supernatural beings research

What is abiku?

Abiku refers to the spirits of children who die before reaching puberty; a child who dies before twelve years of age being called an Abiku, and the spirit, or spirits, who caused the death being also called Abiku.

Among the Yoruba and Dahomey people in West Africa, these are evil tree spirits that are born as children and die several times, often within the same family. I could be wrong, but I think the *ogbanje are basically the same thing. 

Abiku is a Yoruba word that can be translated as "predestined to death". It is from (abi) "that which was born" and (iku) "death".

The Igbos believe that ogbanje results from subversion of human destiny by willful alliance of the newborn with deities who guard the postulated interface between birth and pre-birth (spirit) existence, while the Yoruba attribute many abiku to possession of a pregnancy by spirit pranksters most often referred to as emere. Surviving persons manifest abnormalities of psychological life with vivid fantasy life or dreams characterized by the presence of water, orgiastic play with unfamiliar children, and frightening contact with a water goddess—mammy water. Labeled children and adolescents often exhibit manipulative, histrionic dissociative, and other maladaptive behavior. They may also be gifted.

Contradictory and facultative practices of excessive indulgence of and ostentatious hostility towards ogbanje/abiku children are described but are better understood as exhibitions of acceptance of life and rejection of death.

Among the Igbo people of Nigeria, a person who is reborn after birth. In the Igbo culture all humans undergo reincarnation, but some particularly evil children are born over and over again. They suffer terrible illnesses (typically their signs and symptoms match those of sickle cell disease) that inflict revenge upon families that have been cursed.

*Abstract Ogbanje/abiku refer to people who are believed to cycle rapidly and repeatedly through birth and death. A consecutive familial sequence of births and deaths of infants is construed as the same child dying and being born over and over again.