Michael Cremo - Human Devolution - A Vedic Alternative To Darwin's Theory

Ekouroume Uchendu was a member of the Igbo tribe in Nigeria. He was, as Stevenson (1997, p. 1652) puts it, “a practitioner of indigenous medicine.” He had a sister named Wankwo. When Wankwo was grown up and married, she and a man named Kafor quarreled. Kafor threatened to kill Wankwo. Upon being threatened in this way, Wankwo went to her brother Ekouroume Uchendu for help. He killed Kafor by sorcery. Wankwo later died.

Ekouroume Uchendu had several wives. In 1946, a daughter, Nwanyi, was born to Onyenyerego, one of his senior wives. From an oracle, Ekouroume Uchendu learned that Nwanyi was a reincarnation of his sister Wankwo. Nwanyi died when she was just one year old. Believing that Nwanyi’s departure from this world was deliberate, Stevenson (1997, p.1633) stated: “He thought that the least she—the reincarnation of his sister Wankwo—could have done, given the trouble he had taken to kill Kafor, was to stay in the family for longer than a year. In what can only be regarded as a fit of rage, he cut off some of the dead Nwanyi’s fingers and toes. In addition, he tied her legs together with some cord, symbolically preventing her from ever walking again. To block the Wankwo/Nwanyi personality from ever returning, he put some of the amputated fingers and toes, along with some ‘medicines,’ in a little bag and hung this up in his house. This ritual was intended to banish Wankwo/Nwanyi permanently and prevent her from ever being reborn in Ekouroume Uchendu’s family.”

After this, Ekouroume Uchendu took yet another wife, named Irodirionyerku, who knew nothing about Nwanyi and the ritual mutilation carried out after her death (to stop her from coming back into Ekouroume Uchendu’s family). Over the course of eleven years, Irodirionyerku had three children. Then one day, while doing some remodeling of the house, she took down the bag that contained the toes and fingers of Nwanyi, without knowing what it was. Stevenson (1997, pp. 1635–1636) said she was pregnant at the time this happened. When Irodirionyerku’s child Cordelia was born in 1958, in the village of Umuokue, Imo State, Nigeria, she had birth defects. Stevenson (1997, p. 1636) described them: “Several fingers on each hand were markedly shortened, and some had no nails. . . . There was a deep constriction of the left lower leg above the ankle. (This was said to correspond to the groove made by the cord with which Ekouroume Uchendu had tied Nwanyi’s legs.) The right leg had a similar, but much less prominent mark at about the same level . . . All the toes (except the right great toe) were shortened, none had nails . . . Ekouroume Uchendu said that he had amputated some but not all of Nwanyi’s fingers and that the birth defects of Cordelia’s fingers ‘corresponded exactly’ to the mutilations he had made on Nwanyi’s body.”

Irodirionyerku’s pregnancy was normal, except that Cordelia remained within the womb slightly longer than normal and the labor was also longer than normal. Irodirionyerku was in good health, and did not take alcohol or drugs. Her previous three children were normal, and a subsequent child was also normal. But she and her husband said that no members of their families had birth defects (Stevenson 1997, p. 1638). Several tribes in West Africa mark the bodies of dead infants by mutilation so that they might recognize the person if the person reincarnates into the same family as a “repeater child” (Stevenson 1997, p. 1626).

Sunita Khandelwal was born on September 19, 1969, in the small town of Laxmangarh, near the city of Alwar, in the eastern part of the province of Rajasthan in India. She was the sixth child of Radhey Shyam Khandelwal, a grain dealer, and his wife, Santara Bai. At birth, Sunita had on the right side of her head a large birthmark.

When she was two years old, Sunita began to speak of a previous life. The first thing she said was, “Take me to Kota.” Kota is a city in the southeast part of Rajasthan, about 360 kilometers from Laxmangarh. When Sunita’s family inquired about what was in Kota, she said, “I had two brothers. I was the only daughter. I have a mummy and pappa. We have a silver shop and a safe. We have a car and a scooter. My mother has many saris.” In some of her statements she was less clear about the nature of the shop, simply stating there were silver coins in the shop. She also revealed that she had a paternal uncle older than her father. Pointing to the birthmark on her head, she said, “Look here, I have fallen” (Stevenson 1997, p. 468).

When she was three years old, Sunita asked to be taken to Kota, refusing to eat until her wish was carried out. Her parents thought to take her to the nearby city of Jaipur, telling her it was Kota. But Sunita said, “This is not Kota. This is Jaipur. You are telling lies and will be punished” (Stevenson 1997, p. 468).

Thereafter, Sunita gave further revelations about her life in Kota. She said her father was of the Bania, or merchant, caste, and that his shop was in the Chauth Mata Bazaar. The family house was in the Brijrajpura quarter. Revealing more of the circumstances of her death, she said, “I was a girl and died at the age of eight,” and, “My cousin pushed me down the stairs because I had asked for water” (Stevenson 1997, p. 469).

In 1974, H. N. Banerjee, a reincarnation researcher in Jaipur, learned of Sunita’s case through a friend of the Khandelwal family. Although initially reluctant, the Khandelwals agreed to let Banerjee take them and their daughter to Kota. Their first stop in Kota was the shop of a photographer, Pratap Singh Chordia, who knew many of the residents. From the information supplied to him, Chordia suggested Sunita’s father in her previous life may have been Prabhu Dayal Maheshwari. Sunita had once mentioned the name “Prabhu” in connection with her father. Also, Prabhu Dayal’s shop was a jewelry shop (with silver jewelry), and the shop was in the Chauth Mata Bazaar. Chordia did not know, however, that Prabhu Dayal had a daughter who died from a fall.

Taking Chordia’s advice, the party went to the Chauth Mata Bazaar to search for Prabhu Dayal’s shop. Stevenson (1997, p. 470) says, “Sunita, according to her mother, recognized a shop with a man in it who was writing. Sunita said that he was her father. This man was Prabhu Dayal Maheswari, and he was sitting in his own jewelry shop. The matter was explained to him. . . . Prabhu Dayal then invited Sunita to come to his home. Sunita led the way and found Prabhu Dayal’s house. She then made a number of other recognitions and some further statements about the life she was remembering. Prabhu Dayal and his wife had lost their only daughter in April 1968. This child, Shakuntala, had fallen over the low railing of a balcony and landed head first on a cement floor below. She died a few hours later. With a few exceptions everything Sunita had said in Laxmangarh was correct for the life and death of Shakuntala in Kota.” Stevenson (1997, p. 487) listed some of the correct items: “She was the only daughter; she died at the age of 8; her parents were both living; a paternal grandmother had died, but a paternal grandfather was living; she had no uncle younger than her father, but one older than he; she had two brothers and a girl cousin.” Stevenson also detailed other statements and behaviors of Sunita, of a more personal nature, such as food preferences and nicknames for relatives, that matched those of Shakuntala.

The members of the families of Sunita and Shakuntala had never met, with one exception. Sunita’s maternal uncle, a jeweler who lived in Delhi, had occasionally met Prabhu Dayal in Kota, but their meetings were strictly commercial, not social. He had never visited Prabhu Dayal’s home, and knew nothing about the death of Prabhu Dayal’s daughter (Stevenson 1997, pp. 473–474). So it was unlikely that Sunita could have learned of details of Shakuntala’s life and death from her own family members.