Current Superstitions | Page 7

of amusement still keep up rites which are

to determine the future partner in life. Yet that these observances were
formerly performed with sober forethought may be seen by the
superstitious character with which in retired districts they are still
invested; it is likely that in this limited field we have the final echoes of
ceremonies employed to determine action and to supply means for the
estimation of every species of good or evil fortune. Among these
customs a considerable part may be of relatively recent origin, but a
number are undoubtedly ancient.
Particularly remarkable is the word by which in the English folk-lore of
America, at least, these practices seem to have been popularly entitled.
Dictionaries give no aid in explaining the signification of the word
"project," here used in the sense of a ceremony of divination. I cannot
offer any explanation as to the probable antiquity of the term; neither
middle-Latin nor Romance languages seem to offer parallels. One
might guess that if all were known, the use might be found to proceed
from the special language of mediæval magic or astrology (perhaps
mirror-divination).
With practices of this sort has been connected an incident of colonial
history. During the accusations brought against alleged witches of
Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692, the chief agents were a group of
"children" belonging to a particular neighborhood of that town. It has
been asserted that these young persons, previous to the outbreak of the
excitement, formed a "circle" of girls in the habit of meeting for the
purpose of performing "magical tricks" (to use a phrase employed by
Cotton Mather), and that it was experience so acquired that fitted them
for the part afterwards played in the trials. This statement has been
repeated by so many recent writers as to become a commonplace of
accepted history; it would seem, however, that the representation
depends on the invention of a modern essayist, who transferred to the
colonial period ideas derived from his acquaintance with the
phenomena of contemporary spiritualistic séances, and that the habit of
"trying projects," no doubt universal in colonial times, had nothing to
do with the delusion in question. (See note, p. 153.)
Ancient popular divination would, as a matter of course, have taken a

ritual character, and been associated especially with particular seasons.
It is therefore more than an accident, that many of these harmless
observations seem especially connected with Halloween. The Day of
All Saints, of which name our English title is a translation, precedes
that of All Souls; for the institution and significance of both the church
has its explanation. Yet this account is not the correct one: these feasts
descend, not from any Christian ecclesiastical ordination, but from an
ancient festival of the dead; they represent the survival of a celebration
which probably consisted in the bestowing on the departed, after the
ingathering of the harvest, his share of the fruits of the ground,
conveyed by direct material administration. That at such a period spirits
of the dead should be supposed to walk the earth, would be a matter of
course; in early time these would be conceived as returning in order to
behold and join the sacred dances of the tribe. Accordingly, there seem
to be indications showing an original association of some of these
usages with the lower world; such may be the significance of the
backward movement, or the inversion of garments, occasionally
recommended. In order to put one's self in connection with the world of
darkness, it is essential to reverse the procedure which is proper for the
realm of light. This principle, appearing in mediæval magic, could also
be illustrated from savage custom. It can hardly be doubted that the
limitation of such forecasts to the field of choosing partners for life is
but a survival of an older practice, in which divinations of fortune in
other directions also were sought; on the day sacred to the dead, it may
be that the latter, as having power and knowledge, were invoked to act
as illuminators. The stress laid on dreams appears to imply a practice of
evoking spirits, whether of the deceased or of the living.
In the division entitled "Love and Marriage" we are dealing not with
ceremonies, but "signs;" in the former case a voluntary action is
implied in the consulter of fate; in the latter, the subject is passive. The
word "signs" is a popular term for omens of any kind; in this case we
cannot be in error in seeking a Latin derivation, signum being
classically used in this sense. Here, again, the prognostics in question
are respected only by women, and at the present time, with but a light
admixture of genuine credulity, unless among people of secluded
districts, retaining old-world notions. Foolish as are these ideas of

sequence, they