What was claimed
Women of the Himba tribe create a unique song for each of their children which is then sung to them from the moment of conception until death.
Our verdict
There is no such tradition within the Himba tribe.
Social media posts about the ‘birth song’ of the Himba tribe are false
6 July 2022
A Facebook post which claims to describe the rituals of an African tribe has no basis in fact.
The post claims that among the Himba people of Namibia, Southern Africa, women create a unique song for each of their children which is then sung from the moment of conception, as they give birth, during the child’s life for celebration, comfort, if they commit a crime, and on their death bed.
Although the photograph in the post does show Himba people, experts told Full Fact that members of the tribe don’t do this, and parts of the claim contradict known traditions of the tribe around childbirth. Although it is possible that some tribe or village somewhere in Africa has or once had such a tradition, there is no evidence linking it to the Himba.
Jan-Bart Gewald, a historian specialising in the social history of Africa and Professor of African History at Leiden University in The Netherlands, told Full Fact that the Himba birth song story was “absolute and utter nonsense”.
Steven Van Wolputte of the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at Belgian university KU Leuven, and author of several books on the Himba told us: “I know this post (it resurges every so many months), but it is utter bullsh*t” and that the story is “a hodgepodge of romanticising and exoticising fabulations”.
Although multiple versions of the birth song story have been posted and shared online, dating back at least three decades, it does not seem to appear in any articles about the Himba themselves. The origins of the story are unclear and many early versions do not mention the Himba but rather a nameless African tribe or village.
For example, since 1992, elements of the story have been repeated in videos, talks and a book by Jack Kornfield, a psychologist, author and teacher of Buddhism.
The story was repeated in a 2002 book, Wisdom of the Heart by Alan Cohen, an author of inspirational books.
It has also been credited to an African poet named Tolba Phanem, though Full Fact has been unable to establish whether this is a real person.
Both Mr Kornfield and Mr Cohen have been approached for comment.
Image courtesy of Elin Tabitha
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because leading academics who have studied the Himba people say there is no evidence that such a tradition exists among them.