I know a story.
An African story.
A beautiful story.
And I will tell it to you.
image source: google.
In Africa there is a country; Namibia.
In Namibia there is a tribe; Himba.
A solid name, don't you think?
Himba... Like the cry of a warrior...
But I digress.
In the Himba tribe, the birthday of a person is not the day the person was born or even conceived.
It is the day the mother strongly decides in her mind that she want to have a baby... The baby.
Then she goes and sits under a tree.
To listen, to the birth song of the child she has conceived in her mind.
Perhaps this song is whispered by the spirits of trees,
Or by the ancestors who have gone on before.
Or even by the child yet to be conceived by carnality.
And when she has heard this song,
She goes in to meet her husband, for the seed to be sown.
Upon conceiving, she sings this song.
The day the child is born, the midwives join the mother to sing.
On the child's wedding day, everyone gathers to sing the birth song of the bride and the groom.
If a person commits a crime, the village gathers to sing the criminal's birth song, for in the Himba tribe chastisement is born of love and not of violence.
The day this child dies, the birth song is sung one last time.
It is like a name.
An identity.
It is a beautiful culture.
What happens then if someone doesn't like his/ her birth song?
I wonder.