Where a baby’s sickness is blamed on ‘evil bird’ stare

An evil bird is hovering over Lamu Island and the entire archipelago, or so some residents think. Parents are taking extreme measures to protect their young ones.

This evil bird is believed to possess powers that make babies and toddlers extremely sick and, in worst-case scenarios, dead just by a single stare.

The locals call this bird ‘Nyuni wa Wana’ loosely translated to mean ‘One who seeks to take babies’.

Scholars dismiss the belief and say it has no basis in Islam. But like witchcraft, it has captured residents’ imagination.

Lamu elder and historian Mohamed Mbwana says the bird is the size of a crow and mostly grey coloured.

“Everything about it looks normal except the eyes. They are deep, red and big. They are scary. It’s believed if the bird looks at a baby and their eyes lock, the baby will fall seriously ill,” he says.

The bird lives on large trees and only moves around at night. It spends the day sleeping and recharging for the night, Mbwana says.

He says it has a way of snooping around in the night, looking for babies to cast a spell on.

“It’s a mysterious bird even in the way it operates, only choosing to fly around at night, when people are sleeping or have let their guard down,” Mbwana says.

The local community believes this bird carries evil powers as all those who ever came face to face with it without proper ‘protection’ ended up extremely sick.

In the worst cases, young children who encountered the evil eye of the bird died mysteriously, they believe.

PROTECTIVE MEASURES

Mbwana says children, especially babies from ages zero to toddlers, seem to be the biggest target of the evil bird, and they are the ones that suffer the worst symptoms whenever the bird strikes.

As a result, parents in Lamu have devised their own traditional remedies of keeping their babies safe from the ‘stare’ of the bird.

For instance, they ensure the kids wear charms at all times until they attain an age where it is believed their spirit naturally repels the evil powers of the bird.

The charms, Mbwana says, are made from the bone of the bird, which are then fused with traditional medicine and tied to the baby’s wrist, neck or waist for protection.

Babies are also painted with ugly eye pencils or charcoal marks on their faces and cheeks with the intent of making them ugly and unappealing to the bird.

“Apparently it loves good-looking faces and since we know babies are cute, they have to be painted that way to keep them safe,” Mbwana says.

He says the community believes the bird is either the devil himself or acts on behalf of the devil to torment young children and deny them good health and a happy childhood.

“It’s an evil bird that is either believed to be working on its own or is sent by the devil to torment children. But there are charms which, when worn, the bird cannot harm whoever is wearing them, in this case the child,”  Mbwana says.

The elder says that so evil and powerful is the bird that even grown men shake helplessly when they encounter it.

“I’m telling you, it’s not a normal bird. Its eyes are something no one will ever wish to find themselves staring into. I personally have seen it and I tell you, the experience shook me,” he says.

SIGNS OF ITS ATTACK

A baby which has been hit by the evil bird stare presents specific symptoms according to elder Omar Mbwana, some of which might be confused for the normal flu or malaria.

The commonest symptom is an extremely high fever, which doesn’t seem to cool down even after the normal fever interventions.

“The body will be burning hot and nothing, not even medicine, will be able to bring down the fever. That tells you the baby was stared at by the bird and had no protection on at the time,” he says.

Mbwana warns that taking such a child to hospital will likely make matters worse as the fever will become worse and any interventions using modern medicine are immediately repulsed by the body under attack by the bird spell.

Another symptom of the bird attack is the loss of appetite and non-stop diarrhoea.

“We are talking about diarrhoea that will not stop at any cost and leaves the baby losing more water than necessary. Such tells you that the baby is under the bird’s attack and needs prompt intervention by traditional experts to cure them,” he says.

Muslim cleric and scholar Ahmed Mau admits to the tales of the evil bird and the local intervention involved in curing it but says Islam forbids such beliefs and doings.

“Babies presenting with such symptoms should simply be taken to hospital for medical attention,” he says.

He says such beliefs are too old and have been surpassed by both time and knowledge, and it would be prudent for the community to put their trust in God and medicine instead of such beliefs, which he feels are misleading.

“This, however, does not mean these things are not happening. There are people who believe there exists such a bird and that it can harm them, but then where is our faith if we believe such? Let people go to hospital when sick and believe that God will heal them,” Mau says.

He said such beliefs mostly affect poor families, who have limited exposure to knowledge, literacy and religion.

Mau says people need to move away from backward beliefs and seek to understand how the human body functions and the various diseases that can affect it and how they can be addressed in hospital.

TREATMENT OPTIONS

Elder Mbwana says treatment for the evil bird is not for everyone and that only specific families have been known to possess the art to do so.

He explains that such knowledge is not studied in class or anywhere else but rather passed down from generations and specifically from a father to one of his sons or daughters, in case he had no son.

“It’s a complicated art to treat such an affliction, and that’s why in Lamu, there are just about four families that can do this, my old man included,” he says.

He warns that if a child is afflicted by the evil bird stare, taking them to hospital could make the symptoms worse since modern medicine doesn’t do well with the infection.

“Such a child could easily die from such, and so there is a need to identify the symptoms and ensure they reach the expert right on time to save the life of that child,” Mbwana says.

So complex is the affliction that the elder says all tests fail to detect it, yet the patient will be looking sickly and almost dying.

“We have had cases where someone went to the lab and tested for malaria and all manner of diseases and it all came back negative, yet it was obvious that they are sick. That tells you it’s the evil bird affliction,” he says.

Treatment for the affliction involves taking assorted special herbs and leaves from a certain tree, whose presence remains top secret and is only known by the ‘specialist’.

The herbs and leaves are burnt and the incense sprayed over the sick child daily for a number of days or until the symptoms totally disappear.

Neither mother nor child should bathe for the entire period of treatment. The mother must not also eat fish nor have sex until her baby is totally healed.

“The recovery period takes between a week and a month, depending on the severity of each case. All the conditions must be adhered to, no matter how long it takes,” Mbwana says.

As a precaution both for the sick child and the rest, mothers are advised to walk around with their babies in public very early in the mornings and evenings, during which it is believed the bird spell is at its strongest.

“If they have to, then they must ensure their babies are made unappealing by rubbing powdered charcoal or eye pencil on their faces or they use charms,” he says.

Another precautionary measure taken by Lamu residents to ward off the evil bird is the erection of charms in the form of scarecrow-like structures containing ‘special’ medicine.

“It’s better to take all necessary precautions that wait to be harmed then act,” he says.

“The structures are erected on top of houses and are believed to keep away the bird and any other evil from any other sources.”

Lamu elder Muhashiam Famau says such beliefs are part of their culture as Bajunis and need to be respected.

He says there have been scenarios where such interventions have come in handy and saved lives, among other benefits witnessed by the community.

“Every community out there has beliefs and this is just one of ours. There are babies who were able to walk just by wearing charms on their legs,” Famau says.

“It’s not a bad thing. It’s unfortunate that young people are not really paying attention to such.”      BY THE STAR