Igbo Belief In Reincarnation
People from all over the world believe in reincarnation. This includes Hindus, Buddhists, Mayas, Zulus, and even my Catholic family. It’s an idea that shows up in many faiths and mystical studies because it helps us understand some things about our lives.
When an Igbo baby is born, the parents often talk to Afa (a type of astrology) to find out about the child’s life. Kids sometimes say the wrong name of the person they think they are reincarnated from when strange things happen in their lives. This happened to my younger sister when she got really sick. Even though different medicines weren’t helping her illness, she brought up our great-grandmother’s name, which even my mother didn’t know.
We started calling her by our great-grandmother’s name. and magically got better, becoming happy and healthy. This is something that a lot of people do, usually before the eighth day after giving birth, to find out which of their relatives have come back to live in their family. For Igbo people, children are given their names on the eighth day. For some, it may take longer to find the exact parent they were reborn from.
Igbo society has a history of clear rebirth. This was especially true after the Civil War, when many families didn’t know what happened to their loved ones who had died in battle. Folklore among the Igbo people says that if someone is thought to be dead, their family must wait seven years before burying them.
A lot of people were reborn with different levels of injuries. Some were even born with open bullet wounds that healed on their own. Some people were born with the same injuries that killed the person they were reborn as. These events are proof beyond a doubt of rebirth.
People whose families were searching for answers were often told that their loved ones who had died in the war had been reincarnated so that proper funerals could be held. After that, the family would hold ceremonies to welcome the reborn spirit.
There are also stories of old people telling their kids or grandkids that they will come back to life as one of them after they die. Some children have shown they have memories of past lives by telling stories from the lives of people they think they were. For example, my younger sister told me the name of my great-grandmother, whose name I didn’t know.
Unfortunately, many Igbo communities now don’t believe in reincarnation because of the impact of other religions. These faiths have made reincarnation seem bad, and now 85% of Igbo people don’t know who has reincarnated inside them. My father calls me Nna ya, and my mother calls me Nna di ya because I am the spirit of my father’s father.
The brother of my dad and his wife also see me as the same person, and my late grandpa even thought of me as his daughter-in-law. When people know my grandfather, they don’t question who I am. I got not only his physical traits but also everything that was important to him.
Because the church has a lot of power in Igbo society, it is frowned upon to talk about rebirth and other similar beliefs. The effects of this on society as a whole are bad. People stopped practicing many other outdated customs that modern society viewed as being bad in addition to believing in reincarnation.
The church fought against the resurrection because they thought it would weaken the Igbo people’s faith. To many people’s surprise, the Bible talks about rebirth. For instance, a lot of people thought that John the Baptist was really Elijah coming back to life.
Also Read: African Oral Tradition: The Importance Of African Oral Tradition
