Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T11:03:51.879Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Traveling Companions: The Burial of the Placenta in Niger

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 May 2019

Barbara M. Cooper
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

This article, part of a historical study of childbirth in the Sahel, draws upon oral interviews, ethnographic materials, and studies of midwifery to explore placenta burial in Niger. In the region the placenta is often referred to as the “traveling companion” that ushers the new human from one world to the next. Only through proper respect toward the placenta by means of careful burial can a woman’s future fertility be protected. The importance of protecting a woman’s future reproductive capacity accounts for both the centrality of this ritual to childbirth and for the appeal of the ritual expertise of elderly “traditional birth attendants” despite access to bio-medically trained midwives. Protecting a vulnerable parturient mother from the envy of those (such as co-wives) who might “tie up” her womb is an integral part of the process of childbirth. Appropriate placenta burial orchestrated by a woman’s therapy management group makes good on the cyclical intergenerational entrustment through which ancestors and descendants endure in a cycle linking birth and death, planting, and burial. “Traditional” rituals bear marks of major shifts in the agricultural economy, rapid urbanization, and ongoing adoption and reinterpretation of Islam. Multi-generational interviews reveal that across a broad range of ethnicities, status groups, and educational profiles, women in Niger share a concern for proper placenta burial. This approach to preserving women’s reproductive health and fertility is shared by adjacent neighbors, generations, and ethnicities.

Résumé:

Cet article fait partie d’une étude historique sur l’accouchement au Sahel. Il s’appuie sur des entretiens oraux, des matériaux ethnographiques et des études sur les sages-femmes pour explorer l’enterrement du placenta au Niger. Dans la région, le placenta est souvent appelé le « compagnon de voyage », accompagnant ainsi le nouveau-né d’un monde à l’autre. Ce n’est qu’en respectant le placenta au moyen d’un enterrement minutieux que la fertilité future d’une femme peut être protégée. La nécessité de protéger la capacité de reproduction future d’une femme tient compte à la fois de la centralité de ce rituel à l’accouchement et de l’attrait de l’expertise rituelle des anciennes “accoucheuses traditionnelles” bien que nombreuses soient des sages-femmes qui ont eu accès une formation biomédicale. Protéger une parturiente vulnérable contre l’envie de celles (comme les co-épouses) qui pourraient « attacher » son utérus est une partie intégrante du processus de l’accouchement. L’enterrement adéquate du placenta qui est orchestré par le groupe thérapeutique de la femme reflète le mandat cyclique intergénérationnel par lequel les ancêtres et les descendants perdurent, dans un cycle qui lie la naissance et la mort, l’ensemencement, et l’enterrement. Les rituels « traditionnels » portent les marques des changements majeurs qui sont survenus dans l’économie agricole, l’urbanisation rapide et une adoption et réinterprétation continues de l’Islam. Des entretiens multigénérationnels révèlent que dans un large éventail d’ethnies, de statuts sociaux et profils éducatifs différents, les femmes au Niger partagent une préoccupation pour la mise en terre convenable du placenta. Cette approche de la préservation de la santé reproductive et de la fertilité des femmes est partagée par les proches voisins, les générations et les ethnies.

Resumo:

Parte integrante de um trabalho sobre a história dos partos na região do Sahel, este artigo baseia-se em entrevistas, material etnográfico e estudos sobre o trabalho de parto, de modo a analisar a prática nigerense de enterrar placentas. Nesta região, a placenta é muitas vezes referida como “companheira de viagem,” trazendo o novo ser humano de um mundo para o outro. Para proteger a fertilidade da mulher, é necessário prestar o devido respeito à placenta, enterrando-a cuidadosamente. A importância de garantir a futura capacidade reprodutora da mulher explica quer a centralidade deste ritual de parto, quer a adesão aos rituais especializados das “assistentes de parto tradicionais,” independentemente de se recorrer a parteiras com formação biomédica. Faz também parte integrante do processo de parto proteger a vulnerável parturiente da inveja de todos aqueles (como as coesposas) que possam “amarrar” o seu útero. O enterro da placenta, devidamente organizado pelo grupo de gestão terapêutica da mulher, beneficia o processo de criação de confiança entre as gerações, através do qual progenitores e descendência percorrem um ciclo que liga nascimento e morte, cultivo e enterro. Nos rituais “tradicionais” identificam-se sinais das grandes mudanças ocorridas na economia agrícola, da urbanização acelerada, da contínua adoção e reinterpretação do Islão. Através de entrevistas plurigeracionais, percebemos que o enterro adequado da placenta é uma preocupação comum a um espectro alargado de etnias, estatutos e perfis de instrução. Este método de preservar a saúde reprodutiva e a fertilidade das mulheres é partilhado pelas populações vizinhas, atravessando gerações e etnias.

Keywords

Nigerchildbirthmidwiferyreproductionfertilityentrustmentplacenta burial
Type
Forum: Bodily Practices and Aesthetic Rituals in Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century Africa
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 62 , Issue 2 , June 2019 , pp. 127 - 148
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alidou, Ousseina. 2005. Engaging Modernity: Muslim Women and the Politics of Agency in Postcolonial Niger. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Ag Erless, Mohamed. 2010. La Grossesse et le suivi de l’accouchement chez les Touaregs Kel-Adagh. Paris: L’Harmattan.Google Scholar
Bertho, Beatrice. 2013. Conflits familiaux, rapports de genre et Etat au Burkina Faso: Une ethnographie de l’Action social. Institut de Hautes Etudes Internationales et du Développement, Thèse n. 985. Genève.Google Scholar
Birdsong, William M. 1998. “The Placenta and Cultural Values.” West J Med 168: 190–92.Google Scholar
Bonnet, Doris. 1998. Corps biologique, corps social: procréation et maladies de l’enfant en pays mossi (Burkina Faso) Paris: ORSTOM.Google Scholar
Burns, Emily. 2014. “More than Clinical Waste? Placenta Rituals among Australian Home-Birthing Women.” Journal of Perinatal Education (23) 1: 41–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Colls, Rachel, and Fannin, Maria. 2013. “Placental surfaces and the geographies of bodily interiors.” Environment and Planning A (45): 1087–1104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooper, Barbara M. 1993. “Cloth, Commodity Production, and Social Capital: Women in Maradi, Niger 1890–1989.” African Economic History 21: 51–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooper, Barbara M. 1997. Marriage in Maradi: Gender and Culture in a Hausa Society in Niger, 1900–1989. Portsmouth: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Cooper, Barbara M. 2013. “De quoi la crise démographique au Sahel est-elle le nom?” Politique Africaine, 130: 69–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooper, Barbara M. In press. “Countless Blessings: A History of Fertility and Reproduction in the Sahel.” Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Coughlin, Richard J. 1965. “Pregnancy and Birth in Vietnam.” In Southeast Asian Birth Customs: Three Studies in Human Reproduction, edited by Hart, Donn V., Rajadhon, Phya Anuman and Coughlin, Richard J., 205–73. New Haven: Human Relations Area Files.Google Scholar
Djibo, H., Kamahye, M., and Baden, A.. 2013. “Poster Session International Conference on Prevention and Infection Control June 2013: Biomedical waste in hospital: the case of maternity Issaka Gazobi and national hospitals of Niamey and Lamorde.” Antimicrobial Resistance and Infection Control 2 (1): 362.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Douglas, Mary. 1992. Risk and Blame. Mary Douglas Collected Works. Volume XII. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Feldman-Savelsberg, Pamela. 1999. Plundered Kitchens, Empty Wombs: Threatened Reproduction and Identity in the Cameroon Grassfields. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feldman-Savelsberg, Pamela. 2016. Mothers on the Move: Reproducing Belonging between Africa and Europe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fikry, M. 1977. “Traditional Maternal and Child Health Care and Related Problems in the Sahel: A Bibliographic Study.” USAID: Sahel Development Project, Health Sector AID/afr-C-1199.Google Scholar
Fomba, Harouna. 2012. «Gestion des déchets médicaux: un casse-tête pour les hôpitaux africains,» afrik.com Thursday August 9, 2012. Consulted November 12, 2016.Google Scholar
Gado, Alpha Boureima. 1993. Une histoire des famines au Sahel : Etude des grandes crises alimentaires (XIX–XXe siècles). Paris: L’Harmattan.Google Scholar
Gouffé, Claude. 1966. “‘Manger’ et ‘boire’ en haoussa.” Revue de l’Ecole Nationale des Langues Orientales 3: 77–111.Google Scholar
Hart, Donn V. 1964. “From Pregnancy through Birth in a Bisayan Filipno Village.” In Southeast Asian Birth Customs: Three Studies in Human Reproduction, edited by Hart, Donn V., Rajadhon, Phya Anuman and Coughlin, Richard J., 1–114. New Haven: Human Relations Area Files.Google Scholar
Helsel, Deborah G., and Mochel, Marilyn. 2002. “Afterbirths in the Afterlife: Cultural Meaning of Placental Disposal in a Hmong American Community.” Journal of Transcultural Nursing 13 (4): 282–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hunt, Nancy Rose. 1999. A Colonial Lexicon of Birth Ritual, Medicalization, and Mobility in the Congo. Durham: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Institut National de la Statistique (INS) and ICF International. 2013. Enquête Démographique et de Santé et à Indicateurs Multiples du Niger 2012: Rapport de synthèse. Calverton, Maryland, USA: INS and ICF International.Google Scholar
Janzen, John M. 1978. The Quest for Therapy in Lower Zaire. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, Elaine, and Kay, Margarita A.. 2003. “The Cultural Anthropology of the Placenta.” In The Manner Born: Birth Rites in Cross-Cultural Perspective, edited by Dundes, Lauren, 99–118. New York: Altamira Press.Google Scholar
Kéïta, Aoua. 1975. Femme d’Afrique: La vie d’Aoua Kéïta racontée par elle-même. Paris: Présence Africaine.Google Scholar
Kwawukume, P. S. 2005. “Development of Gas Boy Medical Incinerator as a Substitute for Placenta Pits in Hospitals in Ghana.” Journal of Science and Technology 25 (2): 137–42.Google Scholar
Lane, Karen, and Garrod, Jayne. 2016. “The Return of the Traditional Birth Attendant.” Journal of Global Health 6 (2). Published online 2016 Apr 26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Le Coeur, Marguerite, and Baroin, Catherine. 1974. “Rites de la Naissance et de l’Imposition du nom Chez les Azza du Manga (République du Niger). ” Africa: Journal of the International Africa Institute 44 (4): 361–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lefeber, Yvonne, and Voorhoeve, Henk. 1998. Indigenous customs in childbirth and child care. Assen: Van Gorcum.Google Scholar
Levin, Elise. 2003. “Cleaning the Belly: Managing Menstrual Health in Guinea, West Africa.”In The Sociocultural and Political Aspects of Abortion, edited by Basu, Alaka Malwade, 103–18. Santa Barbara: Greenwood.Google Scholar
Masquelier, Adeline. 2009. Women and Islamic Revival in a West African Town. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Mounkaila, Fatouma, and Hamsatou, Oumarou. 1980. “Soins et surveillance pré -peri et post nataux dans la pratique de l’obstétrique traditionnelle en milieu rural.” Ecole Nationale de Santé Publique, Mémoire de fin d’études, 1979–80. Niamey.Google Scholar
Moussa, Hadiza. 2012. Entre Absence et Refus d’Enfant : Socio-anthropologie de la gestion de la fécondité féminine à Niamey, Niger. Paris: L’Harmattan.Google Scholar
Nicolas, Guy. 1975. Dynamique Sociale et Appréhension du Monde au sein d’une Société Hausa. Paris: Institut d’Ethnologie.Google Scholar
Noël, Marie-France. 2000. « Approche anthropologique de quelques concepts et conceptions populaires relatifs à la santeé maternelle. Représentations et pratiques de la grossesse, de l’accouchement et du post-partum en milieu touareg. » Réseau Anthropologie de la Santé en Afrique Bulletin 1: 47–60.Google Scholar
Obafemi, Sotunsa John. 2015. “The Importance of Training and Supervision of Traditional Birth Attendants (TBAs) in the Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission of HIV in Africa.” In Contextualizing Indigenous Knowledge in Africa and Its Diaspora, edited by Aderibigbe, Gbola, 205–21. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge Scholars.Google Scholar
Olivier de Sardan, J. P., Moumouni, A., and Souley, A.. 2001. « ‘L’accouchement, c’est la guerre’ Grossesse et accouchement en milieu rural nigérien. » Niamey: LASDEL Etudes et Travaux #1.Google Scholar
Rabain, Jacqueline. 1994 [1974]. L’enfant du lignage. Paris: Editions Payot & Rivages.Google Scholar
Rajadhon, Phya Anuman. 1965. “Customs Connected with Birth and the Rearing of Children.” In Southeast Asian Birth Customs: Three Studies in Human Reproduction, edited by Hart, Donn V., Rajadhon, Phya Anuman and Coughlin, Richard J., 115–204. New Haven: Human Relations Area Files.Google Scholar
Parsons, Allan Chilcott. 1915. A Hausa Phrase Book, With Medical and Scientific Vocabularies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rasmussen, Susan. 1999. “Making Better ‘Scents’ in Anthropology: Aroma in Tuareg Sociocultural Systems and the Shaping of Ethnography.” Anthropological Quarterly 72 (2): 55–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
République du Niger, Cabinet du Premier Ministre. 2000. « Etude de base pour la gestion des déchets solides, Diagnostic de la filière des ordures ménagères et des déchets industriels dans la Communauté Urbaine de Niamey.» Volume I SOCREGE : Etude Ed/0200.Google Scholar
Rhine, Kathryn A. 2016. The Unseen Things: Women, Secrecy, and HIV in Northern Nigeria. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Santoro, Pablo. 2011. “Liminal Biopolitics: Towards a Political Anthropology of the Umbilical Cord and the Placenta.” Body & Society 17 (1): 73–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sargent, Carolyn. 1986. “Prospects for the Professionalisation of Indigenous Midwifery in Benin.” In The Professionalisation of African Medicine, edited by Last, Murray and Chavunduka, G. L., 137–50. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Shipton, Parker. 2009. Mortgaging the Ancestors: Ideologies of Attachment in Africa. New Haven: Yale University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Mary F. 1981 [1954]. Baba of Karo: A Woman of the Muslim Hausa. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Touré, Younoussa. 2000. “Représentation de la grossesse en milieu Songhay de Gao.” Réseau Anthropologie de la Santé Bulletin 1: 61–66.Google Scholar
van Beusekom, Monica. 2002. Negotiating Development: African Farmers and Colonial Experts at the office du Niger 1920–1960. Portsmouth: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Waldby, Catherine, and Cooper, Melinda. 2010. “From reproductive work to regenerative labour: the Female Body and the Stem Cell Industries.” Feminist Theory 11 (1): 3–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
West, Kathleen M. 1981. “Sierra Leone: Practices of Untrained TBAs and Support for TBA Training and Utilization.” In The Traditional Birth Attendant in Seven Countries: Case Studies in Utilization and Training, edited by Mangay-Maglacas, A. and Pizurki, H., 71–95. Geneva: World Health Organization.Google Scholar
Yoshizawa, Rebecca Scott. 2016. “Fetal-Maternal Intra-action: Politics of New Placental Biologies.” Body & Society 22 (4): 79–105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar