infanticide among rural and urban Bariba will clarify the
articulation of this practice with obstetrical care and will
indicate modifications in belief and observance resulting from
external sources such as national legislation, the policy and
judiciary, as well as public health policy. Government policy, by
defining infanticide as homicide, has intervened in the autonomy of
the household and patrilineage, thus challenging prevailing Bariba
concepts of morality and cosmology.
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80 ETHNOLOGY
METHODOLOGY
This analysis is based on data obtained among rural Bariba in
the northern province of the Atakora in Benin during research
conducted in 1976-77 and among urban Bariba in 1982-83. The initial
research involved structured interviews with 125 women of
reproductive age and both structured and unstructured interviews
with 18 local midwives regarding obstetrical care and care of
infant. Comparative data were obtained during the later research
undertaken in Parakou, the capital of the northern Borgou province,
in a study of medical decisions among urban Bariba. The urban
research involved maternity clinic observations, interviews with
250 pregnant women during prenatal visits, with 35 women
interviewed at home and followed throughout their pregnancy, and
with local healers. The Bariba, one of the major ethnic groups of
Benin, number approximately 500,000 and represent the most numerous
segment of the urban population, together with Dendi, Fon, and
Yoruba residents, and a smattering of smaller ethnic groups from
both northern and southern Benin.
MISFORTUNE AND INFANTICIDE AMONG THE BARIBA
Among the Bariba, witches figure prominently as causes of
misfortune believed to afflict human society, other causes
including human antagonists, ancestors and breach of taboo. Witches
are believed to present themselves at birth, at which time they may
be detected via the presence of certain signs. Because witches are
believed to present themselves on earth at delivery, the delivery
setting becomes the scene for apprehensive attention to ensure that
the signs indicating the possible presence of a witch baby are not
overlooked. These signs are indicative of unusual features of
either the infant or the birth process and include: 1) breech
birth; 2) birth occurring at eight months; 3) babies who slide on
their stomachs at birth; 4) babies born with teeth; and 5) babies
whose teeth appear first in the upper gums.
Babies displaying these signs either at birth or during teething
were customarily killed or abandoned. In this regard, Baldus (1974)
presents data on practices current among rural Bariba during the
colonial period and into the 1960s. He (Baldus 1974:361) reports
that the Bariba had a belief that children whose first teeth
appeared in the upper jaw would bring disaster, illness and death
to the family in which they were born ...This belief can be found
in other areas of West Africa, for example among the Yoruba
...Precautions in the form of a purification ritual are still taken
today in such cases, and sometimes the teeth will be extracted. It
seems, however, that nowhere else was the belief taken as serious
as among the Bariba, and nowhere else did it lead to the same
elaborate protective measures ...The child itself was killed. This
could be done in two ways. In larger settlements, the gossiko,
whose ofice was hereditary, took over the child and killed and
buried it ...Where a gossiko was not available, the child was set
out in a designated area close to a settlement and was left to die
of exposure or lack of nourishment.
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WITCHCRAFT AND INFANTICIDE IN BARIBA CULTURE 81
Rural informants in 1976 indicated that the most dangerous signs
suggesting a witch child were considered to be breech birth and
first teeth appearing in the upper gums. These children were
allegedly killed or given away to the neighboring pastoral Fulbe,
to be kept as slaves. Similarly, Baldus (1974) has described the
process occurring in the pre-colonial period by which the Fulbe,
who did not share the beliefs of the Bariba, periodically acquired
abandoned children in the forest and kept them. Eventually, the
Bariba began to directly hand over children to the Fulbe, where
they formed a slave category known as the machube (Baldus
1974:362). Since the 1972 socialist revolution in Benin, which
highlighted the emancipation of slaves, government policy has
emphasized that it is illegal to give children to the Fulbe or for
Fulbe to keep slaves. However, informants indicate that the
practice continues, and on several occasions individuals known to
be machube were identified in regional markets.
INFANTICIDE IN THE RURAL ENVIRONMENT
Although infanticide may be a normative practice, it is
nonetheless accomplished in secret and, given the fear of
government sanctions, individuals are reluctant to discuss cases of
infanticide in detail. During research in 1976-77 in the rural
region of Kouande, five cases of infanticide came to my attention.
Some detail is available on these cases, two of which occurred in
the village of Pehunko (population 2,000), one in the village of
Doh (population 800), and two in the district seat of Kouande
(population 4,000). Of these four cases, one was reported by a
Bariba Catholic priest who stated that he rescued an infant during
a visit to his extended family; the father intended to expose the
child because he feared witchcraft, give: the indicator of bony
gums. The priest took the child to live at the mission. In a second
case, I visited a pregnant woman who agreed to participate in my
research project. On my second visit, I observed that she was no
longer pregnant. I congratulated her and asked to see the baby and
she merely walked away. Her sister-in-law informed me that she had
delivered a baby at eight months and because her husband knew this,
the baby had not been fed, but left to die.
The third case concerned a child who was born with six fingers
and whose father killed it, although an elderly midwife later
remarked that the parents did not know the signs of witchcraft--six
fingers indicates future prosperity, not danger. The fourth case
involved a toddler found in a severely emaciated state by French
nuns. Upon questioning, the family said that the child's teeth had
come in first in the upper gums and the child. was now killing its
mother, who had a chronic respiratory disease (thought by the
nursing nuns to be tuberculosis). The mother was withholding food
from the child and the nuns brought her to live at the mission. In
the final case, a midwife reported that the most complicated
delivery she had attended had been the previous year, when the
baby's presenting part was the buttocks. This sight was so alarming
that she wanted to flee, but the mother begged her to stay. Finally
the baby was delivered but later the gossiko killed it. In addition
to these instances, Protestant evangelical missionaries at three
missions in the Atakora and Borgou provinces reported that
periodically during their sojourn in rural
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82 ETHNOLOGY
communities they had encountered mothers who asked them to raise
witch children to prevent their deaths. Missionary accounts also
report cases of infanticide in rural areas during the colonial
period. The most common methods of dealing with witch babies,
according to male and female informants, are killing the child by
exposing it to the elements, withholding food, or discarding the
child in a Fulbe camp.
In addition to these explicit modes of disposing of the child,
more subtle and difficult to document responses to an unwanted
child may occur. In this regard, the term infanticide is used by
Scrimshaw (1984) to include "...behavior ranging from deliberate to
unconscious which is likely to lead to the death of a dependent,
young member of the species" (Scrimshaw 1984: 442). She (Scrimshaw
1984:442) adds that "in some societies, deliberate killing, placing
the child in a dangerous situation and abandonment are culturally
sanctioned under specific circumstances." That which is defined as
infanticide may vary according to cultural conceptions regarding
the actual beginning of life. The point at which the child receives
a name may indicate induction into society and formal recognition
of existence. In Bariba society, a newborn is immediately named
according to rank order (e.g., first son, second daughter) and may
be given a Muslim name at Baptism eight days after birth. Formal
Bariba naming for the aristocracy occurs at age four or five.
Infants are said to be similar to animals, warm and playful but
without reason. They become human by age two--when a child is "too
big" to nurse and is therefore weaned. In some instances, children
are not named until several years of age; there seem to be
progressive phases of recognition of the child as a permanent
member of society, key among which is the appearance of teeth. Both
mothers and fathers state that they await the appearance of teeth
anxiously to determine the future of the child and, in fact, to
identify the child's essence--human or witch substance.
Following Scrimshaw (1984), one sees that a dangerous and
unwanted child may be disposed of variably, depending on the
circumstances surrounding the birth. For example, when a mother
died in labor in the village of Pehunko and the fetus was
extracted, it was found to be alive, to have all its teeth and to
be smiling. This obviously dangerous child was beaten immediately
to death by an elder. Another option, harder to identify, is to
neglect the child in such a fashion as to render death likely. In
one case in the village of Pehunko, a mother died of a postpartum
hemorrhage. The infant lived and gossip focused on whether the
child was a witch who killed its mother. Some said the baby was not
a witch because the mother had lived for several hours after the
delivery. Co-wives of the dead woman bottle-fed the baby half-
heartedly for a few days, following which the child was taken to
the mother's relatives, where he died a few months later. The cause
of death was undetermined--the child was merely said to be frail.
To the observer, the case seems to present an instance of
"unconscious behavior1' leading to infant death; however, such
motivation is difficult to identify with certainty and
bottle-feeding, with uncertain stockage of supplies such as infant
formula and contaminated water, is a risky enterprise in this rural
community.
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WITCHCRAFT AND INFANTICIDE IN BARIBA CULTURE 83
PARENTAL PERSPECTIVES ON WITCHCRAFT AND INFANTICIDE
A consideration of the function of infanticide in Bariba society
suggests that this practice serves as a response to cultural
concepts concerning atypical and aberrant events. Significantly,
the indicators of a witch birth comprise those cases considered in
cosmopolitan obstetrics to be statistically less likely to occur.
Thus a midwifery text predicts only 3 - 4 per cent of births will
be breech presentations and less than 10 per cent of deliveries are
likely to terminate in a presentation where the baby might slide on
its stomach when the mother delivers in a kneeling position (Myles
1975:311; 327). Similarly, a small percentage of children have
natal teeth (.3) and approximately .1 per cent of children
demonstrate initial maxillary tooth eruption. Interestingly, natal
teeth are associated with syndromes producing congenital
abnormalities that may include such featyres as cleft lip, cleft
palate, congenital heart malformation, and dwarfism (Bodenhoff and
Gorlin 1963: 109 1 ). Although informants did not describe these
concomitants of natal teeth, the identification of children with
teeth at birth as witches may be enhanced by the association of
this feature with other deformities and anomalies. Although one may
expect some modifications in these statistics for developing
countries (for example breeches increase with parity thus
high-parity Bariba women may experience a greater likelihood of
breech birth), the occurrences signifying a witch birth are still
unusual events. Thus Bariba demonstrate biomedically accurate
perceptions of fetal presentation and delivery outcome; where the
delivery deviates from the expected or the child displays unusual
features, witchcraft is suspected.
Parents interviewed regarding their views on witch births
indicate a pervasive concern with this phenomenon. When mothers
were asked whether they would grieve for a witch baby given away or
killed, they responded that a mother should not grieve because her
husband and his patrilineage had been endangered by the threat of
illness or death. Several women suggested that mothers seek to
retain decision-making responsibility concerning the status of a
child. In this regard, the delivery setting is significant. Bariba
idealize the solitary delivery, where the mother delivers alone and
calls for assistance in cutting the cord. I have argued elsewhere
(Sargent 1982) that this solitary delivery provides flexibility for
the mother in determining the fate of the child. In the event of a
witch birth, women indicate that the infant may be dealt with in
several ways: if the mother has delivered alone, without calling
for assistance prior to the delivery of the placenta, she retains
the flexibility to signal to the family and others awaiting the
delivery the arrival of a "good" baby or a dangerous one.
Women claim that a mother might attempt to disguise the signs of
a witch and to keep the secret in her heart forever, therefore
risking that her child will grow up to harm its patrilineal kin. On
the other hand, if she experiences a problematic delivery, she
would probably call for the assistance of a midwife who would then
share with her the responsibility of defining the event and
deciding whether to inform others of the suspicious signs. Because
there is some ambiguity in the signs of witch children, parents
retain flexibility in deciding whether to label a child a witch or
not. For example, some premature births are said to be witch
children, while others are not.
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84 ETHNOLOGY
One informant stated that no one can be certain that a woman is
delivering in the eighth month, thus she may attempt to ignore this
feature of the birth unless the infant is particularly small in
size. Similarly, the most frequent type of witch birth--the baby
who slides on its stomach at delivery--is one whose signs are
easiest to disguise by altering the position of the child prior to
calling for assistance.
It is clear that in the rural environment, the mother is a
primary decision- maker in determining the fate of her child.
First, she may choose whether to disclose significant information
regarding the characteristics of the child to other family members.
If she is assisted at delivery, she may consult with her attendant
who may share in the decision concerning the definition of the
situation. A decision that the child is a potential witch usually
involves the household head and infanticide is most often performed
by a ritual specialist. A distinction is evident, then, between the
decision-maker and the perpetrator of the deed (see Dickemann
1984:434 on this subject). Dickemann (1984:434) suggests that "...
a female may be constrained to act in a way that comprises her own
reproductive success in the interests of mate and kin ..." This
seems to be the case where Bariba women give birth to children who
are believed to harm their patrilineal kin yet the mother must
detect the signs of witchcraft, thus participating in the
destruction of her child. Contrastingly, it is not inconceivable
that a woman would herself kill an unwanted child during a solitary
delivery, although no actual cases of this form of infanticide were
identified.
The reproductive history of the mother is also likely to
influence her response to potential signs of witchcraft. Thus one
informant told me she was afraid because it was only the eighth
month, but she delivered a healthy infant in an uncomplicated
delivery. This woman had experienced twelve previous pregnancies
and had no living children; she did not discuss the possibility of
witchcraft with her midwife or husband following the delivery and
the child remained healthy several years later. In this case, the
desire for a living child in the context of a problematic
reproductive history influenced the mother's decision to ignore the
ambiguous status of the child. Similarly, one village elder
explained the very existence of witches who continue to cause
misfortune by saying that "some slip through the screen." Women
discussing hypothetical situations involving the threat of witch
babies agreed that a woman who had no son and gave birth to one
would disguise any signs of a mystically dangerous birth, but they
could not conceive of a situation where a woman would choose to
kill a child because she had too many children or because of an
overly short birth interval. The preferred mode of coping with a
shamefully early pregnancy indicating the resumption of sexual
relations prior to weaning would be to seek an abortion, rather
than to publicly display the pregnancy.
Men, in discussing these issues, expressed particular concern
with babies whose first teeth appear in the upper gum and with
breech birth. They saw as their responsibility the disposal of the
child, whether by infanticide or offering to the Fulbe, and argued
that women, given their emotional natures, could not be expected to
rationally decide the fate of the child. Because spiritual strength
is considered necessary for the task of dealing with a witch baby,
male specialists are available for this task. In addition to the
gossiko, or
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WITCHCRAFT AND INFANTICIDE IN BARIBA CULTURE 85
burial official mentioned by Baldus (1974), an option for the
disposal of witch babies was to deliver them to specific villages
located through the Borgou province, such as the village of Bori
which specialized in the detection and management of witches.
It is said that the elders of Bori maintain a special room used
in the detection of witch babies. The Land Chief of Parakou,
himself responsible for the ritual well-being of the Bariba of the
town, described the methods used by the Chief of Bori to examine a
potential witch. First, the child is brought to Bori by its
parents. At night, the child is placed in a room protected by
certain ritual objects--amulets and powerful substances that cover
the walls and ceiling. The baby is left alone at night while the
elders wait outside the door. If the child sleeps peacefully, it is
clear that witchcraft is involved, for what normal child would
sleep in such an environment? In this event, the elders hold the
option of either killing the child or keeping the child as a
household slave. If the child cries fretfully throughout the night,
the parents are assured that they are not harboring a witch in the
household and can return home with the baby in confidence.
Among rural Bariba the possibility of witch births necessitating
infanticide or abandoning of the child is a central concern of
anthropological research in the 1950s (Lombard 1965) and in later
research on the pastoral Fulbe and their slaves (Baldus 1974). The
small sample of cases on which data could be obtained and reported
here are consistent with ethnographic reports by other
anthropologists and those offered by missionaries in the
region.
BIRTH AND WITCHCRAFT IN THE URBAN SETTING
In comparing rural and urban perspectives on infanticide, an
assessment of delivery assistance indicates significant
modifications in delivery practices and in the management of witch
births, but perpetuation of concerns regarding dangerous
children.
Rural Bariba women, in discussing obstetrical care alternatives,
express preferences for home deliveries for reasons of convenience,
modesty, and discrepancies in their explanatory models and those of
the government nurse- midwives in the district maternity clinic.
Several women articulated the concern that nurse-midwives who were
not Bariba would ignore the signs of a witch birth or,
contrastingly, that they would recognize the signs of a witch baby
and disclose the evidence to nonfamily members. Moreover, clinic
personnel might interfere with the family's flexibility in deciding
the fate of the child. The Bariba midwife is expected to be
competent to confront mystical power at delivery, while government
personnel are not known to possess this attribute. Such factors
render rural Bariba hesitant to deliver in government clinics.
Research among urban Bariba investigated maternity clinic
patronage among this population. Given that a conservative estimate
suggests more than 40 per cent of urban births occur at the
hospital, the perpetuation of beliefs in witch babies and the
implications of hospital delivery for the practice of infanticide
and social discarding of children require consideration. The
increasing rate of hospital delivery is in part a product of
Ministry of Health policy over a fifteen-year period that strongly
advocated hospital delivery, while
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86 ETHNOLOGY
condemning home delivery as unhygienic and unsafe. Pressure on
urban residents to deliver at the Parakou hospital was intensified
by fines and public humiliation for those women (and their
husbands) who were reported to the authorities for delivering at
home. In addition to those sanctions increasingly associated with
home delivery, urban residents claim that obtaining a birth
certificate is greatly facilitated if the child is born at the
hospital. Birth certificates are necessary for any child wishing to
attend school and for civil servants who wish to receive social
security benefits for their dependents. Although birth certificates
can be obtained without hospital certification, the opinion that
such certification is obligatory is so widespread that women who
deliver at home occasionally bring the infant to the hospital
immediately following delivery to receive documentation of the
birth. Additional factors influencing choice of delivery setting
include aspirations to upward mobility and concerns for health of
mother and child. The significance of the sanctions imposed on
those selecting home delivery should not be underestimated; actual
instances of sanctioning are rare, but the fear of public criticism
and humiliation lingers among urban Bariba.
Regarding the extent to which Bariba in Parakou maintain a
belief in witchcraft and in the powers of witch children, a survey
of 36 pregnant Bariba women interviewed in the six heavily Bariba
neighborhoods of Parakou indicates that all those interviewed
believed that diseases and other misfortunes may be caused by
mystical agents such as witches and over 90 per cent believes that
witch babies may be born in town. Additional interviewing among 50
women of reproductive age employed in a cashew factory plant and
123 pregnant women interviewed in the government prenatal clinic
suggests that theories of well-being that refer to indigenous
cosmology (cf. Jules-Rosette 1981:127) remain widespread. The
management of witch births, however, is undergoing
modification.
One feature of childbirth in town is the shift in responsibility
for decision- making from the mother (and other women) to the
(male) head of the household and other significant elders. In the
event of a witch birth in Parakou, for example, the possible
repercussions from public authorities, such as the army and police,
for infanticide render the decision concerning the fate of the
child one necessitating the participation of the head of the
household. If the mother has delivered at the hospital, the
problematic dimensions of the situation are accentuated. Hospital
delivery, by definition, has transformed birth from a domestic to a
public concern and correspondingly, the involvement of the national
sector in the arena of child welfare alters the self-contained role
of the mother as decision-maker and arguments the authority of the
head of the household. Detection and management of witch births,
then, is in the process of redefinition from a primary domestic
issue, with implications for the patrilineage, to an issue of
public policy.
INFANTICIDE IN PARAKOU
Although reliable evidence for rural infanticide has been
reported, no such ethnographic data are available for urban Bariba.
This research attempted to
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WITCHCRAFT AND INFANTICIDE IN BARIBA CULTURE 87
obtain information on this subject by means of participant
observation and an analysis of child mortality data.
It is almost unnecessary to remark that infanticide is a
difficult subject to research. Bugos and McCarthy (1984519)
apparently succeeded in eliciting information on infanticide in
Ayoreo society not from the mother herself but from others in the
community. Among Bariba, it is considered extremely inappropriate
to offer information concerning others in this fashion. Even
efforts to persuade women to disclose the names of their midwives
or her other clients usually failed; informants preferred that the
researcher observe events or receive information from the source
directly rather than risk retribution for spreading private matters
("the secrets of the house") at large. It seemed, then, that an
indirect approach to eliciting information on infanticide was most
likely to be profitable. Anecdotal information regarding witch
children is readily obtainable and much suggestive data were
acquired through conversations with key informants on this subject.
Given Bariba reluctance to discuss any death, and the special
hesitance to discuss maternal mortality and other deaths believed
to be unnatural, an indirect approach to investigation of the
practice of infanticide appeared necessary.
Subsequently, I conducted a survey of child deaths occurring in
twelve Bariba neighborhoods during a one-year period (1982-83). The
purpose of this survey was to obtain data facilitating an
assessment of the prevailing causes of infant and child mortality
and clues concerning preferential treatment of boys and girls that
might influence mortality and morbidity. Questions dealt with the
age and sex of the deceased child, perceived cause of death,
symptoms of the sickness leading to death, and whether sorcery or
witchcraft was implicated in the death. This survey did not elicit
any evident instances of infanticide. These findings, together with
supplemental information on state legal and health policy, suggest
a significant decline in the occurrence of infanticide in the urban
setting. The survey did, however, provide data on parental
explanations for infant and child deaths confirming the persistence
of mystical concepts of misfortune among urban Bariba.
AGE AT DEATH
Although the primary intent of this portion of the research was
to obtain data that might indirectly suggest infanticide, the
survey sought information concerning deaths of children under age
14 (an arbitrary cut-off age based on estimates of Bariba regarding
approaching adulthood). The reason for including a broader range of
ages was to enable a consideration of differential female neglect
leading to a disproportionately higher rate of mortality for female
children. As Johansson (1984:463) has stated, "Technically
...infanticide refers only to the deliberate elimination of human
infants under one year of age ... [but] the specific forces that
lead adults to devalue newborns are diverse and do not necessarily
cease to operate once the first year of life has passed." I hoped,
then, to obtain data that might contribute to the understanding of
preferential female infanticide which, given the available
evidence, seems to be the more common phenomenon.
The survey of households in twelve neighborhoods elicited 109
infant and child deaths that occurred in the twelve months prior to
the investigation. Of
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88 ETHNOLOGY
these deaths, 51.4 per cent occurred among male children and
48.6 per cent among female children. These data, then, present no
evidence either for preferential female infanticide or neglect
particularly directed towards girls and manifested in child
mortality. It is, of course, possible that deaths of girls are
under-reported. It seems more likely that the answer lies in the
perceived value of women in Bariba culture. Johansson (1984:464)
has noted that where girls are active and important in agriculture,
there seems to be no systematic female mortality. Correspondingly,
Bariba women contribute significantly to agricultural operations
(Sargent 1982:46-47), playing a role in cultivation and harvesting
of cereal and root crops as well as tending their own gardens. In
addition, women currently contribute to household economy through
commercial enterprises that particularly benefit children whose
education and health care may well be financed by these means.
Although the position of women is certainly disparaged relative to
that of men, the decision-making domains of women are primarily
restricted to child rearing and food-processing and the
participation of women in the public domain has until recently been
limited, the contributions of women to the household economy are
recognized as necessary and valued as such.
The demographic data on Bariba in Parakou available for analysis
is inadequate to provide definitive conclusions regarding the rates
or causes of infant and child mortality. Data on numbers of births
occurring in the Bariba population, to give one example, are
currently nonexistent, although increasingly, families do register
births. The data presented here are therefore intended to provide
direction in interpreting Bariba responses--both ideological and
behavioral--to urban institutions and the urban setting.
Questioning proceeded to determine approximate age at death and
the cause of death as perceived by the informant. Of the 109 deaths
investigated, the age distribution was as follows:
Table 1
Age a t Death of 109 Children
Age 1 -28 days 1 mo.-I yr . 1-5 yrs. 6-14 yrs.
No. 15 33 5 5 6
Not surprisingly, among those infants who died, the majority
died in the first week:
Table 2
Neonatal Deaths
Day 1 2 3 5 7 1 3 2 8
No. 8 1 1 2 1 1 1
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WITCHCRAFT AND INFANTICIDE IN BARIBA CULTURE 89
Information elicited concerning these children offers additional
insights into parental perceptions of cause of death. In most
cases, parents interviewed regarding the fatal illness of their
child described the sickness in Bariba terms, rather than in the
French terms that would be used by hospital personnel in treating
the child. The sickness labels represent emic perceptions of the
cause of death in each case. Where no specific cause of death had
been determined, the informant usually described the set of
symptoms that characterized the affliction. Among the major causes
of death were measles (busuka), a well-known epidemic disease in
the region for which ritual treatment for the community may be
performed by the Land Chief (in addition to herbal remedies
ingested by the individual); "hot body" (wesisum), considered to be
an affliction in itself, as well as a condition found in
conjunction with other disorders; and diarrhea (kesukumo), the
plague of small children. Other less frequently cited causes of
death include thinness, gbigbiku (convulsions), swollen legs and
sores, moaning and pain, burns, trembling and jaundice. The causes
of death described by respondents are presented in Table 3.
Table 3
Causes of Child Mor ta l i ty
Cause No.
Measles Hot Body Diarrhea D i f f i c u l t y Breathing Abrupt
Death T i gpi rou Thinness St i l lborn Gbigbi ku Swollen Legs
& Sores Sickly Pains/Moans Yellow Fever Burns Trembling
Bleeding Jaundice Not clear
Looking particularly at those deaths that occurred during the
first week, the primary causes of death attributed by parents are
as follows: 1) at the moment of his baptism, the baby moaned and
died; 2) he just died the first day after birth, at the
hospital;
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90 ETHNOLOGY
3) she died on the seventh day, having problems with her chest
in particular and with her body in general;
4) he died on the second day after crying all the time and never
sleeping; 5) she died immediately after birth, at home; 6) her body
became limp on the fifth day, she was tired and couldn't
breathe (a maternity birth); 7) on the third day, he became hot
in his body and died suddenly; 8) she was born prematurely at home
and died immediately; 9) twins, died the day of their birth, at
home; 10) he was born prematurely and died soon after birth, at
home; 11) she died in the hospital the day of her birth but no one
knows why; 12) she died the day she was born, at home; 13) his
body, even his eyes became completely yellow and he died, at
home,
on the fifth day; and 14) because of difficulties encountered
during delivery, the baby had no
strength after birth and died on the first day. In cases six and
seven, the parents commented on the possibility that the
death resulted from sorcery; breathing difficulties and abrupt
deaths are both interpreted as signs of sorcery. Breathing
problems, for example, may indicate that a sorcerer has clutched
the chest of the victim. Of the total distribution of causes of
death, 16.4 per cent include suspicious symptoms attributable to
harm by a human antagonist, and 31 per cent of respondents
mentioned sorcery as possibly implicated in the cause of death.
These results correspond to previous findings that urban Bariba
persist in attributing sickness and death to mystical causes.
WITCHES AND THEIR FATE
The threat of witches continues to be perceived as potent by
urban Bariba, although infanticide as a response to this threat is
said to be increasingly rare. Ethnographic evidence from
observation and key informants suggests that witches remain a
danger to be reckoned with and accordingly alternative means of
countering the potential power of witchcraft are emerging.
One solution, mentioned above, is to give the unwanted child to
a mission to be raised. The evangelical missions in the Bariba
region have received abandoned witch babies for many years. One
missionary who has spent 30 years in northern Benin, estimated that
significantly fewer cases of witch babies came to her attention
during ten years in Parakou than during her previous residence in a
rural community where diagnoses of witch babies happened often. In
the past year she had received three witch babies abandoned by
their families, of which one was from Parakou, one from a smaller
town, and one from a village.
Elderly village Bariba suggest that in towns like Parakou, where
people no longer remember to destroy witches, witch children run
rampant, threatening their kin on every occasion where they are
thwarted or feel envy. The Land Chief, highest ranking ritual
official in Parakou, and his elders, however, said that those
children believed to be witches are now neutralized, rather than
killed or abandoned. This neutralization process involves
medicating the
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WITCHCRAFT AND INFANTICIDE IN BARIBA CULTURE 91
child with magical substances, which may be ingested, washed
with, or used in fumigation therapy.
Informants continue to insist that infanticide continues, albeit
to a lesser degree in the city. The recurrence of the topic
indicates that the ideological dimension of infanticide retains
currency. Repeatedly recounted tales tell of people who consulted
an elder with the intent of destroying a witch child and were
subsequently reported to the authorities. Whether such stories are
apocryphal or factual is unclear but it is evident that Bariba in
town are sensitive to public antipathy toward infanticide. This
wariness reflects the sentiments of non-Bariba residents of Parakou
in conjunction with an awareness of Bariba of the active presence
of national police and army units.
Interestingly, neutralization of witch children has always
existed as an option. An elderly Bariba midwife in Pehunko
explained that the medicines that counter the force of witchcraft
in a child have been known to Bariba for generations. Because of
the lingering fear that the dormant power of neutralized witchcraft
might again be activated to harm the family, parents rarely chose
neutralization but preferred to abandon the alleged witch to its
fate at the hands of a ritual specialist, whether in the village of
residence or at a center such as Bori or Kperere. Thus, the midwife
explained, an elder might suggest to the consulting parents that
the child be treated until the parents and child could safely
return home but the parents generally would rather not take the
risk.
In town, Bariba increasingly utilize this option when confronted
with the birth of a witch child. Neutralization offers a productive
alternative in an era when slavery is illegal, when the pastoral
Fulbe who once adopted the witches as slaves are increasingly
sedentary and independent of the economic ties that bound them to
Bariba society, and when national authority impinges on the
possibility of infanticide.
Several reports indicate the presence of neutralized witch
children in Parakou, as well as in other urban areas. In one
instance, the neighborhood delegate of Kpebie reported that a
construction worker was seriously ill after incurring the wrath of
his son. This child, a former witch baby allowed to live, followed
his father to work and pestered him for pieces of meat as the
father ate his lunch. When the father refused, the child became
furious and the next day the father fell ill with a mysterious and
vague affliction. Those witness to the encounter between father and
son attributed the illness to the son's anger, although
theoretically his power to harm others had been annulled.
In another case, a Bariba physician was called to treat a sick
niece, aged twelve, in a neighboring town. He determined that she
needed medication but when he attempted to administer the injection
she cried and struggled until he began to slap her. At this point,
the girl's mother pleaded with him not to hit her because when she
was neutralized as an infant, the medicine carried the prohibition
that she never be hit. If this injunction was ignored, her power to
harm others might be awakened or she herself might die. In yet
another case, a small child had recently been taken from Parakou to
Kperere for his fate to be determined but no one had learned the
results of the consultation with the elders.
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92 ETHNOLOGY
In Camp Adagbe neighborhood, several cases of witch children
were reported. One child had recently returned from the village of
Kperere, where he had been successfully treated, another was still
undergoing treatment and the third, much older, was accused of
killing several relatives in recent months. Neighbors noted that he
had not been properly neutralized when younger because of friction
between his parents. The mother separated from the father and
claimed that the child was dangerous, but the father's family
accused her of fabricating a story. After a few years, when
accidents began to happen and people had "problems" (economic
difficulties, repeated illnesses), they remembered the mother's
words and sent the child back to her. Now, no one knows what to do
with him. He is a feared and unwanted child.
These cases suggest that children labelled as witches do not
conform to expectations for appropriate behavior. In the case of
the angry child, for example, the boy's persistent efforts to
obtain meat from his father is noteworthy. Such aggressive and
disrespectful behavior from a child towards a parent is most
unusual in Bariba society, where the expected behavior between
father and an older son involves distance, avoidance, and cautious
respect. This child, then, demonstrated extraordinary license in
his actions by repeatedly demanding something not usually available
in quantity to children and in spite of the father's refusal.
Similarly, the girl who fought against the injection and who was
protected from punishment also demonstrated atypical behavior. Most
Bariba children observed at dispensary consultations who balked at
injections were roundly scolded and shamed until they accepted
treatment. The taboo against beating also marked the girl as an
extraordinary child. In both instances, a sense of apprehension
among family members with regard to the children is evident.
Although overt infanticide is forbidden and children believed to
be witches and neutralized are not abandoned, the socialization of
these children differs dramatically from that of children perceived
to be normal. Furthermore, these children continue to be
stigmatized by their identification as potential witches throughout
childhood in spite of the protective measures taken during infancy.
Moreover, allocation of responsibility for misfortune seems readily
to fall on the children due to their suspect state. Information on
two young adults neutralized as children whose teeth appeared in
the upper gum indicates the effect of labelling on social
interactions in the community. A Bariba who attended primary school
with these children reported that he and his friends were
repeatedly told by their parents not to watch the witch children's
mouths while they ate, not to share food with them, and not to sit
near them. When the children reached adulthood, the girl was
beautiful but her family could not find a man willing to marry her.
Eventually, a southerner (Fon) working in the north did marry her;
local Bariba told him the woman was a witch but he laughed, and
married her anyway. The other neutralized witch migrated to a
non-Bariba region and has never returned. Finally, a young woman
passed on the road was described by a Bariba woman who had known
her in school as a witch; her parents had allowed her to live,
although her teeth had appeared in the upper gum, and when she
married, her husband died within months. The informant bought
medicinal leaves on the route to wash in, for protection against
the glance of this witch. In sum,
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WITCHCRAFT AND INFANTICIDE IN BARIBA CULTURE 93
although I was not able to determine at this time the extent to
which such negative perceptions might adversely affect the
physical, social, and/or psychological development of children,
further research in this area is certainly indicated.
CONCLUSION
The availability of neutralizing treatments for the potential
witch enables the Bariba woman to deliver in the hospital without
excessive concern in event of a witch birth. The use of this option
allows for the perpetuation of Bariba beliefs concerning the
causation of misfortune while simultaneously accommodating the new
reliance on biomedical management of birth through national health
services, as recommended by government policy. Neutralization of
witches appears to be increasing as a substitute for infanticide in
response to the perceived risk of sanctions from public authorities
in urban settings. The apparent decrease in infanticide accompanies
the transformation of birth from a domestic to a public concern and
the accompanying reduction of household autonomy.
Thus structural factors extrinsic to Bariba cosmology, such as
the generation of a legal code redefining infanticide and the
impact of health policy restricting home birth, have provoked a
cultural transformation involving modification in witchcraft
management while allowing the perpetuation of witchcraft beliefs.
Bariba themselves recognize that they have selected a less
desirable option from a repertoire of culturally acceptable
responses to witchcraft, in the face of institutional change.
Such dynamics as considered in this paper are commensurate with
other observed instances of ideological response to institutional
pressures. As Mitchell (1965:201-2) described for the Copperbelt
region of Central Africa, legal constraints in town may constrain
customary retributive action. In the Copperbelt, where to accuse
another of witchcraft was illegal, misfortunes were reinterpreted
to attribute responsibility to ancestors, rather than to witches,
thus allowing effective responses to misfortune in the urban
setting. Such pressure need not be a matter of straightforward
legal sanction but may be a response to more general social change.
Walker (1980:117) presents an analysis of changing concepts of
misfortune and modes of coping with stresses of industrialization
and urbanization in Ivory Coast. Misfortunes once attributable to
witchcraft are viewed among members of the Harrist Church as the
consequence of individuals' personal actions. However, the belief
in the existence of witches remains prevalent. In this instance,
legal constraints are not the acculturative pressure. Rather, the
Harrist Church proposes a doctrine encouraging social goals for its
members; to benefit from the new economic order by mutual support,
and by helping those who cause misfortune to reform, thus
eliminating misfortune.
In the Bariba case, the interpretation of the cause of
misfortune has remained constant--witchcraft at birth remains an
acceptable diagnosis, but the management of the consequences of
witchcraft has been modified to accommodate state administrative
restrictions in a multiethnic context.
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94 ETHNOLOGY
NOTES
1. Although missionaries of various denominations operating in
northern Benin may deplore local religious practices, there is no
reason to dispute widespread missionary claims regarding babies
given to missions to raise, in the context of consistent
explanations for the abandonment of these children (see Ranger
1981). 2. In this regard, Bodenhoff and Gorlin (1963) and Massler
et a1 (1950) report that since 1780, numerous reports of natal
and/or neonatal teeth have appeared in the obstetric, pediatric,
and dental literature. This phenomenon has been associated with
folk concepts ranging from beliefs that such children are favored
by fate to viewing the occurrence as an ill omen. Bodenhoff and
Gorlin (1963:1987) cite a Swedish ethnographic source on Africa,
where "Among numerous native African tribes, children born with
teeth are killed shortly after birth, since it is believed that
natal teeth not only foretell disaster to the child itself but to
anyone with whom it comes into contact."
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