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Xhosa, South Africa

In South Africa’s Xhosa community, twins are considered to have such a deep connection that when one dies, a specific ritual has to be carried out or else the other would follow soon.

In this ritual, the surviving twin must get into the casket before the sibling is buried. For the Xhosa, this is a way of ensuring the connection between the twins is sustained even in the afterlife.

The Xhosa are not the only South African community to view twins this way. The Zulu consider twins as one person and when one of the twins died, no animal is sacrificed during the funeral. They believe that death is only complete when both twins died. In this sense, the spirit of the sacrificed animal cannot follow the first twin and has to wait until both are dead to complete its journey.

Koma, Cameroon/Nigeria

For the Koma, twins are an abomination and it was considered a misfortune for a woman to have multiple births.  This belief was held so strongly that both mother and children were buried alive.

Yoruba, Nigeria

Before the Yoruba revered their twins and even gave names such as  Taiwo which means “the first to taste the world” and Kehinde, “the child that came behind gets the rights of the elder,” they once considered twins a burden to bear.

For the longest time, twins would be killed to the point that traditional leaders decided to consult Ifa, a system of prophecy. The result: Shango, the diety, abhorred the killing and that the twin’s mother should dance to the spirit of Ibeji every five days.

This reduced twin infanticide and the community instituted a number of rituals to guide the raising of twins.

Bassa Komo, Nigeria

For this Nigerian community, twins are considered aliens- a non-human existence that spells doom to the community.  The twins are seen as gods among men and have strange powers, which scare many people, some of who believe that they suck blood at night or will grow up to kill their parents.

It is against this background that twins in this community are killed when they are born. The murders are conducted in secrecy and often done by a witchdoctor who invokes his or her spirit to perform the incantations making them quite invisible and unaccountable in the eyes of the law.

It is reported that the children are either given a secretly prepare liquid, strangled to death by witchdoctors or covered with calabash until they suffocate.

Mostly believe that the witch doctors are heavily involved in the murder because they are threatened by the tremendous power of the twins, who are believed to be stronger than them.

Temne, Sierra Leone

Among the Temne tribe of Sierra Leone, multiple births are welcome. Twins are considered to possess spiritual powers putting them in the same league as gods and spirits. Some of the things twins are believed to be capable of include killing people accused of being witches; ‘calling’ newborns from the spiritual world, resulting in pregnancy in some people; bringing riches, and even cause the death of a parent if their ritual is not performed properly.

It is also believed that a dead twin can communicate with their living sibling, and can either bring them joy or torment them.

After the birth of twins, a ritual is performed. It involves the placing of an anthill in the twin house and participants fill cups with rice flour, which they will use to create a trail from the twin house to the mother’s house and back.

The newborn twins are then carried cushioned in a rice fan or a calabash and move from house to house, where the twins are given dual gifts. They are then taken to a diviner, who determines whether they are in the world to stay or not. The same ritual is carried out when they have been weaned.

Annual rituals are also conducted for the twins, usually in the middle of the rain season and just before the harvest.

When one twin dies, the anthill that was placed in the twin house at birth is covered in white and rice flour is offered to the deceased before being poured on the ground before the twin house door.

Rendile, Kenya

For the Rendile, twins are a bad omen and must be killed.

They are classified together with children born of uncircumcised women and children born out of wedlock, who are fed cow dung, snuff and tobacco and left for dead and abandoned in the bushes to die respectively.

A woman who bears twins is not only abandoned by her husband, she is also considered an outcast, who can only be reintegrated into the society after specific rituals have been carried out.

Part of this ritual is for the mother to kill the twins. Most women abandon their twins on river banks to be carried away by torrential waters.

Ngbandi, Central African Republic

Twin births in the Ngbandi community is an exceptional event, indicating the presence of gods in their midst. Twins are seen as both dangerous and ambiguous. They bring both good and bad fortune, including fertility and ritual danger.

Since they show the presence of supreme beings in the community, the twins are not presented to the ancestors as it was the custom for newborn single-birth children.