Every family
has superstitions and customs that get passed on from generation to
generation. Many times they are just
repeated and accepted without any knowledge of how they came to be. Here are some of the ones that I can
remember.
The most interesting one, to me, is
a custom/superstition that came from Mom's family. She incorporated it into our lives so
matter-of-factly that I never questioned it when I was growing up, but when I
told friends, later in life, about the custom, they would look at me strangely
and say they had never heard of such a thing.
The custom is to say
"Rabbit" the first thing in the morning, on the first day of each
month. It has to be the very first word
that you say, and you have to say it out loud - by doing so, you will have good
luck that month. (The implication, of
course, is that if you DON'T say it on the first day of the month, you will NOT
have good luck for that month.)
Where does that custom/superstition
come from? If you Google the query -
"saying Rabbit on the first day of the month" - you will get lots of
hits. Evidently it is a more common
custom than some might imagine. It seems
to be an old English custom. Many of
today's Google hits don't take a guess as to its origin. They try to connect it to the vague idea that
people consider rabbits lucky (like a rabbit's foot). When I looked it up several years ago,
answers were a little more specific.
They talked about the ancient Celtic goddess, Oestra, who was the goddess
of Spring, and whose "totem" animal was a rabbit. (the rabbit's connection to her could also
explain how rabbits became symbols of Easter ).
So, saying "rabbit" at the beginning of each month could be a
way of invoking the blessing of the goddess.
Most of the other superstitions that
have come down from Mom and Dad's families have to do with invoking luck, or
assuring oneself of good luck - or, conversely, warding off bad luck. Here are some:
As Mom mentioned in her memories of
Christmas, her family believed that any
and all Christmas decorations had to be down and put away before New Year's
Day, or it might bring bad luck for the new year. Also, it was bad luck to wash clothes on the
Friday after Christmas (don't ask me where that comes from!) Food on New Year's Day was very important, as
you know. It always had to include a
dish of greens (any kind - mustard greens, collards, spinach), which was
supposed to bring good fortune in the new year; and a dish of black-eyed peas,
which was supposed to bring good luck.
In Dad's family, the first visitors
of the day on New Year's Day were very important. Everyone wanted the first visitor of the day
to be a male - that was supposed to bring good luck. So, Dad says that the families of the
neighborhood would get together before New Year's Day and decide who was going
to visit whose house, to ensure that everyone would get their first dose of
good luck for the year.
In order to ward off bad luck, a person who spilled any salt unintentionally
needed to take a pinch of the salt and throw it over their left shoulder. I don't know the origin of why it was unlucky
to let the spilled salt go, but throwing it over your LEFT shoulder had a
long-standing reason. People of the old
days carried around the belief that you had active participation in your life
by devils and angels - and the angel would be always standing by your right
shoulder and the devil would be standing by your left shoulder. So, throwing the salt over your left shoulder
would be to ward off the devil.
And speaking of food, one rule of
thumb that I remember Mom (and our Aunt Elsie) always saying: never eat oysters in any month that does not
contain the letter "R". This
makes perfect sense, of course, since those months are May, June, July, and
August - the hot months of the year, when oysters would spoil very quickly
(especially in the days before our grand refrigerators), and eating spoiled
oysters could make you very sick.
Other kitchen-related
superstitions: if you drop tableware
while you are either putting it away, or getting it ready to set the table, it
means that "company's coming".
If you twist the stem off of an apple, recite the alphabet, one letter
at a time ("A - B - C - D", etc) with each twist of the stem. The letter that you have said when the stem
comes off is supposed to be the first letter of your "true love's"
name. (A variation: if you peal an apple or a peach, and you keep
the peal intact - all in one piece - and then throw the peal over your
shoulder, look at its shape when it lands - whatever letter it shapes is the
first letter of the name of the one you will marry.
Here are a couple of ideas about
itching. If your nose itches, it could
mean one of three things: you will meet
a stranger; or, you will kiss a stranger; or, you will kiss a fool. If your ear itches, you will hear a secret. If the palm of your hand itches, you will get
some money.
There were, of course, many thoughts
about how strictly you should "keep the Sabbath". For the most part, during both of my parents'
childhoods, that meant not doing any kind of work at all. My Great-grandma Harris, my Grandmother
Stovall, and my mother all used to say that if you did any sewing on Sunday,
you would have to take each one of those stitches out with your nose on
Judgement Day.
How interesting. I have to admit, I laughed out loud about the nose and Judgement day:) So that's why Mama and Grandmother never would sew on Sunday.
ReplyDelete