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An Ogbanje (strictly "Ogbanje" and cannot be substituted with "Obanje", the "gb" forms a single consonant in the Igbo language) is a term in Odinani for what was believed to be an evil spirit that would deliberately plague a family with misfortune. Its literal translation in the Igbo language is "children who come and go". It was believed that under a certain amount of time from birth (usually not past puberty), the Ogbanje would deliberately die and then come back and repeat the cycle causing the family grief. Female circumcision was sometimes thought to get rid of the evil spirit,[1] whereas finding the evil spirits Iyi-uwa, which they had dug somewhere secret, would ensure the Ogbanje would never plague the family with misfortune again. The Iyi-uwa was the Obanje's way of coming back to the world and also a way of finding its targeted family.


Belief in Ogbanje in Igboland is not as strong as it was before although there are still some believers. Sometimes the word Ogbanje has been used as a synonym for a rude or stubborn child. Sickle cell anaemia might have contributed to this belief, as the inheritance of the disease within families may have led people to conclude that the children involved were all from the same malevolent spirit.[2][3]

Ogbanje has been popularized by the critically acclaimed book by Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart with the character Ezinma who was considered an Ogbanje.[4][5]

The word ogbanje is often translated as changeling, due to the similarities they share with the fairy changelings of Celtic and broader European mythology. Both serve as mythological ways of understanding what were once unknown diseases that often claimed the lives of children (such as SIDs and sickle cell disease).

See also


  2. Onwubalili JK (August 1983). "Sickle-cell anaemia: an explanation for the ancient myth of reincarnation in Nigeria". Lancet 2 (8348): 503–5. 
  3. Nzewi E (May 2001). "Malevolent ogbanje: recurrent reincarnation or sickle cell disease?". Soc Sci Med 52 (9): 1403–16. 
  4. Chinua Achebe Thing Fall Apart
This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original article was at Ogbanje. The list of authors can be seen in the page history.

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