Well-known Superstitions and Their Origin

Most of us have grown up while watching the people around us follow certain superstitions and we were taught to do the same, for no other reason than that if we fail to do so, it will result in bad luck.
Of course, as we get older, study more, gain more experience, our thinking turns more to reason and all these beliefs sound poppycock to us. But somehow or the other, we still follow at least some of them, for the reasons social or otherwise. This may be because these superstitions were already a part of our lives from a very young age.
But just where did these come from? Why were our ancestors and elders just so adamant about these few beliefs, which were handed down to us through thousands of years of civilization? Just what were there reasons?
To answer these questions, we curated a list of a few well-known superstitions and the probable causes of their origin. Let’s have a look –

Do not sleep with your feet facing south

This is a variation of the superstition about not sleeping while your head is towards North and something I was frequently told not to do when I was young. The reason for this seemingly our ancestors’ knowledge of Bio-magnetism…

That’s right, the effect of Earth’s magnetic field on the human body is nothing to sneeze at and can be as harmful as they are important. Apparently our ancestors were well aware of the fact, why else would the direction you sleep in would matter?

Do not cut your nails at night

A widely followed yet stupid sounding belief is the one telling us not to cut our nails at night. But it has a perfectly simple reason behind it, that is, the lack of electricity in olden times.

There was no artificial lighting back then and thus using sharp tools to trim your nails after the sun went down was dangerous. You could easily get hurt in the dark and thus, as a rule, you simply do not cut your nails at night. The times have obviously changed now but the belief still holds as it has been for centuries already.

Do not sweep the house after dusk

Another belief with its root in the lack of electricity- it is said that if you sweep your house after the sun goes down, it brings poverty and it is indeed true, or was, at least for our ancestors.

Because there was no electricity back then, it was possible for someone to sweep out something valuable along with the dust because of the lack of light, which means loss of money… thus poverty comes when you sweep in dark.

Bathing after attending a funeral

The medicines and health services weren’t as advanced as now back when this rule was established, which means there was always a chance of falling sick because of pathogens and thus cleanliness was of utmost importance.

After coming back from a funeral, it became mandatory to take a bath before entering the house to avoid getting infected by the germs. A wise move, we must say, especially keeping in mind the conditions back then.

Restrictions on menstruating women

In some ways, we are more backward than the people who lived thousands of years before us and the superstitions and taboo around Menstruation is the prime example of that. What started as a way of giving ample rest to women when their bodies were the weakest turned into a belief that menstruating women are somehow impure and the restrictions are placed on them so that they don’t contaminate the food and the home environment.

We can’t be any further from the truth with this belief as the only reason women on their periods were not allowed to enter the kitchen or do housework was that constantly losing blood weakened their bodies and thus they needed to rest so as to not get their health seriously affected. After all, the health facilities weren’t that great then, even if the common sense was.

Strange Superstitions across the World!