YORUBYTE: THE AFRICAN SCIENCE OF TYING THE PREGNANCY OF A WOMAN
“Won o ni de Oyun mo e ninu o” is a very serious prayer
which you hear many pregnant women shout AMEN to. Loosely translated into
English from the native Yoruba language, it means “May your pregnancy not be
tied using African voodoo”.
If you have been opportuned to watch either Ogunde’s “Aiye”
or “Jaiyesinmi”, you would have seen where a woman was pregnant for 2 years (24
months) and she still was not due for delivery, causing great pains, anguish
and suffering for the lady. The inexperienced would dismiss it and say it’s
merely a film. Just film Ke? Aiye o! Akamara! Ta’motiye! (I can’t find an
adequate translation for those words than to say DANGER!). Please do not be
mistaken, it’s no mere film, it’s REAL! The African fore fathers really knew
and had the science to ensure that a pregnant woman does not give birth. This
is why some people call our fore fathers diabolic or demonic. I smile, for it
is not so. I would explain in a jiffy….
Medically, there is a condition called Cervical
incompetence (or cervical insufficiency). This is a medical condition in
which a pregnant woman's cervix begins to dilate (widen) and efface (thin)
before her pregnancy has reached term. This causes miscarriages in women. Some
women are so unlucky that they have these miscarriages severally. Medical
science has recently learnt to solve this problem through a surgical procedure
called CERVICAL CERCLAGE, a surgical technique that reinforces the cervical
muscle by placing stitches above the opening of the cervix to narrow the
cervical canal and the woman can NEVER have a natural delivery except the
cerclage is removed. That is, her cervix is tied, blocked. Simply put, THE PREGNANCY IS TIED. Personally, I know at least 3 ladies that have subjected
themselves through this painful procedure.
Our African fore fathers had been performing this “Cerclage”
long before medical sciences learnt about it. And the best part is that when
done the African way, it requires no surgery, neither is it a painful process.
It can be as simple as just putting on a ring that had been specially prepared
with herbs that can lock the cervix just by contacting the body. Then, our
fathers say “A ti de oyun e” – we have tied your pregnancy. Tying the pregnancy
was actually done by our fore fathers to assist women, not to cause them pains.
Whenever a pregnancy was so tied, the antidote is always handed over either to
the woman or her husband. It was a more efficient, less painful treatment than
the current medical procedure. Most of all, it is non-intrusive. The pregnancy
would never come down until the antidote is invoked. For example, removing the
ring after the 9th month.
The Recipe for Pregnancy Tying includes Ogere Epo (Palm Oil
top layer), Ewe Padimo-Padimo (The padimo-padimo leaf – It’s a leaf that once
you touch, it closes up. We used to play with it while we were kids), and the
most important of the ingredients is ………..
As usual with most inventions, the GOOD art of “Pregnancy
Tying” has been learnt by wicked people and they are using it to cause evil in
the land.
I repeat again, may you or your women never need to have
your pregnancy tied. Either using the painful oyinbo method or the painless
African method.
Africa my Africa. A people with advanced science long before
the advent of modern science.
PS: Thanks to Araba of Ipakodo that gave me the recipe,
unfortunately, he didn’t disclose the last ingredient to me. He said to me
“what the elders eat the corn-meal with is kept under the leaf”.
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