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The tokoloshe is a small supernatural creature with a big appetite. Short, hairy and sexually predatory, his behaviour ranges from minor mischief to acts of utmost evil. At the lesser end of the trajectory, the tokoloshe merely makes his victims lazy and/or unlucky. Sometimes he encourages consensual licentious behaviour; other times he is a rapist.
Often his acts of sexual impropriety lead to emotional alienation. In recent years, the charismatic churches have coined the term “spiritual husband” to describe what the tokoloshe has always done. Basically, the tokoloshe meets single women in their sex dreams and then jealously keeps potential real-life suitors at bay.
Unable to find love? The tokoloshe wants to keep you for himself. In rural areas the tokoloshe specialises in breaking up families by pleasuring the wives of migrant workers, who then feel diminished desire for their returning human husbands.
Almost always invisible to adults (by way of a magic pebble), the tokoloshe’s fondness for dairy products gives his presence away. Rural tokoloshe tend to steal milk directly from the teat of a cow, while their urban cousins generally raid the fridge in search of sustenance. Legend has it that the tokoloshe is particularly partial to amasi (sour milk).
The tokoloshe’s tastes are no random fancy. To steal milk means much more in South Africa than it would in other culinary cultures. Ours is a land in which cattle are king. Dairy is central to southern African heritage cuisine and is intimately associated with concepts of kinship. Every day in every way, South Africans make profound spiritual, social and emotional connections through the ways in which they share milk. Across our region, many new brides are traditionally prohibited from drinking milk from the same cow as the rest of her husband’s family. Despite living in the same household, it takes time for the makoti to be truly accepted as “one of us”. Over time (usually upon the birth of a child) she is accepted as a fully fledged member of her new family and from this point on she can drink milk from her father-in-law’s herd. Families share milk, so stealing milk is akin to invading, preventing, violating or breaking family bonds. Which is presumably why the tokoloshe likes to do it.
Fortunately, salt is a tokoloshe’s culinary kryptonite – legend has it that an ancestral tokoloshe was murdered by being pelted with rock salt and that his descendants have been wary of NaCl ever since. There are several companies that produce species-specific tokoloshe-taming salts. They come in pretty colours with reassuring messages on the labels from the healers who have blessed them. Such products are not always effective – some stubborn spirits require the intervention of a spiritual professional. Tokoloshes with a limited grasp on their victims can be kept at bay by sprinkling standard supermarket sea salt around cattle kraals, fridges and at the entrance to bedrooms.
If only we could find a way of keeping the tokoloshe’s creepy cousin, Pinky Pinky, out of school toilets …
