In Yoruba tradition, the second twin out of the womb is the older one.
Take a moment with that.
Taiwo — the firstborn — literally means “having the first taste of the world.” Despite arriving first, Taiwo is considered the younger twin. Kehinde, who arrives second, means “arriving after the other” — and is the elder. The reason given: Kehinde, the senior of the two, sends Taiwo out first to see what the world looks like. As soon as Taiwo signals it’s safe, Kehinde follows. Personality expectations follow the same logic — Taiwo is thought to be more curious and adventurous, but also more nonchalant; Kehinde more careful, intelligent, and reflective.
That’s not a folk tale tacked onto a birth order. It’s a complete philosophy of twinship, one that assigns roles and temperament to a pair of children before either has drawn a breath.
Born into Community
The Yoruba, primarily of southwestern Nigeria, have the highest dizygotic (fraternal) twinning rate of any population studied — about 4.4% of all births, according to research published in the journal Twin Research. That frequency shaped an entire belief system around twins within traditional Yoruba religion, which centers on a supreme deity, Olodumare, and a pantheon of Orisha, or secondary gods.
It wasn’t always reverence. In earlier periods, twin births were met with fear as often as joy, and historical accounts describe newborn twins being rejected or, in some cases, sacrificed. Over time — the record isn’t precise about exactly when or why — that shifted. Twins came to be seen as capable of bringing wealth, health, and prosperity to their families, and their birth became an occasion for community-wide celebration, with feasts extended even to neighboring villages if the twins belonged to a prominent family.
The flip side of that reverence was risk. Because twins were also believed capable of bringing disaster, disease, or death if neglected, their upbringing was traditionally more permissive than that of other children — parents were, in effect, managing a relationship with something more than an ordinary child.
On the third day after birth, parents traditionally visited a babalawo — an Ifa priest — who consulted the Ifa oracle to drive off any spirits that might threaten the newborns, dedicated the twins to Orisha Ibeji, and gave the mother instructions on which colors, foods, and animals to avoid on the children’s behalf.
When One Twin Dies
Because Yoruba belief holds that twins share a single, combined soul, the death of one twin was understood to put the surviving twin’s spiritual balance at risk. The traditional response was to commission an artisan — through the babalawo — to carve a small wooden figure, called an Ere Ibeji, as a home for the departed twin’s soul. If both twins died, two figures were made.
The figures were never spoken of as dead. They were said to have “traveled,” or “gone to the market.” They were washed, dressed, fed, and decorated with cowrie shells, beads, and paint reflecting the family’s status — care summed up in a Yoruba saying: “dead ibeji expenses are expenses for the living.” Mothers of deceased twins would dance with the figures at least once a year, holding them or tucking them into a wrapper at the waist, singing to them in public.
One widely told Yoruba origin story attributes the practice to the goddess Yemoja, who is said to have lost one of her own twins and refused to let go of the child’s spirit — carving the first Ere Ibeji herself. Whether that’s the literal origin or a later frame placed on an older practice, it captures what the ritual is actually for: not commemorating a loss, but refusing to let it end the relationship.
There isn’t a close Western equivalent. Most North American parents who lose a twin aren’t handed any ritual object, any prescribed way to keep that child present in daily life rather than only in memory. The Ere Ibeji does exactly that.
Not Universal
West Africa isn’t one culture with one twin tradition. Not far from Yoruba territory, the Igbo people of southeastern Nigeria have historically held something closer to the opposite view, with twin births regarded as a bad omen. Same general region, same era, two entirely different responses to the same biological event.
That contrast is worth holding onto. “African twin traditions” isn’t a single story, and treating it as one would flatten exactly the kind of specificity this piece is trying to bring in.
A Living Tradition
Yoruba twin beliefs didn’t stay in Nigeria. Through the transatlantic slave trade, they traveled to and took root in Brazil — in the Candomblé and Macumba traditions of Salvador de Bahia, and in Umbanda in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, where the sacred twins are syncretized with the Catholic child-saints Cosmas and Damian and celebrated each September. In Cuba, a Santería legend tells of twins born to the goddess Oshun who saved the god Shango; the twin deity in that tradition, Jimaguas, is represented by two figures, male and female, joined at the navel and used ritually to heal the sick.
Beyond Nigeria itself, the tradition also travels in Yoruba diaspora communities across the UK, US, and Canada — often stripped of the Orisha elements but kept in the names themselves. A Taiwo and Kehinde born in Toronto or Brooklyn still carry the birth-order reversal their names encode, whether or not their family practices the wider religious tradition.
Content on Twins Magazine is produced using an AI-assisted editorial process and reviewed by a human editor before publication.