Death of a Child
Pregnancy and Birth
Pregnancy
Fertility
Birth
Death of a Child
After Live Birth
Childhood Initiation
Historic Dipo
Western Influences
Christian
Influences
Dipo Today
A child dying at a young age is a powerful message from the spirit world. One must observe the people and their actions around them, to see who has harmful attitudes or behaviors that could have caused the death. Observing ones relationship with nature to see if one had offended the spirits is also important to observe. If a spirit gets the impression that the family is too connected to the child, it would be reason enough to take the child back to the spirit world.
Spirits are supposed to teach gratitude, humility, and detachment. To demonstrate that they aren't attached to their future newly born children, a family will give them these names; “ragged clothes” or “garbage” . Families will also look at the new born for a familiar marking that they made on their previous child. If their new child has this mark its means that this child has the spirit of their dead child. The markings would have been made before the burial. There would have been special arrangements made to bury the child with potent charms, to try and increase the chance of the mother having more children and for the chance to have the spirit return. 4.