Introduction
Culture is defined as a shared, learned, symbolic system of values, beliefs and attitudes that shapes and influences perception and behavior—an abstract “mental blueprint” or “mental code.” Culture can also be defined as the shared patterns of behaviors and interactions, cognitive constructs, and affective understanding that are learned through a process of socialization. These shared patterns identify the members of a culture group while also distinguishing those of another group. In this write-up, I will be analyzing how my folk’s medicines and beliefs about health care have influenced my attitudes about health care and how my views have changed over the years. I am from South-Eastern Nigeria in West Africa called the Igbo. The Igbos speak the Igbo language, and have two major religions: Christianity and traditional religion. The health beliefs of the Igbo in relation to health and illness are the following: that most illnesses are caused by one’s enemies who submitted their names to evil spirits; that some illnesses are a reward of one’s evil doing in the past; that evil spirits could be appeased to cure mysterious illnesses; that husbands should stick to their wives sexually to prevent mysterious illness gotten from women which is the common name for sexually transmitted diseases; that women should be circumcised to prevent them from living promiscuous lifestyle. Local herbs are most frequently used to cure all illnesses. Before the rise of Christianity in Igbo, during the late 19th century and early 20th century, the birth of twins [and other multiple births] was seen as an abomination. Multiple births were believed to be what only animals should produce and single births were believed to be what only humans should produce. Twins were killed by abandonment in the community’s evil forest or in some cases were instantly killed. After the birth,