First, using examples from Western and West-African (especially the Dogon’s tribe from Mali) cultures, this article explores the caracteristics of concepts like birth, youth, aging and death. Through history and time, in every culture, these different concepts and representations develop ties. They help us face the existential chaos we feel when “youth” meets “death”, as is the case when a child dies. Secondly, this article tries to understand the different semantic meanings of these concepts, going from biology to symbolism. The transformation in the definition of these concepts needs to be understood in the context (values and laws) in which they occured and in which they make sense.