I found an interesting story on this horticultural blog:
Mucuna Pruriens
In it I found an account that was amazing to me.
It is not unknown history that an orphan named Shaka Zulu was taken in by a Nguni cheiftan. And it is well known that Shaka Zulu grew up to be a natural military commander and leader and he militarized the Nguni people. When Shaka rose to power, he made all mjales train as warriors. He made service mandatory and he conquered neighboring tribesmen and took territory.
On one such territorial expansion, Shaka sent tribesmen into Malawi and attacked a small municipality of the Lhomwe people, a band of gentle farmers. They built adobe homes of mud and grass and they ate vegetables indigenous from the region, which include a vine grown tropical legume known as Velvet Bean, or kalongonda. in Lhomwe. Mucuna pruriens is the Latin name and this plant offers pharmacological applications once processed. Unprocessed and consumed in large enough quantities, it is toxic and sometimes fatal to non ruminant animals and human beings.
The Lhomwe tribes people, learned that the Nguni tribesmen were on their way, and fled. In their wake, they left unprocessed Velvet Bean.
The warriors consumed it, died in large numbers and did not complete the capture and enslavement of the Lhomwe.
Shaka Zulu
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