ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the Fulbe wariness about emotions and, in particular, their awareness of the potentially harmful effects of mother love. It presents an examination of some common children's illnesses will further expands their understanding of the scope of the Fulbe's ambivalence toward the mother-child bond. Everything mothers give their infants is potentially harmful. From an adoring glance to the intimate gift of mother's milk to the blood of the womb itself–all may have potentially harmful effects on the child. The mother's pregnancy can also affect the child she is breast-feeding. A woman who is nursing a child must wean it immediately when she learns she is pregnant, as her milk belongs to the child who is preparing to be born. The child who is allowed to continue "stealing" its younger sibling's milk can become violently ill. Infants usually have a conspicuous necklace of them during the first two years of life.
