It's easier for children to believe whatever they are told, their innocence and inexperience makes them vulnerable to every folktales and myths. Every African child had gone through this stage where they held onto false belief only to realize it wasn't true. These misconceptions and myths were a way to tame a child from either misbehaving or to make them develop certain habits. Even though we later realized they were all false, this experience made our childhood memorable. I have several myths I believed while I was growing up, these were common among our peers until we grew to a certain age did we realize we've been deceived all the while.
The First Myth was that "If we removed a tooth, we needed to throw it on the rooftop where lizards can't access, else we wouldn't grow tooth again". The idea of not growing a tooth was scary, no one wanted to stay toothless at a very young age. As much as possible, we tried to avoid the lizard from seeing our pulled out tooth. Sometimes we go as far as looking for a safe place to throw away that tooth. But as I grew in understanding, I realized a lizard has no connection with a tooth and that it was all a lie. Imagine the relief from being careful and being selective in where to throw a tooth.
The Second Myth was that "An orange seed grows in our stomach if swallowed". You can imagine how hard we tried not to swallow an orange seed. I was very careful whenever I squeezed out the liquid from an orange to avoid the seed getting past my esophagus through my pharynx down to the stomach. I almost cried the day the mistake happened and a seed escaped down to my stomach. I had imagined the worst, like an orange tree throwing in my stomach, but it never happened. It was at that moment I realized it had been a lie all the while.
The myth and Misconception I'm yet to verify even in my adulthood is that "Bush babies(panda) walk around with a mat, and if one can have access to the mat and endure the crying of the bush baby(panda) for a week, that person would become rich". I know I can't endure their cries, so I didn't bother to find one. But I visualize it, having to collect their mat and running away. Our love for money didn't start today, hahaha.
Finally, as childrenwe believed cattle Egrets can give us a white mark on our fingers if we sing a certain song. There are times I see those white marks on my finger after singing the song and I'm confused if it was the bird that gave me the mark on my fingers or not. Whenever we see no mark, we believe we didn't sing hard enough or the bird didn't accept our request. We always boast to our friends if we notice any white mark on our finger, saying how we've been favored. The song always has a promise of an exchange, saying, we'll give them a black finger if they give us a white one. Now I just wonder where the hell did I get a black finger. Every of these misconceptions and myths were buried as we advanced in age. Now we just laugh over it, how foolish we were as children.