Do Infants Have Religion?

The Spiritual Lives of Beng Babies

Author(s): Alma Gottlieb
Source: American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 100, No. 1 (Mar., 1998), pp. 122-135
Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Anthropological Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/682813
Accessed: 08/11/2010 21:19

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless
you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you
may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=black.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Blackwell Publishing and American Anthropological Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize,
preserve and extend access to American Anthropologist.

http://www.jstor.org
ALMA GOTTLIEB / UNIVERSITY
OF ILLINOIS
AT URBANACHAMPAIGN

Do Infants Hawe Religion?

The Spiritual Lives of Beng Babies

ANTHROPOLOGICAL EXPLORATIONS of religion have gaging more in bodily than verbal communication, in
tended to focus on the lives, experiences, and view- keeping with recent works suggesting that much can be
points of adults. The great canonical works have learned from the nonverbal ''langllages."3 I found this
scarcely a word to say about how religion might affect dual strategy an acceptable compromise to a methodo-
children's lives. Robertson Smith wrote nothing about logical challenge. With such a combination of ap-
the religion of young Semites. Frazernever considered proaches, the experiences of infants themselves should
how divine kingship might influence children's play become at least partly accessible to the gaze of an out-
styles. Durkheimdid not investigate the way that organ- side observer. Indeed, the very definition of experience
ized groups of boys and girls mightintersect with organ- may be redefined if we agree to expand the corpus of
ized groups of adults in creating an effervescence of communication channels to include both the spiritual
spirit. Weberneglected to speculate on the effect that and the bodily, in this case, uto identify the existential
Protestant faith mighthave on child-rearingpractices. conditions that constitute the experiential world of
Withonly a few exceptions, social scientists today Beng babies" (John McCall,personal communication,
continue to assume the irrelevance of early childhood November 1996;see Brunerand Turner1986).
to spirituality, and silence still reigns concerning the
religious and ritualexperiences of minors.1If this is true
of young children,it is even more so of infants, who are TheSpiritualLivesof Beng Infants
perhaps the most systematically ignored of all human MostWesternfolk models of child developmentim-
groups by anthropologists.2 ply a mute and uncomprehendingnewborn arrivingfor
In my own fieldwork, I relied in part on methods the first time in the world of humans from a restricted
that Victor Turnerenunciated long ago (1973) for the uterine life of minimalstimulationandno social interac-
decoding of symbolic phenomena: exploration of in- tion as such. Before that, the biological model underly-
formants' own exigeses, identiElcationof the opera- ing all this furtherimplies, the fetus was a mere zygote
tional meanings of symbols in particularritual and so- of a few cells, and before those cells were joined, it had
cial contexts, andprovisional establishingof a model or no existence whatsoever. Hence the Westerncaretaker
grammarof positional meanings of such symbols in a of an infant, whether the mother or anyone else, usually
wide variety of social contexts. Of course with infants attends to the bodily needs of the young tot with great
the great frustration relates to the first level of this care but may pay less attention to social relational con-
methodology:very young children do not make reliable cerns and virtuallynone to spiritualones.4
informants, at least not when anthropologists define The Beng view of fetal development is quite differ-
conversation in the usual way. To counteract this limita- ent. Beng adults maintain that infants lead profoundly
tion, I relied on diviners, those Beng adults who them- spiritual lives. In fact, the younger they are, the more
selves purportto speak for infants after speaking with thoroughlyspiritual their existence is said to be. Affili-
the spirits who themselves speak for crying babies. To ated with this spiritualityis a set of infantcare practices
complement this "adultocentric"perspective, I spent demanded of a caretaker. To understand this indige-
approximately 700 hours with infants themselves, en- nous conception of infants'spirituality,we must investi-
gate life before the womb.
ALMA GOTTLIEBis an associateprofessorin the Department
of In Beng villages, each baby is said to be a reincarna-
Anthropology,
University of Illinoisat Urbana-Champaign,
Urbana,IL tion of someone who died. By itself this ideology is by
61801. no means rare in Africa.5It is also well known for South

AmericanAnthropo/ogist
100(1):122-135. Copyrightt3 1998, AmericanAnthropological
Association.
 123
LIVESOFBENGBABIES/ ALMAGOTTLIEB
THESPIRITUAL

Asia and Native North America (Mills and Slobodin EveIy day there are deaths and births. The number of
1994). But we anthropologists have rarely asked what people living here and in wrugbe keeps going up and down.
the implications of this commonideology maybe for the You know who youre replacing from wrugbe if someone
treatment of infants and their experiences. In the Beng dies on the same day that you're born. Otherwise,if no one
dies on the day you're born, you don't know who you're
context, let us trace their life course.6
replacing.

The AHerlifeIs Where We Come From Two issues that emerge from this statement war-
rant discussion. First is that of personal identity. In the
In the Beng world, infants emerge not from a land Beng model, evetyone is considered to be a reincarna-
of regressively diminishing life but from a rich exis- tion of an ancestor. Some people know whose prior
tence in a place that adults call wmgbe.7 Several Beng identity has returned in them; others do not, although
adults agreed that wrugbe is dispersed among invisible there is no general set of terms to distinguish the two
neighborhoods in major cities in Africa and Europe, types of people. But if an individual knows his or her
though differentpeople named differentcities.8 prioridentity,then, as we shall see, others maytreatthis
The literal meaning of wrugbe is aspiritvillage (or person in particularways, according to the ancestor's
town)." In Western languages, with their roots in the personality and life circumstances.
Judeo-Christiantradition,a likely translationof wrugbe Wealso need to investigate the demographicimpli-
would be "afterlife,"the place to which the wru (spirit) cations of KouakouBa's statement. As a Elrstpass, we
of a person travels once that person's body dies and the might be tempted to put them in economic terms. The
nenew(soul) transformsto a wru.But the term afterlife, indigenous conception of demographythat each human
while evocative, is not entirely accurate for two rea- life given (from wrugbe) must be counterbalancedby
sons. First, it implies that the ordinary or unmarked one taken (back to wrugbe) might be recast as a zero-
place and time of orientation are this human existence sum conception of human life. But does this necessarily
and that once one dies, one goes zafterwards"to a space imply an empiricallystable population, with births and
where one stays, presumably for eternity. In contrast, deaths delicately balanced?This would hardlybe possi-
Beng souls go to wrugbe as a waystation; after some ble at any given moment, as the number of births and
time (whose duration is variable), they are rebotn as deaths mayvaryaccordingto a complex arrayof factors
newborn humans. Yet even waystation is not ethno- that are surely impossible to balance. For our purposes,
graphicallyapt, as this suggests a liminaltime andplace what is significantis that this ideology of reincarnation-
of transit. In contrast, it is this lifeXthat is seen by at as-demographic-balance operates at the ideological
least some Beng, certainly by religious specialists and level regardless of actual demographicfluctuations.9
others who think deeply about such eschatological mat- This potential lack of "fit"between ideology and
ters, as the ephemeral site of transit whose ultimate praxis, as we might put it, is mirroredat another level.
goal is to reach the land of the ancestors (cf. MacGaffey Once someone dies, the neneIl or soul is transformed
1986). Second, from the perspective of infancy, what is into a wru or spirit. Yet when that person is reincar-
significant is that, in the Beng view, infants havejust re- nated into someone else, the wru nevertheless contin-
cently been living their lives in a previous and invisible ues to exist as an ancestor. There is, we might say, a
existence. Thus for the Beng, what English speakers double existence rather than an either-or conception.
would term the afterlife mightalternativelybe termed a Unlike the classical Aristotelian framework,which de-
beforelife.Yet this term implies a Elniteend to one's life, mandsthat an identity be either one thing or anotherbut
whereas the doctrine of reincarnationis based on a cy- not both simultaneously, in the Beng view one may si-
clical trajectory, with no beginning and no end and multaneously exist at two very different levels of real-
death itself as a kind of life. ity: one visible and earthly, the other invisible and
My understanding of the contours of wrugbe has ghostly.l?
been gained through a series of conversations over the The boundarybetween wrugbe and this life is per-
years with many Beng people, especially religious spe- meable in another way. While wrugbe is said to be lo-
cialists, both Masters of the Earth (ba gbali) and divin- cated in distant countries or metropolises where the
ers (srandi7y).During my last visit, one diviner named lifestyle of the living residents is quite different from
Kouakou Ba regularly shared with me his exceptional that of ruralBeng villagers, Beng adults do not perceive
knowledge of wrugbe.Still in his late twenties, Kouakou wrugbe as unreachable.Indeed, I was told of several liv-
Ba had alreadybuilt up a large following because of his ing adults who had managed to travel invisibly to
reputationfor speaking the truthbased on earlytraining wrugbe (in their dreams) in order to converse with an-
as a diviner.Here is how he explainedhis understanding cestors, then returned easily to tell the tale. WhenI ex-
of the temporal as well as, we might say, the demo- pressed amazement (no doubt influenced uncon-
graphicdimensions of wrugbe: sciously by the classical Greek conception of the
124 * VOL. 100,
AMERICANANTHROPOLOGIST NO. 1 * MARCH1998

afterlife imbued in me in high school, with its formida- responsibility seriously. WhenI asked how manytimes
ble Cerberusguardingthe entrance to Hades), my inter- the mixture is applied to a newborn, I was skeptical
locutor assured me that anyone could converse with an when I heardfrom several women that it is applied "con-
ancestor and that the (dreamtime)journey to wrugbeit- stantly," but my own subsequent observations con-
self is not dangerous. firmed their claim. Next to every newborn sits an older
Reciprocally,untilrecently the wrus of Beng ances- woman, usually the baby's maternalgrandmother,who
tors themselves were said to traverseback and forthbe- dabs a tiny bit of an herbal mixtureon the danglingcord
tween wrugbe and this life on a daily basis. Before local every few minutes.
ofElcialsof the Ivoiriangovernment ordered all thatch- The day that a baby's umbilicalcord stumpfalls off
roofed houses to be destroyed in the late 1960s, the is momentous, for the newborn has just begun to
Beng lived in large, round dwellings that accommo- emerge from wrugbe. This is a gradualprocess that will
dated an extended family (Gottlieb 1992:135-136).This take several years to complete. Both to markthe begin-
was meant to include not only the living but also the ning of this slow passage and to inaugurateit more ac-
dead. Every night, someone in the household put out a tively, the infant's mother, along with some of her fe-
small bowl of food for the ancestors of the family. At male relatives, conduct two or three bodily rituals of
night, the last person to retire closed the door, locking transformationon the tiny new person.l2First, they ad-
in the living and the dead to sleep together. In the morn- minister an enema to the baby (called gbel?fAl?, split-
ing, the first person to open the door released the wrus, ting the anus"), clearly causing distress to the crying
who traveled back to wrugbe for the day, to return at child. A mother knows that she will hurther infant;still,
night for their dinnerand sleeping spot once again. women looked at me with incredulity when I inquired
Considering this regular traffic between wrugbe whether or not they might have pity on their newborns
and this life and considering that infants have just and delay the ritual for some time. This is clearly not an
emerged fromwrugbe,what are the implications for the option.
day-to-dayexperiences of babies? Forher first child,a motheris taughthow to adminis-
ter such an enemaby the female elderwho has been bath-
The Umbilical Cord:Lifeline to Wrugbe ing her baby four times a day since the birth (Gottlieb
n.d.). She uses the leaves of a particularplant (kprokpro
Until the umbilical cord stump falls off, the new-
lana, unidentified) crushed together with one chili pep-
born is not considered to have emerged from wrugbeat
per and some warm water. From the next day forward,
all, and the tiny creature is not seen as a person (s07y).
Hence if the newborn should die duringthose first few the motherwill administersuch an enema twice a dayto
days, there is no funeral, and the fact is not announced her baby (in the morning and at night). An older child
publicly. In this case the infant's passing is not con- often receives regular enemas as well, and many adults
ceived as a death, just a return in bodily form to the also give themselves enemas on a regular basis. Thus
space that the infantwas still psychically inhabiting. the baby is starting to be "toilettrainednfrom the Elrst
Beng women told me that the umbilical stump usu- week of life, beginning a series of civilizing" processes
ally drops off on the third or fourth day, and this was in- inauguratingthe baby's entry into this life."13
deed the case for all of the many Beng newborns I have Typicallya few hours after the first enema,the new-
observed duringmy fieldwork. This schedule is rather born is the subject of a second maJorritual.The mater-
on the fast end of the scale when viewed cross-cultur- nal grandmother (or another older woman) makes a
ally.ll If my Beng informants comments are accurate necklace (dS) from a savanna grass of the same name
and my own observations representative,the Beng pat- (Figure 1). This necklace will be worn night and day by
tern appears to be somewhat accelerated compared to the infantto encourage general health and growth,until
other regions of the world. How can we account for this it eventually tears and falls off. At that point, depending
relativelyrapiddevelopmenton the partof Beng infants? on the baby's age and the mother's industry,it may or
Medical researchers have observed that aage at may not be replaced. Only after this first necklace is ap-
cord separation has been shown to be associated with plied can the mother or grandmotherbegin to add other
the agent used for umbilical cord care" (Novack et al. items of jewelry. The actual ritual is held in a ratherse-
1988:220;see also Aradet al. 1981). Beng women apply cluded and dimly lit space (inside the bedroomof the in-
an herbal mixture to a newborn's umbilical stump that fant's mother) with a somewhat solemn tone. Finally,
may indeed shorten the numberof days that the cord re- once the umbilical cord falls off the newborn, in the
mains attached to the navel. The intention is to dry out case of a girl, a third ritual manipulationof the body oc-
the moist cord fragmentquickly, enabling it to wither curs on the same day as well: the newborn's ears are
and drop off, allowing the infant to begin its spiritual pierced. Now she is authorizedto enterinto the world of
journey from wrugbeto this life. Beng women take this feminine beautification. Having seen the newborn
 125
LIVESOFBENGBABIES/ ALMAGOTTLIEB
THESPIRITUAL

wrugbe and sometimes in this life. Parentsought to do

all they can to make this life comfortableand attractive
for their infant, to ensure that their child is not tempted
to return to wrugbe. For help with the bodily needs, a
mother regularly consults her mother, her grand-
mother, or any other experienced mother around her
(Gottlieb 1995b).But sometimes an infantappearsmis-
erable for no obvious reason. In this case, the Beng say
the baby is endeavoring to communicate a spiritual
need that the parents are unable to understand.Suchan
infant is probably homesick for wrugbe. This is where
divinersenter the picture, for these specialists are seen
as intermediariesbetween the living and the ancestors,
as well as between the living and bush spirits (Gottlieb
1992:ch. 2; Gottlieb and Graham 1993). Indeed, given
the special space occupied by diviners, mothers ought
to consult them regularlyduringthe earlyyears of their
children'sexistence, even if their childrenare not sick.
Along these lines, one knowledgeable young man
named Bertin told me that in the old days" mothers
automatically consulted a diviner almost immediately
after the birth of each of their babies. This statement
may well index a goal that was not always realized.For
one thing, diviners cost money, even if it is a modest
sum by local standards (typically 50 CFA; currently
U.S.$1 = ca. 500 CFA).As elsewhere, some mothersare
more devoted to their children than others, some are
Figure 1
more concerned about avoiding future complications,
Newborn with newly prepared necklace(dr), bracelets, and knee- some are more willing to spend scarce resources to
band. Photo by AlmaGottlieb. gather items judged culturally necessary for their chil-
dren's well-being, and some simply have more money.
Still, the practice outlined by Bertin represents an op-
undergo a set of two to three requiredrituals, let us ex-
erativeideal that is clearly consistent with the Bengide-
plore the aftereffects of these processes.
ology of the life course.
Almost invariably,when diviners are consulted by
TheCallof Wrugbe parents,usually mothers,they recommendthat the new
Oncethe umbilicalstumpdrops off, the baby is said mother give a cowrie shell to their baby. Bertin put it
to start a long and difficult spiritualjourney emerging this way:
from wrugbe, but the process takes several years to All babies must be given a cowrie shell as a first gift, when
complete.l4Here is an excerpt from a conversation that the baby is born, because the cowrie was importantas
I had with KouakouBa on the subject: currencyfor the ancestors; it was the second most impor-
KB: At some point, children leave wrugbe for good and tant thing, after gold. The newborn had contact with the
decide to stay in this life. ancestors before birth, and the cowrie shell reminds the
AG:How do you know when this has happened? baby of the previous life in wrugbe.
KB:Whenchildren can speak their dreams, or understand Nowadays not all women contact a divinerimmediately
[a drastic situation, such as] that their mother or father has after the birth;they may wait for a day when the baby is in
died, then you know that they've totally come out of distress. Othermothers may give a cowrie shell to the baby
wrugbe. as a personal gift, though they weren't told to do so by a
_1

alvmer.
AG:Whendoes that happen?
KB:By seven years old, for sure!At three years old, they're AnotherBeng friend added this commentary:
still in-between: partly in wrugbe and partly in this life.
They see what happens in this life, but they don't under- Infants like money because they had money when they
stand it. were living in wrugbe. In coming to this world, they all
choose what they want. This could be wali pu [French
Duringthe liminaltime of early childhood, the con- coins from the colonial era] or jewelly [usually cowrie
sciousness of the baby or toddler is sometimes in shells]: whatever is like what they had in wrugbe.
126 AMERICAN
ANTHROPOLOGIST
* VOL.1 00, Nou 1 * MARCH1998

As with the dC,an infant may wear the cowiie shell or hearing Kouakou Ba's pronouncement, the baby's
coin as an item of jewelry, usually a bracelet. Diviners mother found the requiredbracelets, and she and the
may recommend a single shell or coin, or they might baby's relatives began calling him uAnie."According to
suggest a numberof cowries strung close together on a reports, after these two changes Anie stopped crying.
bracelet, or two or three coins strung on a cotton Bearing an ancestral identity can have ramifica-
thread.l5The mother may leave the jewelry on the baby tions for the baby's life far beyond naming. Such a fact
continually, washing it carefully during the baths she can serve to organize the mannerin which infants are
gives her child. Alternatively,she may put the bracelet treated. For example, girls and boys who were born fol-
or necklace on the infant on particulardays relative to lowing the deaths of two siblings in the family are inevi-
the spiritualcalendar. tably called uSunu"and Wamya' respectively (names
At the psychological level, the message being com- with no other meanings as such). Such infants are seen
municatedto the parents by the divineris that the infant as the reincarnationof one of those two now-deceased
needs to be valued more and needs to wear a visible sign siblings. Like all Beng children who die, the dead sib-
of this value. Western-trained child psychologists lings had been buried in a muddy patch behind the
would probablyapplaudthis practice, as it encourages home. Being a reincarnationof one of those, Sunus and
parents of a small creaturewho cries regularlyto devote Wamyasremembertheir recent resting place; thus they
themselves to the needs of the often stressed, and are said to like mud. As a result, their mothers may pat
stress-inducing, newborn (see Lewis and Rosenblum mud over their small bodies as infants or even older
1974).A diviner'sinstructions to parents to buyjewelry children.
for their crying child may serve to remind parents that The reincarnatedidentities of Wamyasand Sunus
the infant, while seemingly helpless and unable to com- may have consequences for the development of their
municate, was recently living a full life elsewhere and personality well beyond infancy. For example, as older
thus needs to be respected as a fellow person rather children and adults, they are said to be prone to depres-
than being viewed as a suffering,wordless creature. sion and can predict someone else's demise. If a Wamya
The fact of reincarnationmay prove critical in the or Sunuappears depressed or acts aggressively without
life of a given newborn in another way. It maybe appar- cause, people worry that someone is about to die. For
ent from the birth whose wrugbe ancestor the newborn instance, one day a nine-year-oldSunu spent the entire
embodies.As I quotedfrom KouakouBa earlier,if some- afternoon hitting her older sister for no apparent rea-
one in the family dies on the day that a baby is born,this son. Familymembers and neighborsworried aloud that
is taken as a sign of instant reincarnation (e ta, e nu, it was a bad omen. The next morning,two deaths were
Uhe/shecame, returned").Alternatively,a name that is announced in the village. Onhearingthe news, the girl's
shared, seemingly by coincidence, between infant and mother and aunts said, USothat's why she was hitting
ancestor may indicate a reincarnation.For example, a her older sister yesterday!"The deaths confirmed for
nine-month-oldgirl I knew had a series of names: Kla them the ability of Sunusto foretell death.
Aujua NdriAmelie. Mostvillagers addressed her directly A funeralremindseveryone named Sunuor Wamya
(and referred to her) as mama (grandma).This is be- of the death of their own previous incarnationas well as
cause the baby was said to be the reincarnationof her that of their sibling; hence they are always among the
father's mother, Bande Kla Ajua, with whom she had saddest mourners.To commemoratethis, all Sunus and
two names in common ("Kla,"an ancient family name, Wamyas,from infants to very old people, wear a special
and uAjua"a day name for girls born on a Tuesday); necklace and/orbracelet duringany funeralthey attend
hence she was spoken to (and about) as if she were that (Figure 2). Consideringtheir propensityfor depression,
ancestor. one Beng friend told me, it would be a terrible mistake
A baby's identity may make itself known through for a Sunu and a Wamyato marryone another. On days
misery. In some cases the diviner may pronounce that they are both sad, they would be unable to take care of
the infant is unhappy with the name that has been be- their children:a mourningor depressed Sunumay fail to
stowed upon it and prefers another one, usually to com- nurse her infant,and both she and her husbandmightre-
memorate her or his wrugbe identity. Such renaming fuse to work in the Elelds.
can also take place for a spirit ratherthan an ancestor. People named Sunu or Wamyaare said to have dif-
For example, a baby named Kouassicried day and night ficult personalities (ste gregre), and their parents may
when he was a month old. In despair, his mother con- seek validation of this psychological diagnosis through
sulted KouakouBa, who said that the baby was crying divination. For instance, my friend Au told me that,
for two reasons. First, Kouassi Uwanted"two bracelets when she was pregnant with her son, her uncle con-
on his left hand:one with cowrie shells, the other of wa sulted a diviner, who predicted that his niece would
ti (silver). Second, he had been misnamed; his real have a child who would be very difElcult,crying a lot.
name was Anie, after a local sacred pool of water. After But Au shouldn't become too upset or angry about this
 THE SPIRITUALLIVESOF BENGBABIES / ALMAGOTTLIEB1 27

Jeanne'sbabysitter 61? kfilz),whose primaryjob was to

carnrher younger sister. ButJeannefrequentlyhit Afwe
while being carried on her back, and Afwe wasn't al-
ways able, or willing, to carryJeanne.
As she has grown older?Jeanne'sdifficultpersonal-
ity has remained,frighteningother childrenin the quar-
tzer; she even provokes disputes and physical fights.
One day I videotaped about a half an hour of a temper
tantrumthat Jeanne threw in two adjoiningcourtyards.
Enragedat a perceived slight, she toppled furnitureand
hurled pails around her, behavior that would be quite
unheard of for someone without the spiritual proElle
that Jeanne possesses.
In short, it is clear that Jeanne has internalizedher
identity as a wrugbe Sunu. This should not be surpris-
ing. Because she often hears others discuss the difficult
personality that is assumed to accompany a wrugbe
identity, Jeanne is aware of the expectation that she act
difficult. As psychologists might sayXthe alabeling"has
been successful (Rosenthaland Jacobson 1968).
Not only does a child continue after birthto lead a
parallel life in wrugbe?but a child is said to retain the
wrugbeparentsNwho continueto look out for their baby
even after the infant has begun to leave the afterlife. In
some instances, this can cause conflict with the parents
of this life. The child's wrugbe parents will be dis-
pleased if they judge that the child's parents of this life
are mistreating the baby, either through abuse or ne-
Figure 2
glect. For instance, the mother may not be breastfeed-
Infant wearing Sunu bracelet. Photo by Alma Gottlieb.
ing her infant often enough or offering enough solid
foods to an older infant. She may let her baby cryt may
wait before taking her sick baby to a divineror a healer,
child's behavior;otherwise the baby would leave the or may use poverty as an excuse to avoid buying the
familyand returnto wrugbe (i.e., die). items (such as jewelry or coins) or conductingthe sacri-
Au assumedthat this prediction appliedto the baby fices that a diviner declares necessary to the baby's
she was carrying,but in fact he turned out to be easygo- spiritual well-being. Any of these may have dire conse-
ing. Duringher next pregnancy,she thoughtback to the quences: the wrugbe parents may decide to snatch the
diviner'sprediction, but this child too turned out to be infant away back to wrugbe, where they will raise the
relativelyunflappable,as was her next. It was only with child temporarily,waitingfor a more suitable couple to
her last one that the prediction was finallyvalidated,as emerge as futureparentsof theirbaby.This,then, is one
her daughterJeanne turned out to be a "wrugbeSunuX explanation (though not the only one) that is offered by
who indeed exhibited a difficult personality. The diag- Beng adults to account for the horrendouslyhigh infant
nosis was made by an old woman related patrilaterally and young child mortalityrate in the region (Gottlieb
to Au. Duringa village funeral, she dreamtthat Jeanne n.d.).
had been a USunu" while living in wrugbe.As a wrugbe On hearing this, I asked KouakouBa to describe a
Sunu,people thought,Jeanne would have an even more good parent. He answered without hesitation:
difficultpersonalitythan an ordinarySunuwould.
Not sutprisingly,this foretelling has proved accu- You should go to a divinerto find out what the baby wants,
then go and buy that thing for the child. It's the child's
rate. Whenshe was startingto walk, Jeanne wanted to
wrugbe relatives (usually one of the baby's wrugbe par-
stay on her mother'sback all day while Au workedin the ents) who have told the baby to cry, to say what the baby
fields. If Au put her down, Jeanne stampedrightin front wants. Or sometimes it may be a spirit who's told this to
of her mother wherever she was walking, or she dared the baby. Infants choose these desires to copy the objects
Au to cut her with a machete and then had a tempertan- they liked back in wrugbe:usuallyjewelty, money, or cow-
trum. Her older sister Afwe had been designated as ries. In any case, once the parents of this life discover the
128 AMERICANANTHROPOLOGIST
* VOL. 100, NO. 1 * MARCH1998

infant clients? For their part, are babies as inarticulate

as this account suggests?

The Language of Wrugbe

One day I was playingThisLittlePiggywith the toes

of my six-month-old Beng daughterAmwe. As the last
little piggy went home, I laughed aloud at myself, ac-
knowledging that the baby couldn't possibly under-
stand the words of the ditty, all the more because they
were in English. The baby's Beng mother Amenan ob-
jected strongly to my remark,which she took as an in-
sult. Amenaninsisted that our daughterunderstoodper-
fectly well all that her American mother was saying.
When I asked somewhat skepticallyJ"Youthink so?",
Amenan explained the linguistic situation of wrugbe.
Unlike life in this world, she pointed out, different eth-
nic groups do not live apartfrom one another in the af-
terlife. Rather,membersof all the world's ethnic groups
live there together harmoniously.Associated with this
ethnic mixture is a striking degree of linguistic ecu-
menicism. Whenthe residents of wrugbe speak to each
other in their own languages, everyone understands,
with full mutualcomprehension.l6
Inthe minds of manymiddle-classWesternparents,
young infants are seen as lacking linguistic abilities. As
popularBritishauthorPenelope Leachwrites unequivo-
cally, "Atthe beginning a new infant has no language
other than crying"(1983:62).The Beng model could not
pose a starkercontrast,forit posits a babywho is anything
but "prelinguistic." In fact, among the Beng, infants are
Figure 3 said to be as multilingual as imaginable.Havingonly re-
Sunu infant girl with numerous protective necklaces, waist bands, cently emerged from wrugbe, where everyone under-
and bracelets (including cowrie shells and ancient Frenchcoins), stands every language, Beng newborns have full com-
many prescribed by a diviner.Photo by Alma Gottlieb. prehension not only of Beng but of every language
spoken on this earth.
baby's desires, they should do all they can to indulgethem.
Furthermore,Beng infants are said to begin gradu-
[See Figure3.] ally to leave their previous existence behind. This in-
cludes graduallygivingup their knowledge of languages
From KouakouBa's statement we learn that the baby other than the one spoken aroundand to them daily.But
has desires but is unsure how to communicatethem di- as we have also seen, this emergence from wrugbeis a
rectly. Accordingly, we learn of the active role that very slow process that takes several years. Until it is
wrugbe parents continue to take in their infant's life complete, the child continues to understandthe many
even after the child has begun to enter this life, to the languages spoken in wrugbe,though with only sporadic
point of instructingthe baby to cry to make a particular and diminishing comprehension. In sum, Beng infants
desire known. Throughthe infant, the wrugbe parents are doing the opposite of learning new languages sub-
are indirectly communicatingto and instructing their sequent to a prelinguistic phase, as a popular Western
counterpartsin this life. folk model posits. Instead,they are losing old languages
Of course there is something a bit self-serving in order to strip away excess linguistic baggage,as we
about KouakouBa's answer.In his view, a good enough might put it, and leave room for the languagesthat are
parent,"as D. W. Winnicottwould call her (see, for ex- most appropriatefor this life.l7
ample, Winnicott 1987), is one who gives him regular Some scholars have claimedthat the languageused
business. His economic motives for encouragingclients to address infants and teach them language(sometimes
to consult him notwithstanding, how does a diviner called "babytalk"or, moreEurocentrically? "motherese")
such as KouakouBa manage to communicate with his has identifiablefeaturesthatareuniversal(e.g.^Ferguson
 THE SPIRITUALLIVESOF BENGBABIES / ALMAGOTTLIEB129

1977;Snow 1977). Critics have pointed out that cross-

cultural data to support this assertion are quite scarce
and do not all support the theory (e.g., Crago 1992:31;
Ochs and Schieffelin 1984). This qualitativeissue is re-
lated to a more quantitativeone. Psycholinguists and
sociolinguists have shown that the amount of speech
that adults (and older children) address directly to in-
fants is quite variable even intraculturally,let alone
cross-culturally.l8In the short run, infants and toddlers
who are addressed directly and regularlytend to begin
speaking somewhat earlier and to acquire larger and
more precise vocabularies than do their counterparts
who are not (JudyDe Loache,personal communication,
September 1996;Smiley and Huttenlocher 1995).In the
long run,however, virtuallyall healthy humanslearn to
speak their native language with a high degree of flu-
ency no matterhow often adults or older childrenspoke
to them directly as infants (e.g., Snow et al. 1979:287).
And in any case, mothers and other caretakers have a
largerangeof ways to communicatewith babies beyond
actual speech (e.g., Bullowa 1979).
How does the Beng situation illuminate these is-
sues? Amongthe Beng,the babblingof babies as well as
speech addresseddirectlyto them is not only valuedbut
in fact encouraged. Because Beng babies are said to
have a passive understandingof all languagesspoken to
them, adults consider it appropriateto make use of that
passive understanding. Thus older people address
speech directly to infants and even to newborns, often
continually (Figure 4). In my hundreds of hours of ob- Figure 4
servingbabies with their mothers and other caretakers, Infantboy and his mother. Photo by AlmaGottlieb.
I rarelysaw Elveminutes go by when someone was not
speaking directly to a given (awake) infant. For in- face-to-face on a regularbasis allows us to reevaluatea
stance, a new mother I was visiting was holding her widely discussed hypothesis suggested by Robert
four-day-olddaughteron her lap. The woman sat with LeVine(1984, 1987) that rural,unschooled women liv-
her legs outstretched,leaning over the baby a bit while ing in the technologically underdevelopedworldare too
chattingwith me andtwo other friends. Inbetween talk- preoccupied with ensuringthe merephysical survivalof
ing to us, she spoke to her baby regularly.At one point, their infants to erUoythe luxury of speaking to them
her tiny daughter'seyes were open wide and she asked face-to-face, and more generallyto enJoya high level of
her tenderly,aMyeblicalo?"(Are you looking around?). emotional involvement with them (LeVine 1973, 1977;
I saw linguistic encounters such as this replicated by LeVineet al. 1994:19S223). LeVine'stheory indeed ap-
virtuallyevery motheror other infant caretakerwhom I
pears applicable in some ethnographicsettings in East
visited duringmy researchon this topic. WhileI was not
Africa (e.g., Goldschmidt 1975), but it has also been
studyingthe actual speech registers used to address in-
shown to be less relevant in other East African con-
fants, in my observationspeople tended to simplify and
slow their speeche as is common among middle-class, texts.l9 Beng practices of West Africa further suggest
Euro-Americancaretakers speaking with infants, pre- that LeVine'shypothesis is not readilytransferableto all
sumably making it more "userfriendly"for the babies of sub-SaharanAfrica but, rather, must be modiEledto
themselves. I suggest that this very active level of verbal accommodatelocal culturalvariation.Moreover,LeVine's
interactionthat Beng adults have with babies is consis- explanation, based as it is on economic and ecological
tent with the local ideology of the afterlife. Thus at a concerns, may elide variable cultural issues. Thus the
theoretical level, we might say that behavior replicates Beng are at least as impoverishedas are the ruralpopu-
ideology in a directly observableway. lations with whom LeVinehas worked in Kenya,yet cul-
Onanothernote, I observe that the Beng patternof tural factors (specifically, religious ideology) inspire
mothers addressing their newborns and older infants Beng mothers (and other caretakers) to speak d}rectly
130 * VOL. 100,
AMERICANANTHROPOLOGIST NO. 1 * MARCH1998

to infants no matterwhat the economic constraints and may be common (though not universal), the local cul-
anxieties. tural systems that give it meaning are variable. The
If, due to their previous life in wrugbe, Beng infants same behavior may make sense in very different ways,
are seen by adults to be capable of understandinglan- and for very different reasons, in diverse contexts
guage, what of their own verbalizing abilities? In fact, (Geertz 1973b).
Beng infants' babble is routinely remarked upon, de- Onthe other hand the babble of Beng infants is not
lighted in, and encouraged as protolinguistic, not only always rewardedby Beng adults, who train even babies
by Beng mothers but by siblings, grandparents, other not to interruptadults' speech, as part of a pattern of
relatives, neighbors, and indeed anyone who observes children showing deference to their elders. Where
it. For instance, a motherof a seven-month-oldonce ob- adults in other societies may assume that infantsare not
served her son looking with interest at two nearby pigs worthy conversationalpartners, hence not worth train-
who were grunting. When the pigs quieted, her baby ing in this respect (Ochs and Schieffelin 1984),the Beng
made noises that she interpreted as imitating the ani- attitudeis quite different.Being equippedto understand
mals. She clapped her hands with pleasure and ex- languagefromtheir priorlife in wrugbe,even the young-
claimed, Ja, e za do!"Literally,this meant, "So, he un- est infants are seen as eminently trainable in adult
derstands things!" Figuratively, it meant, So, he's norms of politeness. Just to cite one example, my friend
smart!" attesting to a perceived connection between Amenanand I were once talking with some neighborsin
speech and intelligence even in young infants. her courtyard.Nearby,her six-month-oldgrandsonSas-
Adults also take an active role in teaching their in- sandra sat on a mat on the ground, makingwhat I con-
fants to speak the Beng languageby speaking forXtheir sidered adorable baby noises. But the noises were so
infants. In this routine, an adult asks a question directly cute, and loud, that they proved distracting, and we
of an infant and anotheradult (the mother or whoever is adults in the courtyardwere unable to continue ourcon-
currentlymindingthe baby) answers for the child in the versation. Amenan told her young grandson solemnly,
first person, as if she were the baby. She is, in effect, aMijol? twaa!"(Stop your speaking!), as she mightgen-
Uprompting" the baby with Ulines"presumablyto repeat tly rebukean older child. In other words, she was taking
months later when the infant will be capable of such infant babble seriously enough to treat it as she would
speech. In one case, an infant of about seven months the language of older children, subject to the same so-
was seated on a mat on the groundwithout anyone obvi- ciolinguistic norms of politeness. In ways such as this,
ously serving as a caretaker. My husband asked the Beng adults confirm the linguistic abilities of even the
baby how he was, and no one said anything for a mo- youngest of children. In turn this practice implicitlyaf-
ment. When an unrelated woman in the courtyard (the Elrmsthe continuing connection of infants to the lin-
only adult nearby) realized that no one had answered guistically complex world of wrugbe from which they
for the baby, she immediatelyprovided the first-person have emerged only recently, and partially.
answer, a 'nn,n kene"(Yes, I'mfine), and apologized for We have seen that Beng adults usually encourage
not having answered sooner. As this stonr reveals, infant babble while insisting that it conform to adult
adults consider it critical to encourage (as psycholo- rules of politeness, based on adults' assumptionthat in-
gists would say) or to acknowledge (as Beng would say) fants are said to understand any language. Neverthe-
the active verbalizingabilities of infants. less, despite this relatively positive and encouragingat-
Neither the encouragement of babies' own bab- titude by Beng adults toward the speech of babies, the
blings nor a high level of speech addressed directly by verbalizingabilities of infants are said to be problem-
older people to infants is universal. As some scholars atic. Beng adults assert that,just as they understandthe
have reported elsewhere, infants' babble may be ig- languageof others, Beng infants are indeed able to com-
nored in some societies, and adults may address their municate their desires and thoughts. But most adults
speech only rarely to babies. Both these strategies of are incapable of understandingthese efforts at commu-
downplayingbabies' languageare well documented for nication. The diviner Kouakou Ba explained to me that
infants in Samoa as well as among the Kaluli of New when a baby cries, she or he is speaking the languageof
Guinea (though Samoan adults start speaking to older wrugbe. Apartfrom crying, babies may also communi-
infants when the latter begin to crawl) (Ochs and cate by failing to defecate or to nurse. But none of the
Schieffelin 1984). Still, we must acknowledge that the subtleties of these means of communication is readily
Beng are hardly uniquein valuing the babble of infants understandable to the baby's parents, who emerged
or in addressing them directly and frequently. To cite from that other life too long ago to remember its lan-
just one example that will be familiarto most readers of guage. Thus to have their infant's cries or digestive ir-
this journal, both these patterns of encouraging infant regularitiestranslated,a diviner'sservices are required.
speech are very well established among middle-class In Beng villages, diviners serve as intermediaries
Westernfamilies. Myargumentis that while the pattern between the land of the currently living and the land of
 THESPIRITUAL
LIVESOFBENGBABIES/ ALMAGOTTLIEB
131

the previously living. They do this by using the services and other caretakers make concerning infants are any-
of intermediaries themselves, the spirits (bowza)who thing but "common"when viewed from an outsider's
speak both the language of the other world and that of perspective, while religion, that bastion of adult con-
this world. Thus it is a multitieredsystem of translation. templation worthy of the great philosophers and social
The spirits (or wrugbe parents) speak Elrstwith the in- theorists, turns out to be critical to, and critically defin-
fant,who then announces, albeit ineffectively, his or her ing of, the lives of the tiniest humans.
desires to the parents of this life, via cryingor digestive In other words, in this article I have tried to show
irregularities.In turn,the parents consult a diviner,who that at least in the Beng case, a nexus exists between
summons the spirits, who then speak for the baby. Fi- two domains of inquiiy that anthropologists have long
nally, the diviner conveys the baby's desires to the be- regardedas discrete: the seemingly commonsensical or
wildered parents of this life. In this way, the wrugbe natural domain of infant care and the seemingly more
identity of the infant is maintainedin this world and the exalted domain of religion. Perhaps one reason that the
infant manages, through intermediaries, to communi- two domains of religion and infant care have typically
cate complex desires to the parents of this life. been assumed to inhabit different worlds of scholarly
The liminalstatus of infants produces a range of be- inquiryrelates to prefeministassumptions about the na-
haviorsin mothers and other caretakersthat goes a long ture of society and its assumed structure of gender
way toward accounting for how babies are handled. In roles. Briefly put, most social scientists writing before
this case, ideology provides a blueprint,a "modelfor," the currentfeminist era assumed the domestic world of
behavior (by adults) while praxis creates a amodel ofX the household to be the bastion of women's lives. In
ideology (Geertz 1973a). Moreover,infants themselves turn, the lives of women themselves (especially their
are accorded a high level of agency in this indigenous typically intense involvement with child rearing, most
model. Their agency is seen not only as biological but particularly care of infants) were long seen as more
also as intellectual, since they are attributeda high level naturalthan culturaland, hence, more privatethan pub-
of consciousness that must be decoded by an elite lic.20Happily,feminism has challenged this easy set of
group of adults with special translation skills. In these associations, inspiringa generationof scholars to inves-
ways, Beng ideas about infant care challenge dominant tigate women's lives, including the world that is com-
Western models of child rearing at the same time that monly defined as domestic, as entirely cultural.2lIn-
they challenge the anthropologistto take seriously both itially directing analysis to women's public lives,
the domainof religion in understandinginfancy and the feminist anthropologists have more recently begun to
domainof infancy in understandingreligion. see women's seemingly private involvements as never-
theless fully culturallyshaped and, moreover,as having
a direct impact on public events. In other words, the
Conclusions conceptual boundarybetween public and privateis now
being radically challenged, disturbingthe definition of
Anthropologists have long promoted the notion our basic categories.22In keeping with this develop-
that customs assumed by the membersof one society to ment, some female anthropologiststhemselves have be-
be natural may be surprisingly absent elsewhere and gun to see their own lives as both illustrativeof and illu-
that such customs, seemingly unnaturalin the views of minatingsocial processes.23Now that women are at last
outsiders, make sense when viewed in the context of a accepted as properly anthropological subjects, it is
variety of cultural factors whose meanings can be dis- theoretically possible that women's inevitable involve-
cerned only after systematic analysis of the local sys- ments with children,includinginfants, those seemingly
tem. Some time ago, CliffordGeertz (1983) articulated humblest of all humans,may be the next source of eth-
this argument with relation to the notion of common nographicinspiration.
sense, arguing that what passes as common sense is
anythingbut common. Instead, it is a deeply culturally
constructed artifice that is so convincingly structured Notes
as to appeartransparent,self-evident. At one level, this
essay has taken up this line of thinking,seeking to apply Acknowledgments. I have presented versions of this arti-
Geertzs insight to the seemingly commonsensical cle at the 12th Annual Satterthwaite Colloquiumon African
Religion and Ritual(Satterthwaite,UK,April13-16,1996),the
realm of infant care. Indeed, I have interrogateda do-
Department of Anthropologyat WashingtonUniversity, the
main of human practice that, perhaps more than any Departmentof Anthropologyat the Universityof Washington,
other, is routinelytaken for grantedeven by anthropolo- the Center for AdvancedStudy at the Universityof Illinois at
gists as somehow having a natural foundation beyond Urbana-Champaign,and the 1996AnnualMeetingof the Afri-
the reaches of culture. Yet as we have seen in exploring can Studies Association (San Francisco). I am indebted to
the Beng world, the everyday decisions that mothers members of all these audiences for their provocative efforts
132 * VOL. 100,
AMERICANANTHROPOLOGIST NO. 1 * MARCH1998

to nudge me along in certaindirections.I have also been lucky 3. E.g., Farnell 1994;Howes 1991;Stoller 1989, 1997.
enough to receive exceptionally careful readings and pro- 4. Of course Westerners with active religious affiliations
vocative suggestions from Nancy Abelmann,EdwardBruner, may involve their infants (and older children) in religious
Judy DeLoache, and Philip Graham,and five superb review- activities geared to the life cycle, including baptisms or cir-
ers for this journal (Dell Hymes, PhilipKilbride,John McCall, cumcision rituals and adolescent initiations (e.g., Kirshen-
Simon Ottenberg,and CharlesPiot), to all of whom I extend blatt-Gimblett 1982). Furthermore, members of contempo-
my deep thanks. Comments that I have been unable to ad- rary Western religious communities, including Amish,
dress here for lack of space will be taken up in the book I am Mennonite, and Chasidic Jewish communities, usually pro-
writing on this subject. mote systematic child-rearing agendas based explicity on
For support of my field research and writing,I am beholden religious doctrines.
to the National Endowmentfor the Humanities,the Wenner- Between medical and religious orientationslies the psycho-
Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, the Social logical zone. Nancy Abelmann(personal communication,Au-
Science Research Council, the United States Information gust 1996) has commented that ^ 'our' conception of infancy
Agency, and several units at the University of Illinois: the also includes a needy baby who is (perhaps ineffectively)
Center for Advanced Study, the Research Board, and the trying to communicate her needs to a parent who doesn't
Center for AfricanStudies. always quite get it.nIn this senseXone commonWesternmodel
I thank VictoriaPifalo and Priscilla McIntosh,of the Medi- would lie somewhere between the two extreme models I have
cal Sciences Library,Raeann Dossett, of the Documents Li- sketched (Beng-spiritualversus biomedical).
brary,and CynthiaFischer, of the Departmentof Psychology, 5. E.g., Creider 1986;MacGaffey1986;Okri 1991;Oluwole
all at the Universityof Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, for help 1992;Uchendu 1965. A comparative study across the conti-
with references. nent might reveal significant convergences and systematic
For intellectual support during my research, I owe a con- correlations.
tinuingdebt, which I always strive in vain to repay,to my dear 6. I focus on life in rural Beng villages, with which I am
friends AKPOUEHAmenan Veronique and KOUADIOBAH most familiar.Among the very small group of Beng mothers
Yacouba.Other Beng friends who shared with me their deep now living in towns and cities, infant care practices seem to
insights into Beng infant culture duringsummer 1993include vary.
KOUAKOUBAH and the late KOKORAKouassi, as well as 7. The title of this section (which is the workingtitle of the
dozens of Beng women, young and old, whose struggles with book I am writing on this subject) speaks both respectfully
motherhood in the face of grindingpoverty I found humbling.
and critically to a posthumous volume of collected essays by
That summer, KOUADIOBertin, KOUAKOUAugustin, and
the noted psychoanalyst D. W. Winnicott,Home Is Where We
KOUASSIKwameDieudonnealso served as wonderfullyable
Start From (1986), whose title is itself inspiredby a line from
assistants. Bertin has continued to serve as a research assis-
T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets.
tant as he has made the transition to American student and
8. The urban nature of wrugbe implies an Zother"world
adoptive son at my own Universityof Illinois, a dual role that
that is truly Other7given the very ruralnature of traditional
I hold dear. In this essay, some personal names used are
pseudonyms. Beng society. Consideringthe relatively recent (and still par-
Finally, members of my immediate family continue to in- tial) engagementof the Beng with the globalized,urbanworld
spire me, each in their own ways. Ourson Nathaniel'sbaby- (Gottlieb 1992:1-8), this presumablyrecent innovationin the
hood originally motivated me to think anthropologically indigenous cosmology is signiElcant,revealingat once a crea-
about infancy, and our daughterHannah'stoddlerhood now tive effort to incorporate modernity into the framework of
continues this tradition.Sharingfieldwork, our children, and tradition and an effort to distance the "otherworld"as dra-
conversations about these with my husbandPhilip Grahamis maticallyas possible from this one (see Comaroffand Coma-
a continual pleasure. roff 1993;Gottlieb 1992:119-142).
1. The one exception to this tendency is the study of teen- 9. See Ardener 1989:117, 123, et passim on demographic
agers (or younger children) in the context of organizedinitia- false consciousness" andifolk-demography."
tion rituals. Africanist discussions along these lines are par- 10. John Peel (personal communication, April 14, 1996)
ticularly well known. Audrey Richards's (1956) and Victor has noted that a somewhat similar zeontradiction"(by West-
Turner's(1967) explorations of Chisungugirls' and Ndembu ern standards)exists in Yorubathought:ancestors are said to
boys' initiations, respectively, set the tone for several genera- inhabittwo levels simultaneously,both individualand collec-
tions of future scholars' writings. See, for example, LaFon- tive, with no problem perceived concerning what appears to
taine 1985, Ottenberg1989,and Schloss 1988. Westernlogic as internal inconsistency.
2. A brief but provocative treatment of infants' experi- 11. In one study of infants born vaginally in Seattle, the
ences of religion in general and the afterlife in particular is mean number of days for umbilical cord separationwas 12.9
found in Leis 1982. Far more works investigate the lives of (Novack et al. 1988:221),though the range was 3 to 45 days.
children without concentrating on religious experiences. The mean appears to be shorter in developing countries (for
Other anthropologists mention infancy in passing as part of an explanatory hypothesis, see Novack et al. 1988:222);for
longer discussions of life-cycle issues, but few have taken example, in a study of infants born vaginally in India, the
infants themselves seriously as a proper subject of extended mean numberof days was 5.2 (Bhalla et al. 1975).At the time
inquiry,and fewer still have investigated their religious lives of my own fieldwork, there weren't enough newborns for me
(see Gottlieb 1997). to observe this phenomenon at a statistically significantlevel.
 133
LIVESOFBENGBABIES/ ALMAGOTTLIEB
THESPIRITUAL

12. If the stump falls off early enough in the morning,the References Cited
rituals are conducted soon; otherwise, they are carried out
the morningof the next day. Extended symbolic elaboration Abu-Lughod,Lila
and/or ritualtreatment of the umbilical stump in one way or 1995 A Tale of Two Pregnancies.In Women WritingCul-
another is by no means uncommon in West Africa; for a ture. Ruth Behar and Deborah A. Gordon, eds. Pp.
notable example from the Igbo of Nigeria, see Uchendu 339-349. Berkeley: Universityof CaliforniaPress.
1965:58-59. Arad,I., F. Eyal, and P. Fainmesser
13. In another chapter in my forthcoming book on this 1981 Umbilical Care and Cord Separation. Archives of
topic, I develop the more pragmaticrationalefor this practice Disease in Childhood56:887-888.
from the perspective of the mother and her labor demands. Ardener,Edwin
14. The gradualness of this process has been noted else- 1989[1974] Social Anthropologyand Population.In Edwin
where in Africa (e.g., for the Ijaw of Nigeria, see Leis Ardener:The Voice of Prophecy and Other Essays. Mal-
1982:154)and in other world areas such as Indonesia (Edward colm Chapman,ed. Pp. 109-126. Oxford, England:Basil
Bruner,personal communication,August 1996;Diener n.d.). Blackwell.
Bruner has also speculated that a gradual process of entry Bavin, Edith L.
into Uthisworld" may correlate with a gradual process of 1995 Language Acquisition in Cross-LinguisticPerspec-
exiting from it, which in turn correlates with a long and tive. AnnualReview of Anthropology24:373-396.
drawn-outset of funeral rituals. Behar, Ruth
15. The ancient French coins are sometimes sold in local 1995 Writingin My Father's Name:A Diary of Translated
markets, though they are increasingly rare. The tie between Woman's First Year. In Women WritingCulture. Ruth
infants and cowries is found elsewhere in West Africa, for Behar and Deborah A. Gordon,eds. Pp. 65-82. Berkeley:
example, amongthe Mossi of BurkinaFaso, who for a sum of University of CaliforniaPress.
cowrie shells may asellXa new infant born to a woman who 1996 The VulnerableObserver:AnthropologyThatBreaks
has had many stillbirthsor manyprevious children who died, YourHeart. Boston, MA:Beacon Press.
as a means of protecting the newborn against tragedy (Skin- Behar, Ruth,and Deborah A. Gordon,eds.
ner 1962:274).Charles Piot (personal communication, No- 1995 WomenWritingCulture.Berkeley:Universityof Cali-
vember 1996) suggests that the Beng custom of adorning foInia Press.
Bhalla,J. N., N. Nafis, P. Rohtagi,and Singh
babies with cowrie shells implies an emphasis on separation
1975 Some Observations on Separation of the Umbilical
(from the other world) that echoes separations experienced
Stump in the Newborn. Indian Journal of Pediatrics
elsewhere in the circulation of cowrie shells, for example, in
42:329-334.
the market (between persons and their products) and be- Bruner,Edward,and Victor Turner,eds.
tween the living and the dead (in the Voltaic area). 1986 The Anthropologyof Experience.Urbana:University
16. Variations on this theme seem to exist elsewhere in of Illinois Press.
Africa.For example, amongthe Sukuma/Nyamwezipeople of Bullowa, Margaret,ed.
Tanzania,people possessed by ancestral spirits often begin 1979 Before Speech: The Beginningof InterpersonalCom-
inexplicably to speak in the languages of surroundingethnic munication. Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press.
groups (especially the Maasaiand the Taturupeoples)-lan- Caudill,William
guages that neither the possessed themselves nor their 1972 Tiny Dramas: Vocal Communication between
Sukuma/Nyamwezi audiences can understand (Roth Mother and Infant in Japanese and American Families.
1996:204-205).A notion of a multilingualand mutually com- In MentalHealth Research in Asia and the Pacific, vol. 2.
prehensible afterlife not unlike that envisioned by the Beng TransculturalResearch in MentalHealth. WilliamP. Le-
may be at work here. bra, ed. Pp. 25-48. Honolulu:UniversityPress of Hawaii.
17. On the striking congruence with a widely accepted Comaroff,Jean, and John Comaroff,eds.
scholarly model of early language development, see Werker 1993 Modernityand Its Malcontents.Chicago:University
1989. of Chicago Press.
18. E.g., Bavin 1995:379-381; Caudill 1972; Ochs and Comaroff,John
Schieffelin 1984;Snow et al. 1979. 1987 Sui Genderzs:Feminism,KinshipTheory, and Struc-
19. E.g., Kilbrideand Kilbride 1983; Super and Harkness tural UDomains-" In Gender and Kinship:Essays toward
1974. a Unified Analysis. Jane Fishburne Collier and Sylvia
20. For reasons explaining this double tendency, see Ort- JunkoYanagisako,eds. Pp. 53-85. Stanford,CA:Stanford
ner 1974, 1989-90 and Rosaldo 1974, 1980. University Press.
21. E.g., Beharand Gordon1995;Ginsburgand Rapp 1995; Crago,Martha
Glenn et al. 1994;Rich 1976. 1992 Ethnography and Language Acquisition: A Cross-
22. E.g., Comaroff1987;MacCormackand Strathern1980; Cultural Perspective. Topics in Language Disorders
Rogers 1978. 12(3):2-39.
23. E.g., Abu-Lughod 1995; Behar 1995, 1996; Gottlieb Creider,Jane Tapsubei
1995a;Okely and Callaway 1992;Schri,ivers1993. 1986 Two Lives: My Spirit and I. London:Women'sPress.
134 AMERICAN * VOL. 100, NO. 1 * MARCH1998
ANTHROPOLOGIST

Diener, Marissa Kirshenblatt-Gimblett,Barbara

N.d. Balinese Child Care.In A Worldof Babies: Imagined 1982 The Cut That Binds:The WesternAshkenazic Torah
Infant Care Manuals from Other Cultures. Judy De- Binder as Nexus between Circumcision and Torah. In
Loache and Alma Gottlieb, eds. UnpublishedMS. Celebration: Studies in Festivity and Ritual. Victor
Farnell,Brenda Turner, ed. Pp. 136-146. Washington,DC: Smithsonian
1994 Ethno-graphics and the Moving Body. Man Institution Press.
29:929-974. LaFontaine,Jean
Ferguson,C. 1985 Initiation.Harmondsworth,England:Penguin.
1977 Baby Talk as a Simplified Register. In Talking to Leach, Penelope
Children: Language Input and Acquisition. Catherine 1983 Babyhood. 2nd edition. New York:Knopf.
Snow and C. Ferguson, eds. Pp. 209-235. Cambridge: Leis, Nancy
CambridgeUniversity Press. 1982 The Not-So-SupernaturalPower of Ijaw Children.In
Geertz,Clifford AfricanReligious Groupsand Beliefs: Papers in Honor of
1973a[1966] Religion as a CulturalSystem. In The Inter- WilliamR. Bascom. Simon Ottenberg, ed. Pp. 151-169.
pretation of Cultures:Selected Essays. Pp. 87-125. New Meerut,India:Folklore Insitute/ArchanaPublications.
York:Basic Books. LeVine,Robert
1973b Thick Description: Toward an InterpretiveTheory 1973 Patterns of Personalityin Africa. Ethos 1:123-152.
of Culture.In The Interpretation of Cultures:Selected 1977 ChildRearingas CulturalAdaptation.In Cultureand
Essays. Pp. 3-30. New York:Basic Books. Infancy:Variationsin the HumanExperience. P. Herbert
1983 Common Sense as a Cultural System. In Local Leiderman,Steven R. TulkinXand Anne Rosenfeld, eds.
Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropol- Pp. 15-27. New York:Academic Press.
ogy. Pp. 73-93. New York:Basic Books. 1984 MaternalBehavior and Child Development in High-
Ginsburg,Faye D., and RaynaRapp, eds. Fertility Populations. Fertility Determinants Research
1995 Conceiving the New World Order:The Global Poli- Notes 2 (September):1-9.
tics of Reproduction.Berkeley: University of California 1987 Women's Schooling, Patterns of Fertility, and Child
Press. Survival.EducationalResearcher(December):21-27.
Glenn, Evelyn Nakano, Grace Chang,and LindaRennie LeVine,Robert, Suzanne Dixon, SarahLeVine,Amy
Forcey, eds. Richman,P. HerbertLeiderman,Constance H. Keefer, and
1994 Mothering:Ideology, Experience, and Agency. New T. Berry Brazelton
York:Routledge. 1994 Child Care and Culture:Lessons from Africa. New
Goldschmidt,Walter York:CambridgeUniversityPress.
1975 Absent Eyes and Idle Hands: Socialization for Low Lewis, Michael,and LeonardA. Rosenblum,eds.
Affect among the Sebei. Ethos 3(2):157-163. 1974 The Effect of the Infant on Its Caregiver.New York:
Gottlieb,Alma John Wiley and Sons.
1992 Under the Kapok Tree: Identity and Difference in MacConnack,Carol,and MarilynStrathem, eds.
Beng Thought.Bloomington:IndianaUniversityPress. 1980 Nature, Cultureand Gender.Cambridge:Cambridge
1995a The Anthropologist as Mother: Reflections on University Press.
Childbirth Observed and Childbirth Experienced. An- MacGaffey,Wyatt
thropologyToday 11(3):10-14. 1986 Religion and Society in CentralAfrica:The BaKongo
1995b Of Cowries and Crying:A Beng Guide to Managing of Lower Zaire.Chicago:Universityof Chicago Press.
Colic. Anthropologyand Humanism20(1):20-28. Mills,Antonia, and RichardSlobodin, eds.
1997 WhereHave All the Babies Gone? Reflections on an 1994 Amerindian Rebirth: Reincarnation Belief among
Anthropologyof Infancy. Paper presented at the Annual NorthAmericanIndiansand Inuit.Toronto:University of
Meeting of the American Ethnological Society, Seattle, Toronto Press.
March6-9. Novack, Alvin H., Beth Mueller,and Hans Ochs
N.d. The Afterlife Is Where We Come From: Infant Care 1988 Umbilical Cord Separationin the NorrnalNewborn.
among the Beng of Cote d'Ivoire.MS in preparation. AmericanJourna!.of Diseases of Children 142:220-223.
Gottlieb,Alma,and Philip Graham Ochs, Elinor, and Bambi B. Schieffelin
1993 ParallelWorlds:An Anthropologistand a WriterEn- 1984 Language Acquisition and Socialization: Three De-
counter Africa. New York:Crown/RandomHouse. velopmental Stories and Their Implications. In Culture
Howes David Theory: Essays on Mind,Self, and Emotion. Richard A.
1991 The Varieties of Sensory Experience: A Sourcebook Shweder and Robert A. LeVine,eds. Pp. 276-320. Cam-
in the Anthropology of the Senses. Toronto: University bridge:CambridgeUniversityPress.
of Toronto Press. Okely, Judith, and Helen Callaway,eds.
Kilbride,Philip L., and Janet E. Kilbride 1992 Anthropologyand Autobiography.New York:Rout-
1983 Socialization for High Positive Affect between ledge.
Motherand Infant among the Bagandaof Uganda.Ethos Okri,Ben
11(4):232-245. 1991 The Famished Road. London:Jonathan Cape.
 THESPIRITUAL
LIVESOFBENGBABIES/ ALMAGOTTLIEB
1 35

Oluwole, Sophie B. Skinner,Elliot

1992 Reincarnation:An Issue in African Philosophy? In 1962 Tradeand Marketsamong the Mossi People. In Mar-
Witcheraft,Reincarnationand the God-head.N.p. Lagos: kets in Africa. Paul Bohannan and George Dalton, eds.
Excel Publishers. Pp. 237-278. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University
Ortner,Sherry Press.
1974 Is Femaleto Maleas NatureIs to Culture?In Woman, Smiley, Patricia, and Janellen Huttenlocher
Culture and Society. Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo and 1995 Conceptual Development and the Child's Early
Louise Lamphere,eds. Pp. 67-87. Stanford,CA:Stanford Words for Events, Objects, and Persons. In Beyond
University Press. Namesfor Things:YoungChildren'sAcquisitionof Verbs.
1989-90 Gender Hegemonies. CulturalCritique 14 (Win-
Michael Tomasello and William E. Merriman,eds. Pp.
ter):35-80.
Ottenberg,Simon 21-61. Hillsdale, NJ:Lawrence E. Erlbaum.
1989 Boyhood Rituals in an African Society: An Interpre- Snow, Catherine
tation. Seattle: Universityof WashingtonPress. 1977 Mothers' Speech Research: From Input to Inter-
Rich, Adrienne action. In Talking to Children:LanguageInput and Ac-
1976 Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and quisition. CatherineSnow and CharlesA. Ferguson,eds.
Institution. New York:Norton. Pp. 31-49. New York:CambridgeUniversityPress.
Richards,Audrey Snow, Catherine,Akke de Blauw, and Ghislainevan
1956 Chisungu:A Girls' Initiation Ceremony among the Roosmalen
Bemba of NorthernRhodesia.London:Faber and Faber. 1979 Talkingand Playingwith Babies: The Role of Ideolo-
Rogers, Susan Carol gies of Child-Rearing.In Before Speech: The Beginning
1978 Woman'sPlace: CriticalReview of Anthropological of InterpersonalCommunication.MargaretBullowa, ed.
Theory. Comparative Studies in Society and History Pp. 269-288. Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress.
20(1):123-162. Stoller, Paul
Rosaldo, Michelle Zimbalist 1989 The Taste of Ethnographic Things: The Senses in
1974 Woman, Culture, and Society: A Theoretical Over- Anthropology.Philadelphia:University of Pennsylvania
view. In Woman,Cultureand Society. MichelleZimbalist Press.
Rosaldo and Louise Lamphere,eds. Pp. 17-42. Stanford, 1997 Sensuous Scholarship:ContemporaryEthnography.
CA:StanfordUniversityPress. Philadelphia:University of PennsylvaniaPress.
1980 The Use and Abuse of Anthropology:Reflections on Super, CharlesM., and Sara Harkness
Feminism and Cross-Cultural Understanding. Signs 1974 Patterns of Personality in Africa: A Note from the
5(3):389-417.
Field. Ethos 2:377-381.
Rosenthal Robert,and L. Jacobson
Turner,Victor
1968 Pygmalion in the Classroom:Teacher Expectations
1967 The Forest of Symbols. Ithaca, NY:Cornell Univer-
and Pupils' Intellectual Development. New York:Holt,
Rinehartand Winston. sity Press.
1973 Symbols in AfricanRitual.Science 179(4078)(March
Roth, Denise
1996 Bodily Risks,SpiritualRisks:ContrastingDiscourses 16):1100-1105.
of Pregnancy in a Rural Tanzanian Community. Ph.D. Uchendu, Victor C.
dissertation, Departmentof Anthropology,University of 1965 The Igbo of Southeast Nigeria.New York:Holt, Rine-
Illiniois at Urbana-Champaign. hart and Winston.
Schloss, MarcR. Werker,Janet F.
1988 The Hatchet'sBlood:Separation,Power, and Gender 1989 Becoming a Native Listener. American Scientist
in Ehing Social Life.Tucson:Universityof ArizonaPress. 77:54-59.
Schri,ivers,Joke Winnicott,D. W.
1993 Motherhood Experienced and Conceptualised: 1986 Home Is Where We Start From: Essays in Psycho-
Changing Images in Sri Lanka and the Netherlands. In analysis. Clare Winnicott,Ray Shepherd,and Madeleine
Gendered Fields: Women,Men and Ethnography.Diane Davis, eds. New York:W. W. Norton.
Bell, Pat Caplan, and Wazir Jahan Karim, eds. Pp. 1987 Babies and Their Mothers. Reading, MA:Addison-
143-159. New York:Routledge. Wesley.