Current Superstitions | Page 3

MOON 117
Divination.--Fortune.--Moonlight.--Wax and Wane. XVI. SUN 123
Domestic and Mechanical Operations.--Cures. XVII. DEATH OMENS
125 XVIII. MORTUARY CUSTOMS 131 XIX. MISCELLANEOUS
134 Actions.--Bodily Affections.--Apparel.--Customs.--Days.--
Domestic Life.--Various. NOTES 151

CURRENT SUPERSTITIONS.

INTRODUCTION.
The record contained in the present volume forms the first considerable
printed collection made in America of superstitions belonging to
English-speaking folk. Numerous as are the items here presented, only
a part of the matter is included, the collector having preferred to reserve
for separate presentation superstitions connected with animal and plant
lore, material which would require a space about equal to that here
occupied. Again, the present gathering by no means pretends to
completeness; while certain departments may be adequately
represented, other sections exhibit scarce more than a gleaning. The
collection, therefore, will be looked on as a first essay, subject to
revision and enlargement.
The designations of locality will suffice to show the width of the area
from which information has been obtained, as well as the degree of
similarity which appears in the folk-lore of different regions belonging
to this wide territory. Here and there may be observed items showing a
measure of originality; a new superstition may have arisen, or an

ancient one been modified, according to the fancy of an individual, in
consequence of defective memory, or in virtue of misapprehension. But
on the whole such peculiarities make no figure, nor does recent
immigration play any important part. Almost the entire body of this
tradition belongs to the English stock; it is the English population
which, together with the language, has imposed on other elements of
American life its polity, society, ethics, and tradition.
This relation is not an isolated phenomenon; on the contrary, it is
entirely in the line of experience. Language is the most important factor
which determines usage and influences character; this result is effected
through the literature, oral or written, with which, in virtue of the
possession of a particular speech, any given people is brought into
contact. In this process race goes for little. Borrowing the tongue of a
superior race, a subject population receives also the songs, tales, habits,
inclinations which go with the speech; human nature, in all times
essentially imitative, copies qualities which are united with presumed
superiority; to this process not even racial hostility is a bar; assimilation
and transmission go on in spite of hatred directed against the persons
who are the object of the imitation; such a process may be observed in
the recent history of Ireland.
Reception of new ideas, however, though promoted by the possession
of a common language constituting a means of exchange, is not limited
by its absence; on the contrary, in all historical time among contiguous
races takes place a transference of ideas which dislike and even warfare
do not prevent. Here the law seems to be that the lower culture has
relatively little effect on the higher with which it is in contact, while the
superior civilization speedily influences an inferior one. Nor is the
effect confined to the higher classes of any given society; beginning
with these, the new knowledge descends through all ranks, and
everywhere carries its transforming influence. What is true of written
literature in a less degree is true of oral; songs and tales, rites and
customs, beliefs and superstitions, diffuse themselves from the
civilization which happens to be in fashion, with a rapidity greater or
less according to the interworking of a multitude of modifying forces.
In the other direction, from the lower culture to the higher, exchange is

slow, albeit likely to be promoted, in certain cases, by peculiar
conditions, such as the deliberate literary choice which seeks
opportunity for archaistic representation, or the respect which an
advanced race may have for the magical ability of a simple tribe,
believed to be nearer to nature, and therefore more likely to remain in
communion with natural forces.
But these exceptional effects are of small relative moment; the general
principle, continually at work, in the main controls the result. In regard
to the themes of stories especially, the many tongues and dialects of
Western Europe offer scarcely more variation than will be often found
to exist among the versions of the same tale which may be discovered
in a single canton. The spirit of the language, already mentioned as
constituting the element of nationality, taking possession of this
common stock of knowledge, moulds its precise form and sentiment in
accordance with its own character; it is in details, rather than in outlines,
that racial differences are found to exist; this principle applies in a
considerable degree in the field of folk-tales, even between cultures so
opposite as those of Western Europe and Western Africa.
In the case of superstitions, the diffusive process, though less rapid or
effectual than in tales, is nevertheless