Some of us grew up with immigrant parents or grandparents who carried many seemingly odd rituals to this country with them. Did your ancestors toss a bit of salt over their left shoulders if they spilled the shaker or avoid walking under ladders? Did they predict seven years of bad luck if they broke a mirror? Where did all the talk about evil and devils and bad luck originate? Learning more about the origins of superstitions, customs, and traditions can give us insight to the lives of our ancestors and help to enhance our family histories.
With Halloween fast approaching, it seems the perfect time for us to think about these common superstitions. The Merriam-Webster definition of superstition is “a belief or practice resulting from ignorance, a fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance, or a false conception of causation; a notion maintained despite evidence to the contrary.” (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/superstition) Today, of course, we know that broken mirrors don’t guarantee someone will have seven years of bad luck or that walking under a ladder will bring tragedy, but to our ancestors who didn’t have the wherewithal to separate medical or scientific facts from anecdotal ones, the world was a frightening place, and superstition was rampant.
You can probably name many more superstitions that are still prevalent: Friday the 13th (or any 13, for that matter), knocking on wood for luck, avoiding black cats, not opening an umbrella indoors, or hanging a horseshoe over a doorway for luck, for example.
Where do these beliefs come from? In many cases, we can track them back to their origins and they are fascinating stories.
- Broken mirrors: The belief that if you break a mirror, you get seven years of bad luck goes back to ancient Roman times because they believed that mirrors contained fragments of the human soul. If you broke a mirror, you’d literally break someone’s health.However, the ancient Romans also believed that your soul regenerated every seven years, so your bad luck wouldn’t last longer than that.
- Gesundheit!: Back to the ancient Greeks and Romans again, who believed that yawning and sneezing were a problem because your soul could leave your body if you were dreaming, and “it can’t get back in if you’re sneezing,” says folklore librarian Moira Smith. If you said “God bless you” after a sneeze, you were protecting the soul from getting lost.
- Open umbrellas: The ancient Egyptians gave us the superstition about not opening umbrellas indoors. They felt that the shade of an umbrella was sacred and if you opened one indoors, you were insulting the sun god. Umbrellas were made from papyrus and peacock feathers and were reserved only for the nobility because they were fashioned to look like the goddess of the sky.
- Black cats: In the Middle Ages, when people were highly superstitious, black cats were associated with the devil. Many believed they caused the Black Death, and so people tried to exterminate as many black cats as they could find. Two centuries later, when witchcraft preoccupied people’s minds, black cats were thought to be familiars of witches, and their reputation suffered again.
- Walking under a ladder: Christianity has long respected the number three because of the doctrine of the trinity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. When a ladder leans against something, it forms three sides: the ladder, the supporting structure, and the ground. Hence, it was thought that walking under a ladder would break the sanctity of the trinity, which was considered blasphemous.
- The number 13 and spilled salt: In Norwegian mythology, Loki, an impish trickster, brought chaos to the world by arriving as the thirteenth guest to a dinner party at which he tricked another guest into shooting the god of joy. The ancient Egyptians also associated thirteen with death, based on their beliefs of the twelve stages of life, followed by the thirteenth, death. Finally, there were thirteen people at the Last Supper, and the thirteenth was Judas, who betrayed Christ. And the salt shaker? Salt, in early civilizations, was a rare and expensive commodity, so wasting it in any form was calamitous. Early Christianity viewed salt as a purifying element; wasting it left someone open to evil. You could mitigate the damage, however, if you acted to keep the devil out of the picture. Many believed that your left side was sinister. Good angels hovered over your right shoulder, but the “angel of evil” had the other side. So, if you tossed a bit of salt over your left shoulder, you would blind the devil and you would be spared any harm.
What superstitions have you encountered in your family history research? Be sure to include that information in your genealogy!
“The Fascinating History Behind Eleven Common Superstitions,” by Lia Ryerson, Insider, 5 March 2020, https://www.insider.com/history-origin-people-superstitions-2018-4
“Beliefs and Superstitions,” The Victorian Historian, https://thevictorianhistorian.com/beliefs-superstitions/
“The Origins of Ten Ancient Superstitions We Still Follow Today,” by Natasha Sheldon, History Collection, https://historycollection.com/the-origins-of-10-ancient-superstitions-we-still-follow-today/
Happy Halloween!
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