Woman gives birth to lizard

West Africa is still a land of mysteries and the mysterious even well into the 21st Century. Perhaps that should not come as a surprise seeing that it's the region of the world that originally founded voodoo, a mystical tradition that moved with West African slaves to the New World and taking root in Haiti and New Orleans.

But voodoo--and the rites of magic and the damned--have not diminished in West African nations, they are just rarely reported. Villagers living far from the major towns and cities of the West African nations still practice the rights of spells and magic and believe it with their souls to be true.


Spiritual dancing ceremony






Indeed, some sell their souls to acquire the darker powers of the spirits.

So it is that a young woman of 28, Araba Aduwa of Ghana, is said to have mysteriously given birth to a lizard as predicted by a Cape Coast witch doctor, Nana Amaniampong, who medically attended to her.

A witness to the live birth, Kofi Nsuo, remarked, "The woman had a tough time expelling the lizard from her womb. Instead of passing through her birth canal, the reptile decided otherwise. But, thanks to Nana Amaniampong, the native doctor who doubled as her birth attendant, the reptile would have emerged through her anus."


Similar to lizard Araba Aduwa birthed




News of the newborn lizard baby had villagers scampering to Amaniampong's clinic. All wanted to see the lizard firsthand.

Nsuo reported that he had a chance to talk with the woman as she recovered from the birthing process.

"She told me that though she was greatly relieved, she was still feeling pains in her womb and attributed it to wounds inflicted as a result of the restlessness of the creatures." Aduwa, the mother of the lizard, was said to have given birth to three frogs and two crabs at Cape Coast two weeks before the lizard birth.

In an interview with the Ghanaian government-owned newspaper, "The Weekly Spectator," published in Accra, Nana Amaniampong claimed he had administered various medicinal herbs prepared by trained dwarf assistants to Araba at 10.30 a.m. the Saturday she gave birth.

The dwarfs, according to Amaniampong, had been leading and prompting him in the search of the herbs to cure Araba who had taken ill. Amaniampong told the newspaper reporter that he administered the herbs and then had Araba sleep.

"At 11 a.m., she woke up and complained about the movement of the reptile in her womb," he said.


According to others at the clinic, at one point during the medical ministrations the lizard attempted to emerge from the patient's anus, but the doctor prevented that as he claimed it would have proven disastrous for her.

Thirty minutes later, the lizard emerged from her birth canal, ending her ordeal. With the birth of the lizard, Aduwa had birthed a total of six animals to the amazement of witnessed who watched the procedures unfold at the clinic.

Reportedly the lizard tried to escape, but it was attacked with a blunt object and killed.

The incident was affirmed and corroborated by Auntie Dede, Nana Amaniampong's wife, Maame Duku, Araba's mother, Mr. Samuel Opoku Agyeman, a close friend of the native doctor and other tenants within Nana Amaniampong's residence, according to the Spectator.

The witch doctor asserted that with the birth of the final animal, Araba was now well. Amaniampong stressed, however, that Araba would still be in his care for the time being as she had to continue taking the herbal mixture until the wounds in her womb had sufficiently healed.

The conditions were brought about by a curse set upon her by disgruntled family members, Nsuo reported. Lawsuits have been brought against her ex-husband Kofi Buabeng.

Curses and spells are common in the rural regions of West Africa, especially in the countryside of Ghana.

At the close of 2010, a Togo woman was found guilty of witchcraft and she was burned alive along with her possessions as punishment.