Thread on Mágùn
Note: The Picture above is from the Yoruba movie "Magun".
No Yorùbá of my generation would claim not to have heard one or two things about mágùn.
Mágùn literally means "Do not mount (copulate)". In Yoruba traditional medicine, it is reputed to be one of Yorùbá most potent charms.
Mágùn charms are regarded by Yoruba people as instrument of justice to punish sexual infidelity among them.
Several authors (Lucas 1948; Fadipẹ 1970; Buckley 1985; Abraham 1959; Láoyè 1974) have described màgún as a magic charm which a man secretly puts on a woman to ensure that the first man who has sex with her will die.
According to Yoruba oral tradition, only babalawo (Ifá priests) who have been initiated into the mysteries of Ifá, the Yoruba Òrìṣà of divination, know the secret of màgún.
According to Timi Laoye (1974), the late king of Ẹdẹ: "it was in Abẹokuta in the early part of the 19th century that the babalawo herbalists first procured màgún to enable cuckolded husbands to curb wife infidelity".
However, as Laoye admits, when acquired by an adulterer màgún is equally capable of killing a cuckold.
"And if no man has sex with the woman who is unaware of having been infected with màgún, the juju would kill the woman herself within seven days!".
Lawrence George Green was a South African journalist and author. He was a prolific writer and published on average a book a year between 1933 and 1972.
In all, he wrote 34 books including a guide for writers. a number of stories for foreign and local magazines and many newspaper articles and letters.
In one of his books, "Under a Sky Like Flame by Lawrence Green" published in 1958, he wrote the following about mágùn in Chapter 16 titled - Black Man's Magic.
'Go where you will in West Africa and ask the white doctor whether he has ever encountered anything which he could not explain, and you will find yourself in the dark borderland of doubt.
A Scottish pathologist who spent many years in West Africa told me sadly that he had performed scores of postmortems in which he was unable to state the causes of death.
“We all knew it was poison, but they were poisons which did not respond to our tests,” he declared.
“Sir Bernard Spilsbury himself would have been completely baffled.”
"Mr. H. L. Ward Price, who retired some years ago after a distinguished official career in Nigeria, described the "Magun" poisoning which is carried by a woman in such a way that the next man to cohabit with her dies almost immediately.
The woman is in no way affected by the poison, and is often unaware that she is being used as a vehicle of death.
Isaac Delano, the Nigerian lawyer and author, took part in a murder trial in which a policeman was the victim and the woman was accused.
It was common knowledge that this was a "Magun" case, but the poison could not be identified and the woman was acquitted. "
Crippens and Seddons of our own society would pay a high price for one West African poison used by a section of the Yoruba people in Nigeria.
For months after it has been administered it produces no visible symptoms; yet death is inevitable. It is just as well, perhaps, that the toxicologists of the Western world have nothing like it and know nothing about it.'
I do have a strong scientific bent and I have always wondered whether màgún really works, especially in the following scenarios:
Does it work among lesbians?
What happens if it is the woman doing the mounting instead of the man (cowgirl/woman-on-top style)?
Is it effective against felatio and cunnilingus?
What happens if dildo is deployed instead of mounting?
Etc, etc...
According to Femi Olatunji:
"I'm from Itoku Abeokuta Ogun state. Like Garri Ijẹbu nd Ọfada rice, Magun is common here. According to our ancestors Ikaa Meji is our Odu in Ẹgba,Magun doesn't mean not to have sex, it could be put on your chair, shoes, bed, or even car and okada.
Old Hunters in Itoko, told me that Magun came about not because of sex,but because of ancient animals that terrorize our ancestors in yesteryears, so they came up with Magun,Aluwo, and Alupa abi do you think that Ọdẹ Apa Ẹfọn, Ọdẹ Apa Ẹkun, Ọde Apa Ẹrin, Afiribojo of those days killed those animals with Bow and arrows? Gun and Cutlasses?..... Yet when other minds set in, they started using it as a weapon of terror during warfare, by putting it on our beautiful young women as a Trojan horse and sending them towards the enemy's Gate.... The sex starved warriors usually gang raped the messenger of death and our men will ambush the surprised sick party and they became history..... Even some powerful Balogun sometimes fell victim.
I don't even know how to explain it, for it's all about Quantum physics."
What sayest thou?
Do you know anything about it?
References:
Laoye, J. A. - The Concept of magun among the Yoruba - Acta Ethnographica Academia Scientiarum Hungaricae (Budapest) 23, 352-355 (1974)
Lucas, J. O. - The Religion of the Yorubas. Lagos: CMS Bookshop (1948)
Buckley, A. D. - Yoruba Medicine. Oxford: Clarendon Press (1985)
Fadipẹ, N. A. - The Sociology of the Yoruba. Ibadan: Ibadan University Press (1970)
Lawrence G. G. - Under a Sky Like Flame by Lawrence Green (1958)
Femi Olatunji via Yorubaness Whatsapp
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