We can learn a lot from other cultures. I’d like to introduce you to Sobonfu Some’. She is from Burkina Faso in West Africa. Her book Welcoming Spirit Home is inspiring. She says her book “focuses on the wisdom of my ancestors in celebrating childbirth, children, healing, community, and the rituals we honor among our tribe.” Her name means “’keeper of the rituals, keeper of knowledge.’”
Sobonfu relates the exquisite tradition among her Dagara people of “welcoming a new spirit into their lives.” The Dagara practice rituals to prepare the couple, both individually and together, to conceive a child. Sobonfu says that in Africa, at least among the Dagara,
it is understood that children hold the knowledge and gifts that ensure the survival of the village and the tribe. In essence, the child is the king of the village. When a child walks into the middle of a crowd, all attention goes to him or her as if to applaud an arrival long awaited.
I believe it is time for us to awaken to the essence of the beautiful children incarnating on this planet. Sobonfu’s model is truly inspiring. In another post I will explain what research is revealing about how we in the Western world treat our children—and it is far from the respect this group of people show for their children. It’s something to think about.
There is a tribe in east Africa in which the art of true intimacy is fostered even before birth. In this tribe, the birth date of a child is not counted from the day of its physical birth nor even the day of conception as in other village cultures. For this tribe the birth date comes the first time the child is a thought in its mother’s mind. Aware of her intention to conceive a child with a particular father, the mother then goes off to sit alone under a tree. There she sits and listens until she can hear the song of the child that she hopes to conceive. Once she has heard it, she returns to her village and teaches it to the father so that they can sing it together as they make love, inviting the child to join them. After the child is conceived, she sings it to the baby in her womb. Then she teaches it to the old women and midwives of the village, so that throughout the labor and at the miraculous moment of birth itself, the child is greeted with its song. After the birth all the villagers learn the song of their new member and sing it to the child when it falls or hurts itself. It is sung in times of triumph, or in rituals and initiations. This song becomes a part of the marriage ceremony when the child is grown, and at the end of life, his or her loved ones will gather around the deathbed and sing this song for the last time.
Quoted from Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart (Bantam Books, 1993), p. 334