zombie's cucumber

English edit

Alternative forms edit

Noun edit

zombie's cucumber (uncountable)

  1. Jimsonweed (Datura stramonium), as used in Haiti.
    • 1985, Wade Davis, The Serpent and the Rainbow, Simon & Schuster, page 187:
      After the baptism, or sometimes the next day, he or she is made to eat a paste containing a strong dose of a potent psychoactive drug, the zombi's cucumber, which brings on a state of disorientation and amnesia.
    • 2013, Arielle Crowell, Deadly Magnolia, page 210:
      “Your soul will answer, you see. And they'll feed you the zombie's cucumber. You ain't got no choice but to eat it.”
    • 2017, Salman Rushdie, The Golden House, Jonathan Cape, published 2017, page 180:
      It seemed to him that he was […] surrendering all agency and becoming hers to command, as if she were a Haitian bokor and he at lunch at Bergdorf Goodman had been administered the so-called zombie's cucumber which confused his thought processes and made him her slave for life.