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IBADAN, Nigeria (AP) - The wail of 6-week-old Quari Babaola cut through the air like the blade that had just sliced through his chin.
His mother Kafilat shuddered but kept a determined grip on the tiny limbs as a traditional healer smeared the cuts on her baby's hands, feet, back and chest with a sticky black paste of ground-up charcoal and chanted incantations to stop the oozing blood.
"Marks will help him to be part of the family ... all the family used to do it," the 28-year-old said in her native Yoruba, as a queue of mothers cradling querulous infants nodded their agreement.
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