Superstition

[Stephen Shepherd]

What were the common superstitions during this time period? What did they consider 'bad luck'? Spilt Salt? Albatross?

Stephen

[amity]

Re: Superstition

A couple of references to hanging snakes to make it rain in Texas. Many others, but that stands out in my mind as the one I have read most about.

[jake.koch]

Re: Superstition

Antagonizing, or harming a black cat was considered something not to do.


Jake Koch

[jake.koch]

Re: Superstition

I know one superstition was to never mistreat or agravate a black cat. My dad was always allowed to shoot stray cats with a pellet gun on my great-grandparents farm, but they were very strict about never even pointing the gun in a black cats direction. My great-grandfather was born in 1876, but from what my dad told me my great-granfather described it as something he was taught not to do from his own father, which would certainly make it period.

Jake Koch

[ElizabethClark]

Re: Superstition

Family anecdotes are not always accurate reflections of period thought, as they tend to morph with retelling (particularly if it's men in MY family doing the re-telling, as they never let truth stand in the way of a good story...)

Let's please remember to share actual documentation for statements of superstition---quotes from letters, papers, diaries, almanacs, even novels.

[amity]

Re: Superstition

This is in period sources. Several of them.

[amity]

Re: Superstition

The only source I can find without digging into the really dusty end of my collection is from a good secondary source called The Texas Republic by William Ransom Hogan. In the UT edition it is on page 243-44 (emphasis in original):

"Among the innumerable antidotes for snake bite were tobacco juice, gunpowder and vinegar, brandy and salt, alum, and a drink made from the bark of the black ash tree. A German settler noted that medicinal plants included the "wonder tree" castor-oil plant), sassafras, rhatany, locust, elder, sumac, sage, mint, and "many kinds of tea herbs." In this connection, Mrs. Mary Austin Holley boosted Texas as a region abounding in "valuable medicinal herbs and roots. Every old woman, at least, knows how desirable such a natural pharmacopoeia is to a frontier family, far distant perhaps from the shops of the druggist and the physician, where every man, in time of sickness, bcomes a 'botanical quack and steam doctor,' and practices upon his own 'patent'.'" In a region where many healthy people believed that the hanging of a snake would bring rain, the sickly were even more inclined to place faith in mysterious incantations. Doctors, therefore, had to assume more knowledge than they actually possessed, and some of them endowed bread pills and colored water with L:atin names in order to reassure the weak and depressed. .. "

I believe the original snake-hanging references come from Noah Smithwick and from Mary Maverick.

Really, I think it would be a great idea if every broad statement had to be backed up with original sources, and then we may analyze the scope of its applicability, the circumstances it applies in, etc. ! I suspect this would be a rural southern custom in its origin, and would like to hear if anyone knows of it in any other context.

[DJCasey]

Re: Superstition

I am currently reading "North Star Country," by Meridel Le Sueur, which is basically a history of the people of Minnesota from the first explorers up until WWII (when the book was writen). I am on the chapter about homesteaders and the boom of migration to Minnesota in the decade before the Civil War. Le Sueur mentions some of the advice given by previous pioneers to the new comers, both solid advice and superstition. Here are some of the better superstitions:

"Don't skip a row in planting or surely someone close to you will die."

"Underground things plant in the dark of the moon, above ground things in the light of the moon. Even rail fences I heard got to be set in the dark moon or they'll sink sure as rain."

"Kill a snake in the spring and the Indians won't bother you."

[ElizabethClark]

Re: Superstition

David, what are the documented dates for those, if you still have the book handy?

[Hank Trent]

Re: Superstition

"Underground things plant in the dark of the moon, above ground things in the light of the moon. Even rail fences I heard got to be set in the dark moon or they'll sink sure as rain."

Oh man, if we get into planting by the signs... that's a huge body of superstition right there, not just depending on the phase of the moon, but the astrological signs as well.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[Jeff Prechtel]

Re: Superstition

depends a lot on time period, region, time of year, and
cultural and ethnic background. The German's, Scotch-Irish,
Dutch and French all brought a lot over with them, when they
came to this country, and a lot of it blended into the regional society.
For instance you'll find that a lot of the Appalachian superstions that
were around in the 18th century were alive and well during the civil war
period, and continued right up into the late 19th and early 20 century.

The German-Dutch from New York, would have wildly different
superstitions, than their Appalachian, or Pennsylvania Dutch counterparts.
Lots of these superstitions were biblical based, and other were old pagan
hold-overs. Oh, and don't forget all the death-lore, habits & superstions
that abounded, superstitions about agriculture, planting, animal husbandry,
& stock, butchering meat, and more.

[DJCasey]

Re: Superstition

Ms. Clark,

I do not have the documented dates for those quotes. "North Star Country" was published in the 1940s and does not contain citations of todays standards. Le Sueur was a populis writer working with the Federal Writers' Project in Minnesota . The book draws largly from from private letters, diaries, newspaper clippings and folk stories and songs compiled by the author, quoting large passages. However, she does not include proper citations. The most I might get is; "Pioneer Press" or "In a letter back East."

[LindaTrent]

Re: Superstition

While looking for my 4g grandfather's obit I ran across the following article and remembered this thread. There are a few words I'm not 100% on, the text is terribly faded in some parts of the article. The following article is in the Portsmouth Times, Portsmouth, Ohio Aug. 8, 1863. By the way, much of this is also European though many of them are familiar to me.

"Some superstitions.

Superstitions love darkness, and like the Trolls of the old Norseman, if light fall upon them they die instantly. They used to be very numerous and powerful, but many of them lie in undistinguished graves; others exist only in memory; others are objects of mirth and fun, while some few still retain their power to make people afraid. These last mentioned are more potent than we are willing to admit. They have taken refuge in some innermost chamber of the woul which the light can not penetrate, and they will not be dislodged; their victims cry Aviant, but they can not be made to hear. As the sun is shinging we may safely take a look at some of these children of ignorance. Some of the old chroniclers of curious things shall tell us about them.

The howling of dogs is a hideous sound, and we can not wonder it was suggestive of great griefs. It is only less disagreeable than a woman's scream. It is placed by Shakespeare among the portents, and has always been regarded as the presage of death and dire evils. It is related that there was a fearful howling of dogs the night before Maximinus died. The degs of Rome, by this melancholy cry, predicted the sedition about the dictatorship of Pompey, and before the massacre of the Misseanians, the dogs howled as they had never been heard to do before, and before teh battle of Hastings the dogs ran about through the forests and fields, uttering the most prolonged and plaintive cries.

If a dog howled in a neighborhood where any one lay sick, it was considered a prognostic of death. This superstition was grounded on the belief that these animals scent death before it smites a person, and that wraiths are visible to them.

The owl occupied a place of honor and importance in the religions of Greece and Rome. Every movement and note of this hideous and dismal creature were invested with significance. The screech of the owl was regarded as a fatal presage.

'When screech owls croak upon the chimney tops,
It's certain then you of a corse shall hear.

Chaucer mentions this hoarse and horrible sound as among the omens of calamities

The jealous swan, against his death that singeth;
The owl eke, that of death the bode bringeth.

And Edmund Spencer has the following distich on the venerable superstition

The rueful strich, still waiting on the bere,
The Whistler shrill, that whoso hears, doth die

The raven was also supposed to feel the shadow of coming calamity. The croak of this bird portended death. It is stated that one of these gloomy birds premonished Cicero of his approaching death.

Crows were also accounted prophetical birds. When flying in flocks, they were watched by the Roman with trembling, for if they passed on the right hand, they boded good; if on the left, evil. The flight of a crow over a house three times in succession, with a croak each time, was sure to be followed by a death in the family. An old writer was so profoundly convinced of the prophetic power of this lover of corn, that he expressed his belief 'that God sheweth his prevy counsayle to crowes.'

Several of the superstitions of the olden time have been preserved by salt. The spilling of this indispensable substance has turned many a ruddy cheek pale, and instantly silenced the most gleesome laughter. If by an unlucky accident any one overturns the salt-cellar, the eye of an evil doom is thought to be fixed upon him. And the person toward whom the salt falls is also supposed to be about to suffer some mischance; but this may be averted by having wine poured on the lap, or by flinging some of the spilt salt over the left shoulder into the fire.

The occult science of omens pronounced the putting of a shoe or stocking on the wrong foot a most unlucky occurrence. Throwing an old shoe after the bridegroom and bride on leaving their respective houses was supposed to secure the couple the most desirable blessings.

The custom of dreaming on wedding cake dates back to a very remote period. A slice of this charmed cake placed beneath the pillow was supposed to bring before the inner eyes of the fair sleeper the person who was destined to be her loved lord.

It used to be customary in some countries of Europe for the bride, after she entered her chamber, to turn and fling her shoe among the crowd gathered about the door. The person who succeeded in getting it was sure to be married before many moons. These occasions were produced of much noisy jollity, and this simple sorcery was never omitted.

Superstition has always set apart certain days as good and others as evil. Friday is the most ill-omened day in the calendar, and there are many who still believe that the fifth day in the week exerts a baneful influence upon fresh resolves and new enterprises. The Finns never begin any thing of importance on Monday or Friday. Lord Burleigh, in a letter to his son, admonishes him against three Mondays. His lordship specifies, these evil Mondays, and assigns a sufficient reason for regarding them as unlucky: 'The first Monday in April, which day Caine was born and his brother Abel slain; the second Monday in August, which day Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed; and the last Monday in December, which day Judas was born, that betrayed Saviour Christ.'

Sneezing has been considered a good omen from time immemorial. Prometheus is said to have been the first to bless the sneezer. The person who uttered this joyous sound, and received the benediction of the fire thief, was the many he had fashioned of clay. The Rabbis tell us that not very long after the creation, the Lord ordained that every human being should sneeze but once, and that the soul should leave the body at the moment of sternutation, but that the decree was revoked through the supplications of the partiarch Jacob. When the King of Mesopotamia sneezes the auspicious event is celebrated throughout his realm with banquet, dance, and song, and every demonstration of joy."

Linda.