Seasons of Dancing by Eunice Olawo

Author:Eunice Olawo [Eunice Olawo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-9966-05-212-4
Publisher: Master Publishing
Published: 2014-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five

A Time for Life, a Time for Death

ACCORDING TO LUO TRADITION, A newborn Luo girl stays in the house from birth, but the newborn Luo boy stays for three days only. It had to be this way because girls were always meant to be kept close to home, while the boys were encouraged to explore the world at an early age. I did not have a chance to follow the tradition because I gave birth to my three sons in a hospital. Haggai, Anthony, and Henry were all delivered normally, so we were discharged within twenty-four hours each time. Had I given birth according to the customs of my people, I would have had to sit on a very hard stone inside my home, with women of the village attending to my needs. It was always an all-women affair; no men were allowed. If they ever dared to appear, they were very quickly chased away by the females. There was no real taboo in the practice, but it was just that the men were not welcome, perhaps for the sake of the mother’s modesty.

The birthing stone is elevated above the ground and should bear the woman’s weight when she sits on it. Another woman supports her back. Gravity plays a role in the delivery of the child, hence the mother’s position is upright. Aside from a midwife, at least three other women come to assist in the birth. They crush medicinal leaves and boil them in water, applying them to the belly of the mother so she can quickly get rid of the placenta. They would also massage her back to make her wounds heal faster after the delivery. The midwife is the one who oversees everything and knows the proper processes. In those days, the midwife’s knowledge and experience were handed down from one generation to the next instead of being learned within an academic environment.

The traditional midwife has her own way of checking the opening. She simply looks at the perineum to see if it’s gaping. Unlike today, she does not need to take measurements in centimetres. She works from gut instincts. If the opening is wide enough from her visual assessment, she encourages the mother to push. Once the baby is out, the umbilical cord is cut by a razor blade. Many years ago, they used a wooden instrument for cutting the cord, which must have been very uncomfortable for the mother, as she could certainly feel the sawing effect. Thankfully, for Mum’s sake, I was born when the razor blade was already being used.

In adherence to tradition, the umbilical cord and placenta are buried in the kitchen garden. And they have to be protected from witches. In western Kenya, no matter how much urbanisation has already crept in, people still believed in such supernatural beings. If witches got hold of the afterbirth, they could use it to control the child and mother. It, therefore, had to be buried in a secret place by the assisting women.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.