Touni Minuit

“Touni Minuit” (English translation – naked at midnight) isn’t a story exclusive to Rodrigues Island. Mauritius also has stories of “Touni Minuit”. The stories from Rodrigues and Mauritius are a little bit different. The stories started in Mauritius, changed a bit, and then migrated to Rodrigues.

I’ll begin with the Mauritian “Touni Minuit”.The story begun after cyclone Hollanda struck Mauritius in February 1994 when the electricity was down and hadn’t been restored to many parts of the island. Rumours swept the island that a woman was menaced by a werewolf in Port Louis, the capital city of Mauritius. Yes, a werewolf! Within hours of the first report, sightings and encounters with the werewolf began to multiply. The werewolf was given the name of “Touni Minuit”. He was described as being shiny black or silver and took the form of a naked man and sometimes a dog. Mass hysteria swept the island and the story was reported in the news media. Armed vigilantes started to roam the streets in search of the so called werewolf. As the weeks passed and electricity was restored, sightings of “Touni Minuit” died down. Some people attribute the disappearance of “Touni Minuit” to the killing of black dogs in Pleine Verte by the vigilantes. Basically they assumed he was killed when in dog form.

The “Touni Minuit” story migrated to Rodrigues after the hysteria died down in Mauritius. The Rodriguan version wasn’t reported as being a werewolf. He was described as a naked man that was smeared all over with some sort of black oily substance. The story goes that people would wake up in the middle of the night and they would find “Touni Minuit” in their kitchen eating their food (I’m laughing while writing this as the find this story so hilarious). Some people tried to grab him but he slipped from their grasp due to his oily covering and magically disappeared. Like the Mauritian version, weeks passed and sightings of “Touni Minuit” died down.

Both versions of “Touni Minuit” were reported in Melbourne on the weekly ZZZ Mauritian radio program.

The schoolteacher and the Virgin Mary statue

In the olden days there was a statue of the Virgin Mary located on the hillside in the grounds of Port Mathurin Government School (It may still be there) . I actually have a very old picture of the school children helping build the statue dated from the late 1940s. Back in the days school teachers used to take their students to the statue to pray. Maybe they prayed for good grades! One of these students told me the following funny story.

On this particular day a school teacher took his students to the statue to pray. The teacher in question was Monique Plaiche (sadly no longer with us but very well known as a teacher). As he and his students knelt before the statue and started saying their prayers a man on the roadside by the school yelled out, "Monique!!!!! Arete fer to couyon!! Ca statue la, ciment ca! Levayan ki ti faire ca!".

Kreole --> English translation: Monique!!!! Stop being an idiot!! That statue is cement! Levayan made it. Basically the moral of the story is, "why the hell are you praying to a piece of cement".

The daredevil Rodriguan motorcyclist

A motorcyclist is hospitalised in Queen Elizabeth hospital at Creve Coeur nursing multiple broken bones, cuts and bruised. He is visited by his family and friends. They ask him what happened to him. He replied that he had been riding his motorcycle on a stretch of road near Mont Lubin on a pitch black moonless night. He rounded a corner and he saw the distant glare of two motorcyclist’s headlight. Having a bit of a reputation as a daredevil he accelerated his bike and decided he was going to ride between the two motorcyclists heading his way. As he thundered for the small gap between the oncoming headlights he realised, too late, that it wasn’t two motorcyclists heading his way but a jeep. This jeep was the first and only car on the island at the time. The motorcyclist had no idea and thought motorcycles were the only form of motorised transport on the island at the time.

This story comes from the 1950s and it is a fact that the first car on the island was a jeep and did arrive on the island in the 1950s. That being the case, this story still sounds suspiciously like an urban legend. A few people claim it did occur though but who knows.