The Stink-Stink Flower
How to guard against witches in rural Zimbabwe.
Hello, wonderful witches!
Friends, I’m curious. Do any of you tell fortunes with food? I do tyromancy and read tea leaves, but what else is out there? I’ve got this fun idea to try and tell fortunes using sourdough bread. Here’s my theory: If tyromancy is done by looking at lines and holes on cheese, why can’t we use the patterns inside a loaf of sourdough to do the same thing? It seems like it should work. Thoughts? (And hey,
, want to be my test subject?)Anyway. I’ve recently returned from Spain where I learned a TON about necromancy in Toledo. Apparently necromancers were deep into church life there. One religious official supposedly used a dead body to tell him where to build his home! It was so much fun to learn about, and hopefully I’ll be writing about it soon. I’ll share a link when I do. And if you’re ever in Toledo, Spain, you MUST book a tour with Diego at Visit Toledo. He is legit the best tour guide I have ever had (and the only other person who immediately knew what tyromancy was when I mentioned it!). Trust me, you won’t be disappointed.
Today’s story is about the stink-stink flower, a plant in rural Zimbabwe with magical powers.
Meet the African Flower Guarding Kids Against Midnight Witches
By Ray Mwareya
Growing up as a child in rural Zimbabwe, I occasionally had terrific nightmares, like any child in London, Los Angeles, or Tokyo would normally have. Except that in Zimbabwe my parents fiercely believed that if one’s child goes through three consecutive days of loud nightmare screams and fits, witches were making a move on the child in their sleep.
This runs in the face of Western conventional medical science which pins nightmares down to stress, anxiety, irregular sleep, medications, and mental health disorders—particularly post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
So, each time I would jolt out of bed due to nightmares, my parents would pluck out the leaves of the nuhwa-nuhwa, an Indigenous medicinal plant, and wave them past my nose at dusk.
The nuhwa-nuhwa herbal plant, translated as “stink-stink,” is a heavy-odor medicinal flower that grows naturally in rural Zimbabwe. It smells nauseating, akin to strong mint mixed with petrol gas and sprinkled with a bit of rotten banana. It’s a basket of competing and contrasting smells.
Every time a child has gone through three days of loud nightmares, parents wave the medicinal plant past the baby’s nose at dusk, just before dinner at 7 p.m., which is a typical family nighttime meal in Zimbabwe.
Two reasons stand out why the flower was administered at dinner time. First, it was thought the smell puts off nighttime witches, thus allowing the child to have a peaceful sleep. The reason my parents waved the stink-stink flower past my nose at night was to make sure witches didn’t see the process thanks to the approaching darkness.
Second, the flower needed to be applied with purity. The typical everyday family dinner in Zimbabwe contains Western ingredients like refined sunflower and canola oils and Knorr seasoning sachets. These are non-Indigenous ingredients that are thought to be heavily polluting if they come into contact with traditional medicinal herbs like the nuhwa-nuhwa anti-witchcraft tree.
My mother would tell me why she always administered the nuhwa-nuhwa anti-witchcraft herb at dusk, just before dinner: “If you eat dinner, sunflower oil and Knorr spice will linger on your tongue. Such Western food residuals do anger the spirits of protective ancestors and thus defeat the efficiency of traditional herbal flowers. It’s to ensure the purity of the traditional flower against witches.”
I don’t know whether it was the placebo effect of the nuhwa-nuhwa flower convincing me that I had some mystical protection, or actually the flower’s anti-witchcraft power working. But, each time the smelly flower was waved past my nose, I slept peacefully with no midnight scares.
Ray Mwareya is a fellow of the World Ethical Data Foundation and a technology journalist. Follow him on Twitter @rmwareya.
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See you then!