Superstitions, regional and generic.

[alhoon]

Hmm. That's cool about the blue bead. I do recall reading that the reason blue has been the traditional color for boys since the Middle Ages is 'cause it supposedly warded off demons. (Betcha they got it from the Greeks, originally )

Of course, they chose pink for girls....because it was complimentary to blue. >.<

Interesting thought on the regional superstitions. I'm actually from Wyoming (not native, but my parents are), which is the Western US.

Thank heavens for Google. My memory is like a sieve today. Here's a few American superstitions, general and regional, for your entertainment: (most of them, seems like, are to do with crops. Well, I suppose we are/were an agrarian society by and large)

Plant flowers in the increase of the moon. -- Pensylvania

If cut when it is waxing, the hay weighs and spends well. -- New England

(I actually recall hearing a variation on this here in cattle and hay country in Wyoming. Some old cowboys who hang out where I work were discussing the best time to plant and cut hay, and though I can't remember exactly what was said, it was something to do with local bugs. Not helpful, I know, but I wrote it down somewhere so I wouldn't *have* to remember it )

If a farmer lays a rail fence by the light of the moon, it will be
stronger and last longer than if it was laid in the daytime. -- Western New York and parts of Massachusetts.

You must never kill cattle or pigs, or even wild game, by the dark
of the moon; it is most unlucky, and the meat will come to no good. --Clover Bend, Arkansas

First a daughter, then a son, The world is well begun. First a son, then a daughter, Trouble follows after. -- Maine and Massachusetts.

If two persons, while walking, divide so as to pass an obstruction one on one side and one on the other, they will quarrel. To avert this, the pair must say "Bread and Butter." -- General United States (I've actually seen my parents do this, now that I think about it.)

Stepping on a crack is unlucky. Childhood rhyme: "Step on a crack, break your mother's back." -- General United States

An old New Hampshire superstition is that if you rock a cradle when it is empty, you will have many children, but if you rock an empty rocking chair, then you invite sickness. In New York and Ohio, however, rocking an empty cradle will, apparently, give your baby colic.

One article of an unborn infant's wardrobe must be left unmade or
unbought or the child is liable not to live. -- Salem, Massachussetts

Swallow a chicken's heart whole, and the first man you kiss
afterwards will be your future husband. -- Maine (Yeah, 'cause any man who would kiss you after you swallowed a freakin' chicken heart definitely loves you.)

To raise an umbrella in a house is a sign of an approaching death. --Pennsylvania; somewhat general in the United States. (ie, it's considered unlucky to open an umbrella indoors. Possibly because doing so will cause you to break something your mother is very fond of, and she will subsequently murder you.)

Cracks on the top of a loaf of bread indicate the death of a friend. --General United States

Interestingly, I haven't found much specific to the western United States. I think this may be due to the fact that this part of the States was, relatively speaking, settled much later than New England, the Appalaichans, and the South, and so superstitions were brought out West with the folks who settled here.

However, ask anyone in the general Western U.S. if they've ever heard of the Flying Dutchman mine, and I doubt you'll find many who say they haven't. And the mine is supposedly in the Superstition Mountains, so there you are.

Let's stop hijacking the other thread.

People, could you be so kind as to include you area's supersticions?

[alhoon]

By the way, the "harvest then"/"plant then" reminds me of the habit we have of prefering lobster that's caught when the moon is "gaining" (going from new to full, don't know the English word). My mother says it has something to do with the taste of the lobster although when I asked a restaurant they told me that the lobster's juiciness isn't affected by the moon.
I smell a supersticion here.

[Ronia Sun]

I strongly suspect that it doesn't matter what phase the moon is in when you plant crops, either.

[alhoon]

What about thanksgiving? It's an American custom, isn't it? Where is it based at?

[Ronia Sun]

Thanksgiving has several sources. The one most Americans will cite is the 'First' Thanksgiving, when the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony thanked God for surviving their first winter in the New World and was a huge dinner celebrated with colonists and some local Native Americans (apparently, they were getting along at that point.) It became an annual tradition among many of the colonies to hold one or more thanksgiving days in a year--and after the Revolutionary War the Continental Congress appointed one or more of these to be celebrated annually. George Washington proclaimed a thanksgiving celebration in 1777 after the British defeat at Saratoga.

Wikipedia had a nice quote of the First National Proclamation of Thanksgiving given by Congress in 1777. Here's a bit of the intro: "FOR AS MUCH as it is the indispensable Duty of all Men to adore the superintending Providence of Almighty God; to acknowledge with Gratitude their Obligation to him for Benefits received, and to implore such farther Blessings as they stand in Need of..."

Thanksgiving became an official holiday with a permanent day (the final Thursday in November, traditionally) in 1863, when Abraham Lincoln declared it a federal holiday and a national day of thanksgiving. It has been celebrated annually in the United States since that time. In 1939 Franklin D. Roosevelt broke with the last-Thursday-in-November tradition, because November that year had five weeks, and as the country was still in the throes of the Great Depression, FDR decided to have Thanksgiving celebrated on the fourth Thursday (that year), and the third Thursday in subsequent years, thus giving merchants a longer holiday season and, hopefully, encouraging spending. (It did not really work in ending the Depression, however. Spending never does...) There was, naturally, a big argument between the Republicans and the Democrats over the change. Some states went along with FDR's change, some went along with the traditional day, and some (Texas) couldn't decide and thought that TWO turkey days was a great idea anyway, and celebrated both. This argument raged for a number of years, until the Senate finally split the difference and declared the fourth Thursday in November to be the official date of Thanksgiving.

"Since 1947, the National Turkey Federation has presented the President of the United States with one live turkey and two dressed turkeys, in a ceremony known as the National Thanksgiving Turkey Presentation. The live turkey is pardoned and lives out the rest of its days on a nearby peaceful farm. While it is commonly held that this pardoning tradition began with Harry Truman in 1947, the Truman Library has shown no evidence for this. The earliest on record is with George H. W. Bush in 1989. Still others claim that the tradition dates back to Abraham Lincoln pardoning his son's pet turkey. Both stories have been quoted in more recent presidential speeches. In more recent years, two turkeys have been pardoned, in case the original turkey becomes unavailable for presidential pardoning." (Wikipedia)

Thanksgiving does remain a day for giving thanks, whether to God or to family or whatever for our blessings. Also a day for tryptophan-overdosing, ie, turkey-coma.

[alhoon]

No supersticions behind it then? Nothing from the Indians or something, that if you didn't eat turkey you would suffer or if you eat turkey you'll prosper?

[Ronia Sun]

Not so much. Just a day of thanksgiving, and I suspect turkey became traditional because a.) it's native to the North American continent and b.) who *doesn't* love turkey-coma?

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Some of the original post's examples tread the line between actual superstition and plain ol' pessimism. It's not unusual for people who don't otherwise give any credence to supernatural forces to believe in good or bad luck, and avoid tempting fate.

- The "Break a leg" expression is used to wish an artist well before a live stage performance, because actually wishing them good luck is thought to have the opposite effect. A self-fulfilling prophecy, as believers will be more anxious if someone breaks this rule.

- Police and other first responders have been known to claim that, if there are witnesses and evidence available to prove an attack on someone, the injured victim will live and the attacker will get a lighter sentence because of their recovery. If there are no other witnesses and any physical evidence of the incident is insufficient to prove the case, the victim will subsequantly die, so their testimony is unavailable and the killer won't be convicted at all. Pure pessimmism, really, plus a tendency for people to better remember cases like these due to the frustrations involved, and forget the exceptions.

- The popular belief that nights of the full moon are more prone to violent events, such as crimes or car crashes. Statistics don't bear this out nowadays, although it may have been true before cities had artificial lighting, simply because more people (crooks included) would be out and about on brightly-moonlit nights.

[Morte Rouge]

Here in eastern PA, the Pennsylvania Dutch have a lot of odd superstitions, some of which are probably imported from Germany. Most of them are old "hex" recipes.

[*] If you slaughter a pig for pork, you need to do it during the period of a waxing moon, otherwise the meat will be shrunken away from the bone and be no good.

[*] Witches who would put a curse on your livestock can be kept out of the barn if a toad's foot is nailed to the door.

[*] If you have a sprain, wrap an eel skin around the area to heal it faster.

[*] At least here in Lancaster County, black cats were actually good luck: it boded well for your house if a black cat stayed of its own accord.

[*] A cut on the foot could be cured by walking barefoot through a field and stepping in cow manure. (To me, this sounds like nothing more than a recipe for infection.)

[*] To cure a hernia, one should go to the county line and cut three hairs from the afflicted person’s head. Cut a small slash in a tree, and put the three hairs into the slash. When the mark in the tree grows shut, the hernia would heal.

[alhoon]

The one with the eel and the cow manure may actually have some truth in them; I don't know what cow manure has or what eel skin has, but they may have some component that helps.

I know that boiled urine was used in some cases. It was actually good, since it had ammonia and ... it was boiled. Using plain water from a river = germs.

[Ronia Sun]

Not to mention that urine is sterile to begin with. Horrifying as it is, I understand that you can survive where there isn't available water by (gag) drinking your own urine. So yeah. People knew that water=germs, but no one seemed to get sick from pee.

(And then there's those people who think that frog urine is an aphrodisiac...)

[alhoon]

Urine has ammonia and a great number of other toxins.

[Ronia Sun]

True enough...but if you're in a desert and have no water... :p