Did Africans really kill twins before the coming of the white man?

African societies and communities responded to multiple birth of any kind or a child who comes deformed the same way other human societies responded to it before the abundance of knowledge. What did they do? They killed, they worshipped, or they even abandoned, depending on what they considered the best solution. Some societies did, others did not.

Saying matter-of-factly that Africans killed twins before the coming of the white man would be wrong. But this was not particular to Africa; it happened everywhere in the world. For instance Veronique Dasen, in her essay “Multiple Births in Graeco-Roman Antiquity” which was published by the Oxford Journal of Archaeology, says in her abstract: “Multiple births aroused ambivalent reactions ranging from acceptance and valuation to rejection and elimination.” What she says, in essence, is that, multiple birth was a thing of wonder and people responded differently. Some people killed, other people were reverenced. If we take this a step further we would analyze how people receive and treat conjoined twins.

In recent times people still think of conjoined twins as “abnormal” and you would imagine how people responded to them back in the day. An exhibition by the U.S. National Library of Medicine demonstrates how conjoined twins were received and treated from as far back as the 15th century down to modern times. Now this is an official U.S. website and this exhibition was titled “From Monsters to Modern Medical Miracles,” telling us that, at each point in human history, conjoined twins or babies with abnormalities have inspired some kind of fear and superstition.

Is it the right thing? No. Did it happen? Yes. Is it particular to Africa? No.

If we also take this a little further, we would analyze the plight of little people. Little people have been, over time, across all human history, considered as people who can see spiritual things, people who are connected to the gods, people who are monsters, people who are evil. We have had all kinds of descriptions for little people and as a result we have treated them differently. Some people worship them, some people think they are for caricature, and some people think they should be banished.

Using that statement to stereotype African societies while letting other cultures that practice something off the hook is, in fact, dishonest. All of Africa did not kill twins. Specific groups and communities in Africa did but so was it in all other communities and in all other human societies. Some people respected them, some people worshipped them, some people killed them, and some people abandoned them. It was evil but it wasn’t the evil of Africa alone. It was the evil of the human race. If you would indict Africa on that, you have to indict the human race on that as well. It wasn’t the evil of Africa. It was the evil of man.

Author

Adaeze Nwadike