Books: Freshwater

‘How do you survive when they place a god inside your body? … It should be no surprise that her skin would split or her mind would break.’

There exists within the Igbo, Yoruba, and Urhobo communities of Southern Nigeria the cultural belief in the Ogbanje.¹ In its simplest description, the Ogbanje are spiritual entities that enter a child on the day of its birth. The child will hear the voice of the Ogbanje internally; the spirit will make obscure and relentless demands that are often damaging to the body, and if the requests …