Blessing or curse? Communities that celebrate or kill twins

Twins

• In the past, among some communities, twins or triplets were dumped in the  forest to die or killed outright
• In other cases, women who gave birth to more than one baby had one of the babies (especially girls) killed or given away
• The women and the babies were subjected to elaborate cleansing rituals because they are considered “conduit for evil”

Even in this day and age, some Kenyans (and Africans by extension) still hold dear some strange cultural practices that were based on unfounded myths and ignorance. Take the case of giving birth to more than one child, for instance.

A nasty incident recently happened in Wekelekha village in Kanduyi constituency in Bungoma County where newly delivered twins died because a father-in-law considered them a bad omen.