Africa is full of interesting and inspiring traditions. The vivid example is the Himba tribe of Namibia. These people believe their children are conceived from the day the mother thinks about them in their mind.
The
birth date of a child is counted not from when they were born, nor from when
they are conceived, but from the day that the child was a thought in its
mother’s mind.
When
a woman decides that she will have a child, she goes off and sits under a tree,
by herself, and she listens until she can hear thesong of the child that wants
to come. And after she’s heard the song of this child, she comes back to the
man who will be the child’s father, and teaches it to him. And then, when they
make love to physically conceive the child, some of that time they sing the
song of the child, as a way to invite it.
When
the mother is pregnant, she teaches that child’s song to the midwives and the
old women of the village, so that when the child is born, the old women and the
people around her sing the child’s song to welcome it.
As
the child grows up, the other villagers are taught the child’s song. For
example, if the child falls, hurts its knee, someone picks it up and sings its
song to it.
When
the child does something wonderful, or goes through the rites of puberty, then
as a way of honoring this person, the people of the village sing his or her
song.
The
tribe recognizes that the correction for antisocial behavior is not punishment;
it is love and the remembrance of identity. When you recognize your own song,
you have no desire or need to do anything that would hurt another.
And
it goes this way through their life. In marriage, the songs are sung, together.
And finally, when this person is lying in bed, ready to die, and all the
villagers know his or her song, and they sing – for the last time – the song to
that person.
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