The Cursed Pot

My dad was a confirmed prospector. Any available time he had he was off into the bush trying to find gold or antimony or emeralds or whatever lead he could follow.
On one of the sites - I remember it well because I was taken there a couple of times, they nicknamed Pipe Dream because every prospector dreams of discovering a pipe of gold. It was next to a huge koppie (outcrop of granite which are very common all over Zimbabwe). I can visualise the sight of a pebble of pure gold stuck in the decomposed granite. At the top of the koppie there was a shelter between huge boulders which had a decorated clay pot. The koppie was a sacred site to the Shona people. Now my dad was very sensitive to local customs but he was also an amateur archaeologist and he couldn;t help himself. He took the pot home. Inside was earth and some beads. I think this is what he couldn't resist because he recognised them as Phoenician trading beads. There were two type - small rounded blue beads and longer cylindrical blue beads. He removed the beads and had them verified by the local museum to which he donated them.
The pot though was a sensitive issue because our cook took one look and bolted out the house, saying he would not return until the pot was far away. So my dad took it out the house and put it on top of the gardening shed, still with its sacred earth inside. Shortly thereafter our house was burned down and my mother always attributed it to the presence of the pot, which disappeared during the fire.