zombie's cucumber

English

Alternative forms

• zombi's cucumber

Noun

zombie's cucumber (uncountable)

1. Jimsonweed (Datura stramonium), as used in Haiti.
   • 1985, Wade Davis, The Serpent and the Rainbow, Simon & Schuster, p. 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, p. 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 2017, p. 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.