The Potato Sacrifice to relieve the suffering of humankind

Our current Resident Activists in the Community Hybrid Forum, the Potato Liberation Trust, have been working diligently to decolonise the IMoB collections, and document the presence of potato remains in the museum stores. This is revealing the dept of historic trauma evidenced in the many horrific ways that potatoes have suffered for human benefit.

“I have a potato and I have no rheumatism”

These recently rediscovered potato remains were accessioned as ‘Magical potato charms’ c.0001890 CE. They represent the tragedy of speciesism and human magical thinking.

Potato individuals were kidnapped and held hostage by humans, carried around in pockets as a folk cure. As the stolen potatoes shrank, it was believed that they absorbed rheumatism from the humans, and brought relief from their pain. They were sucked of life in exchange for imagined human therapeutic benefit in this parasitic relationship.

Some human villains also believed potatoes could carry leprosy, and even spread the bubonic plague, which led to pogroms against Irish potatoes in c.0001840 CE.

Such exploitative human-potato relationships are unthinkable now, but remain present in the lived trauma of our refugee families. We are conducting the proper scholarly research necessary to establish the identity and provenance of these potato individuals, prior to repatriation to their descendants.

‘we [humans] abuse potatoes because we [humans] can regard them as a commodity belonging to us [humans]’ (Leopold 0001949, 195).

Updated June 0002026