My Tribe

I come from a tribe called 'bajju' or 'jju'. There are many villages that are under this tribe. The village I belong to is named 'Zonkwa'.It's located in the southern region of Kaduna state, Nigeria. Read more about this tribe at: http://diaryofanafricanteen.blogspot.com/2013/05/all-about-my-tribe-origin-superstition_12.html

When I say 'village', people tend to think of huts, public rivers for bathing and drinking water, naked children running around and looking like aliens. This is not so in Zonkwa. There are tarred roads, modern buildings, pipe borne water and electricity available for the villagers. Although there are still some uncivilized naked running people roaming around in the forests.

I don't really know how to speak my language because in my home we speak only English. I only know some basic stuff in jju such as 'come', 'go', 'eat', 'get the hell out' etc. 

We once lived in an apartment building owned by the company my mum works for. The apartment on the ground floor belonged to an annoying woman who always spoke jju to me anytime we met. I always tried to avoid her whenever I was on my way out of the building, but she always seemed to know when I was be passing by. She'd burst out of her apartment the moment I'm about to reach the exit.

"Baranzan!" Baranzan is my tribal name. She always called me by this name.

"Anake?" This means where are you going?

She always did that! Always asking me where I was going to, like the information was of the highest importance.

I never understood the rest of what she was saying, I just used common sense to know what the question was about, and then reply in English. 

Currently, the people of my tribe no longer worship idols and make animal sacrifices like they did years ago. The place is now a Christian ground. 

But in the days before the missionaries, many superstitions existed that seem crazy now. For example, it was a law that a pregnant woman cannot eat eggs. If she ate them, she would be eating her baby and it would die.

There was also something about not leaning against the wall with your back. But I've forgotten what that signifies.

In those days, there was also a strong belief of having animal bodies. It was believed that everyone had an animal attached to them and that at their will, they could transfer their soul to the animal and control it's physical body. 

I'll make sure I do my research extensively and then post a full list of the crazy superstitions that existed within my tribe years before the missionaries arrived.