Myths are inevitable in every society, hence when I saw the prompt of this week by the #hivenaija community, it was relatable.
1️⃣ᴡʜᴀᴛ ᴀʀᴇ ᴛʜᴇ ᴍʏᴛʜs ᴀɴᴅ ᴍɪsᴄᴏɴᴄᴇᴘᴛɪᴏɴs ᴡᴇ ʙᴇʟɪᴇᴠᴇᴅ ɪɴ ᴏᴜʀ ᴄʜɪʟᴅʜᴏᴏᴅ, ᴀɴᴅ ᴡʜᴇɴ ᴀɴᴅ ʜᴏᴡ ᴅɪᴅ ᴡᴇ ᴜɴᴄᴏᴠᴇʀ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴛʜᴇʏ ᴡᴇʀᴇɴ'ᴛ ʀᴇᴀʟɪsᴛɪᴄ?
What are myths
To the best of my knowledge, myths are historical stories or traditional stories that are passed down from generations to generation. These stories are believed to have ancient meaning relating to real life experiences. These could be false or true as the case may be, because somehow people use myths to correct children or scare them from a particular behavior they possess. In my country Nigeria, there are lots and lots of myths that we have heard especially when we were young, only to grow up and find out that all those stories were just meant to scare us to doing the right things.
MYTHS I BELIEVED DURING CHILDHOOD
There were several of them, I believe everyone knows about them and their misconceptions.
- One of such myths I can remember vividly occurred one day when my brother and myself went out and plucked plenty guava fruit from the tree. We were so excited that when we get home we would devour every single one of it. You know there is no way you eat guava without swallowing some of the seeds at least. So on getting home, all excited, we washed the fruit and started eating. My mom noticed we were swallowing some of the seeds that was when she stated that "if we swallow the seeds, the guava tree would grow in our stomachs". Omo... This discouraged us instantly and we stopped. I think rice too was included, eat too much rice, it would grow in your Tommy... Looool😂😂😂
- the myth about Lady koikoi, a ghost lady with red heel shoes who walks down the hall of girl's hostel, looking for who to deal with. I remember then when I first got in to the boarding, we heard stories of Lady koikoi, baba dudu and Bush baby terrorizing the school after light outs. During my six year stay in the boarding house I never encountered any of this except for one time we heard a baby like crying voice close to our room. It was so scary actually, we prayed for day to come.
- Baba dudu is another myth common in school hostels, it is believed that a man covers himself in black and has a slippery body that comes to steal only at night. One time someone raised a false alarm at 5am while were having our bath, as a girls only school, there was a stampede and everyone started running for safety. It was funny that day.
None of these myths have turn out to true, they have been misconceptions so far and false alarm. But for the Bush Baby aspect, I kinda believed it since I experienced it, the whatever was really crying seriously like a baby that night and it was so close to our window.
There are many more myths though, inexhaustible but for the sake of the #hivenaija weekly prompt, these are a few of what I know of.
Thanks for stopping by my blog👍