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The Ogbanje

This passage from a story set in Nigeria, illustrates an old belief common in the days when a high percentage of children died in infancy, that such children are evil beings from a supernatural world who come into this world for short periods and return “home” whenever they wish. It’s interesting to note that, with the arrival of modern medical care, fewer babies die, and the belief in “ogbanjes” is rapidly dying out.
Ekwefi suffered a great deal in her life. She had born ten children and nine of them had died in infancy, usually before the age of three. As she buried one child after another, her sorrow gave way to despair and then to resignation. The birth of her children, which should be a woman’s crowning glory, became for Ekwefi a mere physical agony. The naming-ceremony after seven market weeks became an empty ritual. Her deepening despair found expression in the names she gave her children, one of them was a pathetic cry, onurimbiko, “Death, I implore you”. But death took no notice. Onurimbiko died in his fifteenth month. The next child was a girl, Ozoemena, “may not happen again”. She died in her eleventh month and two others after her. Ekwefi then became defiant and called her next child Onuwa, “-Death may please him” and he died. After the death of Ekwefi’s second child, Okonko has gone to a medicine man to inquire what was wrong. This man had told him that the child was an ogbanje, one of these wicked children who, when they die, entered their mother’s wombs to be born again.
By the time Onurimbiko died, Ekwefi had become a very bitter woman. Her husband’s first wife had already had three sons, all strong and healthy. When she had bore her third son in succession, Okonko had slaughtered a goat for her, as was the custom. Ekwefi had not hung but good wishes for her. But she had grown so bitter that she could not rejoice with others over their good fortune. And so, on the day that Nwoye’s mother celebrated the birth of her three sons with feasting and music, Ekwefi was the only one of the company who went about (with a cloud on her brou). Her husband’s wife took this for envy and ill-will, as husband’s wives usually do. How could she know that Ekwefi’s bitterness did not flow outwards her but inwards into her own evil.
At last, Ezimma was born, and though sickly she seemed determined to live. At first Ekwefi accepted her, as she had accepted others. With hopeless resignation. But when she lived on to her fourth, fifth and sixth years, love retuned one more to her mother, and with love, anxiety. She determined to nurse her child to health, and she put all her being into it. Ekwefi believed deep inside her that Ezinma had come to stay. She believed because it was this faith alone that gave her own life any kind of meaning.

QUESTIONS

1. Why did Ekwefi suffer much in her life?
2. Why wasn’t death pitiful to her?
3. Why should children’s birth be a crowning glory for a woman?
4. Do you believe in the existence of ogbanje? Why or why not?
5. Was Ekwefi’s husband’s wife right to misunderstand her attitude?
6. Translate the last paragraph into French.