Originally from Venezuela and Amazonia, but it grows in the Caribbean region, and also in West Africa. It will give a garlic flavour to milk if cows eat it, and it has been used as a fish poison (Perry. 1972), and it functions as an insecticide (Dalziel). A Yoruba preparation to prevent being attacked by someone, required a leaf of this plant, a leaf of Ageratum conyzoides, and some other, unidentified, leaf, all burnt together, and rubbed into small incisions on the hand (Verger).
Ka’apor people of Amazonia made an amulet of the bark for infants, wrapped in cloth. It would ward off the evil divinity (Balée), and they plant it by their doors as an apotropaic protector. It is used as an ingredient in the ritual baths that are part of Brazilian healing ceremonies (P V A Williams), and amulets are made of the wood, in the shape of the universal figa. The figa gesture is usually made with the hand, but wearing a carved figa round the neck or waist is much simpler. Brazilian street vendors wear one, or stand one up on their trays so as to protect their goods from the evil eye. Petiveria plants are widely used in Brazil for repelling the evil eye and for curing in general, and the leaves are popular in the ritual that accompanies the recitation of a curing prayer (reza). Three leaves can be worn behind the ear as an amulet (P V A Williams).
In West Africa, this provides a whooping cough remedy (Dalziel), and it was used for toothache by slaves in Jamaica (Laguerre). The leaf decoction is used for abortion in Guyana, where it is called Gully-root, and that same decoction is taken for arthritis in Barbados, and for headaches in Jamaica (Laguerre).
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