نباتات السودان السامة

Poisonous plants

People in Sudan have suffered from snake bites and scorpion stings, and experienced the noxious effects of various mineral and vegetable poisons. Over the years, these have been identified and named, and practitioners have harnessed the resources of their bountiful environment to provide measures for protection. They have also discovered how to extract poisons from some of these plants, and probably how to prepare antidotes. The poisons they have extracted have been used to commit crimes such as homicide or infanticide, and to aid legitimate pursuits such as fishing and hunting. Warriors of the southern and western tribes paint lances and arrow-tips with poisonous extracts, and use these deadly weapons in hunting animals, in personal combat, and in war.

This section includes description for man, cattle, camel, fish, fowl poisons, as well as molluscicides, pesticides, insect repellants, anti-lice, elephant hunting aids, arrow and lances poisons, and agents used in ordeal, homicide, infanticide, suicide, abortion, and anti-dotes.

Shajarat al-sim (Adenium honekel), also known as daraq in Taqali, narurai in Al-Liri, and tumu in Kaduqli of the western Sudan, is a common source of poison. However, many other plants are known and used. I have included in this inventory most, if not all, the poisonous plants that have been reported in the Sudanese literature including those identified in recent surveys.

Many tribes in the southern Sudan cultivate certain plants or collect wild ones to isolate their poisonous principles for catching fish. Fishermen throw or spray pieces of bark, fruits, branches, pods, seeds or leaves on top of a pond or a running stream. They sometimes macerate the plant before they throw it in water. The active principle oozes, stupefying or killing the fish, which eventually float to the surface to be caught. They are then usually eaten as wholesome food.

Many poisons do not harm human beings or higher animals, but affect lower species and insects. Preparations of dawa al-samak (Tephrosia vogelli), have killed insects such as lice and other vermin. Other poisons are so potent that they may kill a small crocodile, cause diarrhoea in human beings, or harm grazing cattle.

The poisonous properties of some plants have attracted researchers in insecticides, molluscicides, and anti-bilharzials. Sir Robert Archibald[i], as early as 1933, suggested that lalobe, the fruit of hijlij, Balanites aegyptiaca, might be used to combat bilharzia in the Sudan. He noted that the active principle in lalobe could poison freshwater snails and the bilharzia parasite in its free-living stages.

Certain plants have strong narcotic effects, which the people have recognized and used to advantage. They have sometimes crushed saikaran (datura) seeds and added them to the local beer, marisa; alternatively, the latex of ‘ushar (Sodom apple) is used. In both cases, the intoxicating effect of the beer is increased. This is used in the course of robbery and in hunting monkeys. Other poisons have been used in suicide, homicide, infanticide, in inducing abortions, or in inflicting various types of injury. The emmenagogues[ii] on the other hand, may be none other than abortifacient substances.

Without explicitly stating why, the women in Kordofan have forbidden adolescent girls to eat the lalobe; they have apparently noted that girls who consume large quantities of the fruit conceive late, or may even become infertile. Recent research, furthermore, has given some support to this traditional belief. Maha Nasr Al-Din Babiker and Ibrahim Abu Al-Futuh in the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Khartoum have provided this evidence. They found that the oral administration of the succulent edible part of the lalobe produced post-coital infertility effects in female rats. They attributed this either to the fruit inhibiting implantation, or to its interference with the normal process of pregnancy.[iii] It is noteworthy that women seeking contraception in the Kordofan region have found this fruit most effective. They only need to suck a few unripe pieces of the lalobe to achieve their goal.

Accidental poisoning has frequently occurred through a person inadvertently taking an overdose of a common medicinal plant routinely used to treat some everyday ailment. The offender is usually an inexperienced healer or a quack who is evidently ignorant of the toxic properties of the plant he or she is prescribing.

The latex of ‘ushar is held to be harmful to the eye, and it is therefore blamed for causing blindness. This, however, is not borne out by experience. The milky juice has caused more or less severe inflammatory eye reactions, but these do not result in blindness.

Burckhardt in Travels in Asia (1819) reported on the health conditions in Shendi and Berber towns. He noted that there was a big slave market at Shendi. Besides, he also observed that the slaves had endured great hardship on the way to the market, and that many had died before they reached it. He also said that if a female slave became pregnant; her master would do his best to get an abortion by one means or another. They would either give her some medicines to drink, beat her on the abdomen, or put the extract of the Dead Sea fruit [’ushar] on a piece of cotton inside her vagina.[iv] The latex of ‘ushar, Calotropis procera, is still used for this purpose in many parts of the Sudan. Nadel writing about Heiban and Otoro tribes of the Nuba Mountains observed that virginity of the bride is appreciated-vaguely and in a platonic fashion. It is rarely, if ever, a reality. The girls in Otoro and Heiban are familiar with methods of preventing childbirth or procuring an abortion. They range from pure superstitions, like pulling a string from the fringes of the pubic apron and burying it under the door of the sleeping hut (to dig it up again after marriage), to more empirical practices, e.g. massage of the abdomen and the use of strong laxatives: a preparedness all the more characteristic, as in this society, where girls marry as soon as they are sexually mature, the danger of an untimely pregnancy is comparatively small.[v]

Shatta (red pepper) is a popular condiment and appetizer of which people consume small quantities with food. However, when they take it in large quantities, it proves to be harmful. It results in a burning sensation in the mouth, throat, stomach, and rectal passages, and causes vomiting, colic, diarrhoea, and even death.

The Azande and their kindred tribes of the southern Sudan use certain poisonous plants and minerals in divination procedures. Evans-Pritchard has described at length some of these practices and reported on the nature of the poisonous material used in divination by ordeal.

Broun and Massey recorded the use of the seeds of Erythrophleum guineense as an ordeal poison among the Dinka tribe. They reported that:

“The accused is required to swallow four of the seeds with water, after they have been cut into two, the belief being, that the innocent vomit the poison and are safe, while the guilty retain the poison and die.”[vi]

Grove[vii] described the use of another ordeal poison among the Acholi tribe, and Anderson noted yet another Azande one but neither of these authors characterized the agent. However, the Azande were known to force a condemned person to eat four small beans obtained from the pods of a tree called lappa. This was most probably the plant Erythrophleum guineense.[viii]

The banga cult has attained a special importance among oracular procedures because it uses a poison ordeal. Early anthropologists, who have studied the social systems of the southern tribes of the Sudan, have described the cult at length. Edward Evans-Pritchard dealt with the cult in Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic among the Azande.[ix] Major Brock writing in Sudan Notes and Records in 1918 reported that the poison is obtained from the root of a shrub usually found growing in khors; it is rarely found in the Bahr Al-Ghazal and mostly comes from the Belgian Congo.[x] Kirk later reviewed the evidence related to the nature of the poisons used, and incidentally noted that investigating this field is laden with difficulties because many of these practices are highly secretive. He reported that:

“Benge is described by Anderson[xi] as a powdered root obtained from the Congo, by Seligman[xii] as a red powder obtained from a creeper growing in the wooded region south of the Uelle River in the Belgian Congo, in the land of the Mongbettu and the Abasambo. Its nature is a little uncertain. An ordeal poison known as ‘bengue,’ and obtained from the Haut-Oubangui region by Pouthiou, was analyzed many years ago at Bordeaux by de Nabais and Dupoy, who found that it contained strychnine and a red coloured matter, and concluded that it was identical with the M’Boundou poison of the Gabon (Strychnos Icaja Baill.). A sample of benge from the Bahr Al-Ghazal was analyzed in Khartoum by Dr. Beam[xiii] and found to consist of a brownish-red oxide of iron with a small amount of fine sand. It contained no organic material or metallic poison. Beam suggested that the powder was probably selected because of its bright red colour, and when a bad omen is desired poison of some sort is added. A later sample analyzed by Mr. Grindley[xiv] in 1943 was found to contain strychnine.”[xv]

Some plants poison human beings or grazing cattle when they are eaten raw, improperly cleaned or processed, as may happen in famines and periods of general scarcity. Cyanogenesis occurs if bitter cassava, Manihot utilissima is consumed uncooked. This type of poisoning arises from failure to remove the contained glucoside and ferment. These two components, in the presence of water, liberate the poisonous prussic acid. Thus, the glucosides and ferments that are contained in the milky juice should be thoroughly pressed out by washing, scraping, and grating the tuber before it can be used safely.[xvi] Animal owners have also noted that the roots of some plants are poisonous to their livestock. Haikabit, for example, also known as sharoba and gulum (Capparis tomentosa) is well known to be poisonous to camels.

Father Zugnoni of Deim Zubeir Mission has heard that members of the Yilede secret society in the Banda country in southern Sudan use several kinds of poison. They avoid medicines, which produce immediate deaths for they are too afraid of the courts, but they use poisons, which are alleged to cause death after several days, perhaps after months. One of these poisons is said to be prepared from the juice of the mbuga (Euphorbia sp.), which is administered in gravy and produces swelling of the belly. People under its effects drink much water, and death probably results in ten to fifteen days. Women have no fear of this poison for they prepare their own food, and eat it apart by themselves; also, they are believed to know the antidote, and will willingly administer it to people who yield to their wishes, make reparation, and pay the fines. Another similar poison is produced from certain tubers, which are pounded and mixed with millet flour. This produces nausea and vomiting. Blindness can be produced by certain small leaves, which are placed in the water with which a person is to wash.[xvii]

Traditional health practitioners take great pains in preparing safe medicinal recipes. They try hard to eliminate the harmful substances in the plants they use. Nonetheless, cases of severe toxicity, irreversible organ damage, or even deaths have occurred. In 1908, Anderson commented on the outcome of the local treatment of gonorrhoea in Kordofan:

“The native treatment of gonorrhoea is not only ineffective but most dangerous. There have been three deaths in the Civil Hospital, El Obeid, during the last year from malpraxis in this direction, one from anuria, another from acute ascending nephritis, and a third from gangrene of the scrotum and penis. Each of these unfortunates had, prior to admission, undergone a course, resulting in severe vomiting, diarrhoea, and acute inflammation of the kidneys, with haematuria, the passage of blood being looked upon as an essential to the cure.”[xviii]

‘Root therapy’ is the use of plant roots in healing and in magic. The Fullan tribes of Darfur, the Nigerians in the Sudan, and all the people of the western Region of the country and neighbouring Chad, have attained a wide reputation for proficiency in the use of ‘uruq (roots).

In the early 19^th century, Al-Tunisi, an Egyptian traveller, visited Darfur, and described incidents in which the ‘uruq al-sihir (the magic roots) were implicated.[xix] He asked his shaikh, Medani Al-Fotawi, about the secrets of the Nara roots so popular in the region at that time. He was told that the holy books that were communicated from God to Adam, Abraham, and other prophets, were buried and grew plants. The seeds of these plants were later borne in the air and dispersed throughout the globe; from these also grew the plants from which the ‘roots’ in question are dug out and used in subsequent years.

The ‘roots’ are credited with a variety of attributes throughout the Sudan. People believe that some of these roots protect against snakebites, scorpion stings, gun shot wounds and knife injuries. Others help to attain love or attract a spouse. The roots that protect against snakebites and scorpion stings are also used in the treatment of these afflictions.

Some ‘roots’ are used to scare away locusts in the Nuba Mountains and Darfur Region. The Dar Masalit and Zaghawa tribes are famous in this field. In these tribes the Dambbari keeps the secret knowledge about certain ‘roots’ and uses them with the necessary rituals to scare away locusts. In the Nuba Mountains, the right to carry out this procedure and that of rainmaking are prerogatives of the kujur’s office.

Some people wear specific types of ‘roots’ as amulets to protect them against troubles of one kind or another. Others keep some handy to be used as and when necessary. If one is bitten by a scorpion, for example, one chews a piece of ‘a scorpion root’ and applies it to the affected site. Alternatively, one rubs the root vigorously over the bitten area to effect a cure.

Eric Hussey reported on the crocodile charmers in the Dindir area in 1917. Among the West African folks who wander through the Sudan on their pilgrimage to Makka, one occasionally finds members of the Hausa-speaking Kabbi tribe, a race of fishermen who live for the most part in a large city called Argungo, about one day’s journey west of Sokoto. Members of this race are recognizable by the marks on their faces; ten long cuts spreading out in a fan-shape from the corner of the mouth on the right side, and nine on left, meeting vertical cuts on each side of the brow.

These people have a curious power over crocodiles, which they pull out of the water alive, the crocodile apparently being subject to their influence. A crocodile, reported Hussey, was taken out of the Dindir River in his presence, and was very much alive but quite under the spell of his captors. He was afterwards cut up and eaten.

The secret of this power is said to lie in a certain ‘uruq compounded with herbs found in the forests of Nigeria and its composition is known only to the old men of the tribe. The ‘uruq are smeared on the body and a small portion is eaten by the fishermen before entering the water. A line is stretched across the stream with baited hooks attached on which fish are caught, while the fishermen walk up and down beside the line. If an inquisitive crocodile comes up to the line, one man seizes it by the jaws and another by the tail and they drag it alive to the shore. If it is a very large crocodile, a rope is tied to its tail; several men are then required to pull it up the bank. This method had to be adopted with a crocodile, 16 feet long, which happened to be caught one day when a sub-mamur was staying at the village. In 1914, the pools in a large stretch of the Dindir River were cleared of crocodiles by three or four men of this tribe who were living at the large Fallata village on this river.[xx]

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[i] Archibald, R.G. Trans. R. Soc. Trop. Med. Hyg. 1933; 27, 247.

[ii] An emmenagogue is an agent or measure that induces menstruation or ‘bring down the courses’ when the flow is irregular.

[iii] Maha Nasr El Din Babiker. Master of Veterinary Science, University of Khartoum, October 1988. (unpublished thesis).

[iv] Burckhardt. Travels in Asia. 1819, pages 229 and 337.

[v] Nadel, S.F. The Nuba: An anthropological study of the Hill Tribes of Kordofan. London: Oxford University Press; 1947: 119.

[vi] Broun, A.F.; Massey, R.E. Flora of the Sudan. London: Thomas Murley & Co.; 1929.

[vii] Grove, E.T.N. Sudan Notes and Records. 1919: 2, 157.

[viii] Anderson, R.G. Some Tribal Customs and Their Relation to Medicine and Morals of the Nyam-Nyam and Gour People inhabiting the eastern Bahr El Ghazal. Wellcome Research Laboratories Report. London: Bailliers, Tindall and Cox; 1911; 4A: 0.39-277.

[ix] Evans-Pritchard, E.E. Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande (1937): Abridged with an introduction by Eva Gilles. Clarendon Press: Oxford: 1976.

[x] Brock, Major R. G. C. Some Notes on the Azande Tribe as found in the Meridi District (Bahr El Ghazal Province). Sudan Notes and Records. 1918; 1: 249-262.

[xi] Anderson, R.G. Op. Cit. 239.

[xii] Seligman, C.C.; B.Z. Pagan Tribes of the Nilotic Sudan. London: Routledge; 1932.

[xiii] Quoted by Gall and Clarac (1911), Traite de pathologie exotique, Vol. v. Impoisonnements. Paris: Balliere et Fils. (Quoted by Kirk op. cit).

[xiv] Grindley, D.N. (1943). The information was circulated in Sudan Medical Service Circular Letter of 12th June 1943. (Quoted by Kirk Op. Cit.).

[xv] Kirk R. Some Vegetable Poisons of the Sudan. Sudan Notes and Records. 1946: 27: 127-157.

[xvi] Kirk, R. Op. Cit., page 147.

[xvii] Zugnoni, Father J. Yilede, a secret society: Among the Gbay "Kreish", Aja, and Banda tribes of the Western District of Equatoria. Sudan Notes and Records: 106-111.

[xviii] Anderson, R.G. Medical Practices and Superstitions Among the People of Kordofan. Third Report of the Wellcome Research Laboratories at the Gordon Memorial College, Khartoum, l9O8: 281-322.

[xix] Muhammad Ibn 'Omar Al-Tunisi. Tashhidh Al-Adhhan Bi-Sirat Bilad Al-'Arab Wa-'l-Sudan (Arabic), (Editors) Khalil M. 'Asaker and Mustafa M. Mus'ad, Cairo: Al Dar Al Masriya Lil-Ta'lif wal-Tarjama, 1965 : 328.

[xx] Hussey, Eric R. J. Crocodi1e Charmers [Note] Sudan Notes and Records; 1918; 1: 206-207.