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Stephanie asked this question about Freshwater:
What is an ogbanje? I am only 40 pages in and am confused as to what has actually happened to Ada? on page 19 it says"The air cracked and we remembered. It was the sound ofo ur brothersisters, the children ofo ur mother, the ones who had not come across with us. Ndi otu. Ogbanje." So are they themselves ogbanje? The things inside Ada? How did they get there?
Catherine Onyemelukwe Tolani's answer is good. Ogbanje is an Igbo word - Igbo is the majority ethnic group in southeastern Nigeria. An ogbanje belongs to the spirit world a…moreTolani's answer is good. Ogbanje is an Igbo word - Igbo is the majority ethnic group in southeastern Nigeria. An ogbanje belongs to the spirit world and is born as a human but has to go back to the spirit world. There is a totem that the ogbanje hides, usually by burying, which tells them where to come back to when they are reborn. The hold of the ogbanje can be broken if the totem is found and destroyed. My husband had a sibling die as an infant. His father worried that others might be ogbanje, so he took all the children to a dibia (shaman) who declared two were. The dibia found the totems which he destroyed. See my book Breaking Kola: An Inside View of African Customs. (less)
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Freshwater
by Akwaeke Emezi (Goodreads Author)
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