Smoking dried vulture brains to have a vision of winning lotto numbers — that’s why customers come to Scelo, a vendor of traditional medicines, but it’s a trend being blamed for killing off South Africa’s vultures.
“Vultures are scarce. I only have one every three or four months,” said Scelo, a young healer in downtown Johannesburg’s market for muti, or traditional medicine.
“Everybody asks for the brain. You see things that people can’t see. For lotto, you dream the numbers,” he said.
PHOTO: AFP
Rolled into a cigarette or inhaled as vapors, vulture brains can also help at the horse races, boost an exam performance, or lure more clients to a business, believers claim.
Next to snake skins and ostrich feet, as well as donkey fat to chase away bad spirits, Scelo sells a tiny bottle with just a speck of ground brains for 50 rand (US$6.50).
The entire bird could go for 2,000 rand. Vulture bones or feathers can be also mixed with herbs to make medicines, said one nyanga, or traditional healer, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“We make the brain dry and mix it with mud and you smoke it like a cigarette or a stick. Then the vision comes,” he said.
He prescribes mainly vulture heads, which he says bring visions of the future, endowing users with the bird’s excellent vision that helps them fly out of nowhere to descend on carcasses.
It’s a belief shared along Africa’s east coast, as well as in some west African countries, experts say.
Mthembeni wanted to buy a blend of ground brains and beaks — not for himself, but to give to his dogs.
“I put it on their nose. Then they can detect any strange presence from kilometers away. It gives security to my family,” the young Zulu said before turning away, dismayed at the price.
At least 160 vultures are sold each year for muti, according to a study by two wildlife groups.
Researcher Steve McKean estimates that up to 300 vultures are killed by a variety of causes, especially in the eastern province of Kwazulu-Natal, where poaching still goes largely unpunished.
“Traditional use as it is currently happening is likely to render vultures extinct in southern Africa on its own within 20 to 30 years,” he said.
“Vultures are protected by law,” he said, but that so far has been ineffective. McKean said improved public awareness and a better understanding of the trade in the birds was needed.
Seven of the nine species of vulture are considered endangered. Hunters shoot them, trap them or poison them with a pesticide called Aldicarb, which is deadly to humans, the group Ezemvelo Kwazulu-Natal Wildlife said.
Scelo said he knows how to avoid the pesticide: “The meat is blue when it’s poisoned.”
Aside from hunters, vultures also face the threat of electrocution if they fly into high-voltage lines or drown in farm reservoirs, all the while coupled with a shortage of food and the loss of their habitat.
Despite the danger to the bird’s survival, demand remains steady, according to vendors in downtown Johannesburg, who are little aware that they are contributing to the disappearance of certain animals and plants.
Among the stalls stacked with python and crocodile skins, two animals also threatened by the demand for muti, nyanga Samsum Mvubu ponders the real importance of the vultures.
“I don’t believe that these things give you visions,” he said. “But they do bring you luck.”
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS