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The Concept of Abiku and Emere In Yoruba Culture

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Emere & Abiku are the kind of children according to the Yoruba belief who make a certain pledge concerning their life duration with their mate in the spiritual sphere

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It could sound primitive, but it is real especially with the Yoruba race. Some children over time are reborn to the same parents with their everything including look, gender, complexion and structure unchanged. Owing to ephemeral nature of Abiku's life.

Abiku completes several consecutive life-cycles with one mother. In some cases, the Yoruba in one of their traditional ways of deterring Abiku from reoccurring deaths after reborn deface them either by cutting their finger, ear or a deep mark in the face or back.

To a great astonishment and in most cases, the Abiku on reborn would have those marks whether on the face or back.

The Yorubas also call Abiku some pleading-names like; Duro-Orike, Durosinmi, Durojaiye, Igbokoyi, Jokotimi, Malomo, kosoko, etc to plead with them not to die again

and to allow them stay with their parents.

It is believed that Abiku plummets the fortune of their parents and their great joy is to see their mother cry when they die, as teardrops particularly those of their mothers are valuable in the realm of Abiku.

Abiku time in human life is always short and their deaths mostly occur at the time of their joy like marriage, graduation etc.

Emere and Abiku are the kind of children according to the Yorubas’ belief who make a certain pledge concerning their life duration with

their mates in the spiritual sphere. At the expiration of their time, they die and re-unite with their mates. Some oral tradition also confirm that some Emere among them are readily married in their realm and probably bore children over there. In coming to the human world, the

Emere could find it difficult to get married and bear children.

Research shows that if such person is eventually married and in this case a women, who conceives pregnancy. A spirit that is referred to as spiritual husband (Oko Orun) will have sexual intercourse with

her in her dream and this will result to miscarriage. This remains one of the factors responsible for barrenness among women according to Yoruba tradition and the solution sometimes is proper spiritual consultation.

The Emere and Abiku if eventually cannot return to their mates,

perhaps because of some spiritual appeasement made by their parents, believed to be having problems because their mates will be crossed with them for breaking the re-unification accord. The problems such person usually confronts is the misplacing or total

lost of any items in their possession often, money. The solution to that may include offering sacrifice inform of food (Ounje Egbe) to stop such occurrence.

Research has also shown that the Abiku and Emere are very attractive because of their beauty and they

love to live very close to water or coastal areas. They are the agents of Esu (a deity) according to some thoughts and convictions, but some believe that they are good to be with because they will affect anybody they love with blessing endowed on them spiritually.

The Yoruba tradition affirms that the Emere and Abiku spirit usually roams around some areas like the side of the road, corner in the cities and villages, footpath in suburban area, jungle, inside trees like Iroko tree etc. That is why often, pregnant

women are advised to desert these areas in order not to attract the spirit. The Yoruba belief is that if a pregnant woman goes to such areas, the spirit of the Emere or Abiku can follow the woman to her home and she might eventually give birth to a child with either Abiku or

Emere spirits.

In preventing such incidence, pregnant women according to the Yoruba tradition are advised to attach either a needle or a small white stone to the edge of their clothes. The Emere and Abiku would not be able to follow the woman because those are

elements that work against them.

 Aside this, pregnant women are not advised to stay alone in a hidden and dark place. They should also desist from going to T junction at noon. They are also forbidden to go out at the late hours in the night and they should desist from going

to coastal areas and dumping sites.

 Although, this could be unacceptable in science because it is metaphysical issue in which science is incapacitated to accept or refuse. It is completely out of scientific realm.

This is not to discredit science because science has made some

irrevocable contribution to improve child mortality rate to the extent that the concept of Abiku and Emere has almost gone extinct. Modern medical conclusions have suggested that Abiku in particular is tied to sickle cell anaemia. However, the fact is, there are still

cases of children death without any sign of illness. Whenever such incident happens, the Yorubas believe is that such child is either Abiku or Emere and the solution is to trail the spiritual dimension.

Source: Umpire Abey with Bola Olalekan

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