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Marked At Birth

Birthmarks are one those physical signs that make people distrinctly identifiable from others. While this makes the law enforcement job much easier, having marked at birth can pose a dangerous health risk.

FOLK beliefs consider people with birthmarks as touched by an angel. In Italy they are called voglie, in Spain antohos and in Arabia wiham, which all translate to the same meaning: “wishes.”

Folklore from these places has it that the marks arise from unsatisfied wishes of the mother during pregnancy. And this may partly explain why even today some Filipinos believe that any wish that a pregnant mother has must be met—even if it requires the husband to climb a 20-feet tall coconut tree to get a fruit that may already be rejected once the woman has it in her hands.

“True” birthmarks, however, are vascular anomalies... [Read more.]

This article appears in SunStar Cebu newspaper on 20 July 2011.
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