Feb 19, 2015 · Exploring the history of pregnancy, birth, and infancy around the world. In 2004, Alma Gottlieb published a unique ethnography on the babies of the Beng people in Côte d’Ivoire called The Afterlife is Where We Come From: The Culture of Infancy in West Africa.

To address this question, let us investigate the cultural contours of child­hood as it is imagined in one corner of rural West Africa. A Beng village. For the Beng people—a small minority group living in Côte d’Ivoire—the first prerequisite to understanding chil­dren and how to raise them is acknowledging that they come from wrugbe.

From my previous stays in West Africa, I knew that it is taboo for people to whistle while they are in a Beng village. Beng adults had explained this by reminding me that the alufye spirits who are said to live in the forest communicate with one another by whistling.

For the Beng people of Côte d’Ivoire in West Africa, babies are not born as clean slates but as reincarnations of ancestors who long to return. A Beng infant is thought to begin its new life filled with spiritual knowledge, a belief that profoundly affects the way the …

Having just come from the Beng afterlife, or wrugbe, where everyone is said to speak his or her own language but any language is understood by all, Beng babies are believed to comprehend all languages. Gradually, they lose this ability as they choose to speak one language.

In “Babies as Ancestors, Babies as Spirits: The Culture of Infancy in West Africa,” Alma Gottlieb explores the cultural values that underlie childhood in one corner of rural West Africa. In Côte d'Ivoire, the Beng people believe in an afterlife called wrugbe, where the deceased are said to live as ancestors before they are reincarnated in ...

When a new baby arrives among the Beng people of West Africa, they see it not as being born, but as being reincarnated after a rich life in a previous world. Far from being a tabula rasa, a Beng infant is thought to begin its life filled with spiritual knowledge.

There are about 12,000 Beng people, the vast majority living in the West African nation of Côte d’Ivoire. Most Beng live in villages on the northern edge of the rain forest; a smaller number of Beng live in towns, and some work as laborers on commercial plantations.

Jul 24, 2019 · In 2004, Alma Gottlieb published a unique ethnography, The Afterlife is Where We Come From: The Culture of Infancy in West Africa based on Beng people…

"The Beng (pronounced beng), also known as the Gan or Ngan, are a people group of Cote d’Ivoire" (International Mission Board, 2012). The reason I decided to study and write about the Beng's birthing practices is because of a previous study I …