Yoruba, Nigeria
Before the Yoruba revered their twins and even gave names such as Taiwo which means “the first to taste the world” and Kehinde, “the child that came behind gets the rights of the elder,” they once considered twins a burden to bear.
For the longest time, twins would be killed to the point that traditional leaders decided to consult Ifa, a system of prophecy. The result: Shango, the diety, abhorred the killing and that the twin’s mother should dance to the spirit of Ibeji every five days.
This reduced twin infanticide and the community instituted a number of rituals to guide the raising of twins.
