Growing up as an Igbo child, I was steeped in many otherworldly stories about children born with dada , naturally locked or untidy matted hair. Their hair is said to resist the touch of a comb and tightens into thicker coils as the child grows. In our belief, such children are never ordinary, they are said to arrive accompanied by spiritual forces and must be handled with care or closely watched. Not only did I hear the people address a child whose hair came in a naturally locked form as Nwa Dada , but the very way they whispered it marked the child as different, a whispered demarcation that set them apart from every other child.
Though dada is of Yoruba origin, the sentiments around it are more dominant in Igbo land. Many Igbo communities would rarely treat unusual physical traits at birth as random. The body becomes text. Elders become readers. A gap in the teeth, a birthmark shaped like a symbol, an extra finger, a child who refuses food, a child who cries without ceasing, each tends to invite interpretation, let alone a child born with a form of knotted hair.
Elders read this feature into many meanings. I would call them myths that have prolonged till now. The most popular is the ritual performed before clearing a dada’s hair. It's a tradition as old as time among the Igbo that the hair of a dada must be cut by a spiritual figure, usually a chief priest (this means a jujuist in Igbo Lands), but since the advent of Christianity in Nigeria, most families would rather employ the prayers of Catholic priests. And in situations where a dada’s hair is shaved off without their permission or the proper routine, they happen to die within three days after the shaving.
It is also believed that touching the hair of a dada before it is shaved off, considering how tempting it can be especially amongst other children, automatically makes them sick, of course apart from the mother who is supposed to be the primary care giver. Most of the times you see cowries attached to the hair of a dada, it is a form of compensation from the people who defiled the rule by touching their hair, whether mistakenly or irresistibly. This is the major reason why dadas are not readily enrolled in school the same time as children their age. The parents prefer to wait till the hair is shaved off, usually when they're about three to five years, as children tend to defy easily.
Another belief about children with dada, this one I would say is more disturbing and demarcating, is how they are perceived by not merely as unusual but as spiritual beings or tools within Igbo cosmology. And so they are sometimes called ogbange , meaning the reincarnated or spirit‑children, beings believed to return from the spirit world into human form. Within traditional Igbo belief systems, Odinala , ogbange are thought to be connected to the cycle of life and death, moving between worlds and often bringing with them mystique and unease.
They are seen as incarnations of ancestors, great men and women, powerful juju practitioners, or even deities, whose presence among the living signifies a strong spiritual link to what lies beyond human understanding. They are thought to exist between the human and spirit worlds, and their lives are closely tied to the spiritual forces they embody. In some cases, a dada rejects the deity they are connected to, resisting the rituals or interventions meant to guide them. Without proper spiritual intervention, tradition holds that the child may not survive past a certain age, as their spirit is believed to be unsettled or torn between worlds.
All these myths about dada children have rippled into the present, surviving even the advent of Christianity in Igbo land. Despite the strong Christian influence, children born with dada are still perceived as different. In many cases, they are quietly isolated from other children their age, children who waste no time pointing fingers and calling them the names they have heard whispered by their elders. One of the reasons often cited is the fear of spiritual or physical complications, particularly illness before the ritual shaving of the hair, since dada children are believed to be more prone to sickness than their peers.
Once a child is marked as different, whether as spiritually significant, unusual, or simply not like the others, that marking begins to shape every interaction. The difference becomes an expectation. Even the ordinary behaviors of infancy, restlessness, stubbornness, sensitivity, was supposed to mean something. What would be dismissed in another child as temperament may, in this one, be read as mystery. These interpretations bred stories, stories that strengthen and gather authority as they pass from one generation to the next.
No one is more affected by these labels than the child who bears them. Children are deeply sensitive; they notice what moves around them, especially shifts in emotional climate. When a child grows up in an environment where they are treated differently: approached with caution, fed with hesitation, watched more closely than others, the fear-driven avoidance can be damaging to a child's psychology, forcing them into a solitary existence. They begin to internalise the distance. They learn to live in the only way they have been taught; isolation. They grow an extreme sense of security since the whole stigmatization was as a result of fear, not disdain.
