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I have so many it is ridiculous. I hope I am not repeating too much.
1. Parents and grandparents: Don't split the pole! This means everyone in the group needs to walk on the same side of the pole, car blockage, railing, in the same door and everywhere else or it'll split up the relationship.
2. Mom: No hats on the table, it is bad luck
3. Mom, Grandma: Don't open an umbrella inside, it is bad luck.
4. Mom: This one is complicated. On New Year's Day, the first visitor to your home must be a man. Now I can't remember why. And women have to be accompanied by men on New Year's Day, until the first visitors have come by. Residents of the home are excepted. So this means my mom's sister can't come in until her husband (or my dad) enters the house, leaves, then walks her in. I have no clue where this one comes from.
5. Mom: If your hand itches it means you are getting money. I can never remember which hand it is.
6. Mom: If you get grey hair when you are young (aka under 30) it means you will be lucky. Well my first grey popped up at 18 so we will see.
7. Grandma: Turn off all the lights when there is lightening and thunder. This was later modified to leave anything on that was on when the storm started, but you couldn't turn on anything new.
My dearly departed grandmother told me rubbing Vicks on my chest would cure colds faster. I have no idea if it's true, but I use it to this day. It reminds me of her, and her memory cures much of what ails me, no matter what it is
Drinking coffee when you were a child would make your skin dark and/or stunt your growth; Never put your purse on the floor because you would be poor all year (okay, I still won't set my purse on the floor);
Never sweep the dust/dirt straight out the front door because you would sweep out the good luck as well;
If you went to the beach and got in the water during your period, sharks would smell blood and swim directly towards you.
I grew up in a previously very insular culture (Southern Appalachia) that has still held on to a lot of its beliefs.
If you dream about crossing water, there will be an illness in your family. If your ears are burning, someone is talking about you. Paint the ceiling of your front porch blue (we called it 'haint blue') to keep the spirits away from your house.
Pick a bunch of grass, wrap one long strand around the bunch and hold it in your pocket to keep sickness away. Eating black eyed peas, hog jaws and collard greens on New Year's day to bring good luck all year. If you sweep after the sun goes down, you'll never be rich.
If you look in a mirror held over a spring, you will see the face of the person you will marry.
A horse shoe hung upside down (open side to the top) over top a door will keep away spirits and evil spells.
Big crops of nuts means a severe winter is coming. So do woolly worms with a connected black pattern on their backs.
That's just a few of the old beliefs. We also kept many of the plantlore traditions alive and there are many notions of certain plants and their healing properties. Some of these are truthful (making a tea from squaw corn -- probably not a PC term, but I don't know another name for it -- will help relieve symptoms associated with menstruation), some probably aren't.
There were also some less than nice beliefs. One that springs to mind is that people of color were non-white due to being descendents of Ham, who was cursed in the Christian Bible for seeing his father naked. (Very weird, but I have friends that grew up in conservative parts of Utah where folks believed the same thing.)
I have the bolded ones as well...my parents are from the rural Carolinas! (I'm black)
I have the bolded ones as well...my parents are from the rural Carolinas! (I'm black)
Cool. I'm from northeast Tennessee, about an hour away from Asheville, North Carolina and a little farther from upstate South Carolina. Nice to meet you.
Don't play like you're blind (closing your eyes and walking), or you really will go blind.
Ha, that reminded me, if we made faces at our siblings--"If the clock strikes one, your face will stay that way."
I know they didn't actually believe that one, though. They just wanted us to believe it.
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