The Dreaded Birth of Twins: A Mini-Essay

     In 1894, Mary Kingsley traveled to Africa as an assistant to the Presbyterian missionary Mary Slessor. During her visit, she witnessed the bizarre banishment of an Eboean slave and her twin babies. As Kingsley describes, the abuse began immediately following the children's birth. Once viewed as a trustworthy and valuable slave, the woman was instantaneously transformed into a monster. All of her possessions - including her prized English china basins - were destroyed, the infants were brutally stuffed into a gin case, and all three souls were bitterly ejected from the village to die in the harsh African wilderness. Although Kingsley and Slessor rescued the outcasts, the villagers perpetually stalked the missionary's house and the mother was placed under constant supervision for attempting to kill her baby (one had already died during the expulsion process). Kingsley was shaken by the ritual and her bewilderment only grew as she discovered the reasoning behind it: superstitions in the Calabar region maintain that twins are the spawn of demonic beings. Hence, the villagers' act of ostracism and the mother's pursuits of infanticide were efforts - all dictated by longstanding beliefs - to destroy these malevolent offspring.
     The Calabar position regarding twins may seem backward; however, it is not unique. Indeed, there is a universal dread of twin births among multiple cultures throughout the world. From tribal societies in Africa, Australia, and East India to aboriginal populations in Europe and North and South America, numerous people perceive the birth of twins as a harbinger of malice and misfortune. Although the rationale behind these cultural fears differ, there is one common theme: infidelity. The Tiwi of Australia, for example, believe that a woman becomes pregnant when a man delivers a pitapitui into her body. Since a man can only produce one pitapitui at a time, the birth of twins serves (erroneously) to prove that a woman has bedded more than one man. In some societies, the assumed adultery is taken at face value and the women is (again, erroneously) punished for her transgressions. In most of these aboriginal communities, though, this inferred infidelity holds a far more sinister connotation. Not only has the woman strayed from her marriage and slept with another man, but this extramarital partner is the tribal approximation of the Devil. Hence, the woman, either knowingly or unknowingly, has allowed herself to become bewitched and impregnated by evil forces, resulting in, as scholar Nancy Caldwell Sorel emphasizes, "a crime guaranteed to call down the vengeance of the gods, who could only be appeased by the death of at least one twin, often both, and frequently the offending mother as well."

Works Referenced

Caldwell Sorel, Nancy. Ever Since Eve: Personal Reflections on Childbirth. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984.

Kingsley, Mary. Travels in West Africa. London: Macmillan and Company, 1897.