Conversation

A short thread about truth: Certain African (iirc) tribes have evolved complicated cooking rituals to prepare specific plants, because otherwise you’ll be cursed by the ancestors or some similar explanation of calamity; (1/3)
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When British colonists showed up, they thought ‘ancestor-curses are silly,’ and prepared the plants in a simple way before eating; they then died of poisoning because the ancestor-curse avoidance strategy was actually a complex series of chemical reactions to denature the poison.
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(I don’t know where I read this story originally, or if I’ve gotten the details right - I’m still trying to rediscover the source. Please let me know if you have any leads!)
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