The dictionary defines superstitions as any belief or practice that is irrational.
Are you superstitious? Is the number 13 lucky for you?
Wellington County Museum and Archives program assistant Kyle Smith discussed superstitions with congregate diners on Friday the 13th of October.
The event was hosted by the Seniors Centre for Excellence in Drayton.
“Superstitions can be personal and contain wishful thinking,” Smith said.
“I am wearing my Pittsburgh Penquins T-shirt. Will my team win because I’m wearing this shirt? Not likely, but it makes me feel better to wear it.”
Folklore was shared and changed over time.
Waterloo County folklore in the Mennonite culture during the 1950s consisted of tales and medical remedies. Tying a red sock from the left foot around a patient’s neck was believed to cure a cold. The hair of a dog rubbed into a dog bite would heal the wound.
A black cat coming towards a person in England was considered good luck. A black cat moving away from an individual would take away the luck. North Americans consider a black cat to be bad luck at any time.
“In the museum’s collection is a jar of cat tail hair. Cat tail hair was rubbed into skin bitten or scratched by a cat, to stop the bleeding. The hair was also used in diapers to making them more absorbent,” Smith said.
“Friday the 13th, a day that motorcyclists make a road trip to Port Dover, is a case of bikers putting on their leathers and looking tough,” Smith said.
“No one really knows why it is unlucky and there is no statistical relevance to the day being different than any other day.”
Smith explained that up until the 1920s and ’30s, Halloween was considered an adult holiday. Adults dressed as hockey players, Shakespearian characters, flappers, cowgirls and witches. Parties were filled with good fun, drinks and fortune telling. By the 1930s children celebrated the occasion and dressed up in their parents’ clothing. Trick or treating first began in Canada in Calgary, Alberta. Children in the community were encouraged to go door to door collecting candy.
Smith told the group about a variety of stories along macabre and haunting themes.
He discussed phantasmagoria, a type of horror theatre using one or more magic lanterns to project frightening images such as skeletons, demons and ghosts onto walls, smoke or semi-transparent screens, which was popular in the Victorian era.
Seances were also a popular in Victorian times, Smith noted. Unfortunately charlatans took advantage of those wishing to contact the dead. In Buffalo, New York the Fox sisters made table knocking popular. Because of their double jointed big toes they were able to respond to questions by cracking their big toes, scamming séance participants along with giving them false hopes.
Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King built a shrine for his deceased mother in his office, Smith told the group. King was thought to ask his mother what to do throughout his political life.
Spirit photography was another scam, said Smith. Photographers were able to double expose a negative, producing a photograph with a deceased person’s photo along with the person being photographed.
“Alien” sightings became popular in the 1950s. Smith said two alleged sightings were recorded in Palmerston within one week of each other in July 2001. The first incident occurred in a forest where curly haired creatures, clothed in white robes, were spotted taking soil samples from the ground. The second incident was the discovery of brown-haired creatures with devices unknown to the observers also in a forested location. Orange flying discs had been reported in the area at the time.
In the Belwood Lake area a slow flying banana-shaped object was chased by police to the Richmond Hill area where it crash landed. The object contained a telephone number of a Chicago professor who was conducting weather experiments.
Acton is the hotspot for alleged “Sasquatch” sightings in the region, said Smith. On Dec. 16, 2004, a large upright, seven-foot-tall figure with dark brown fur was spotted west of Acton by a gentleman driving to work early in the morning.
In 1881, so another story goes, a human arm was left on a table in a science room at the Mount Forest high school. The science teacher shut the door of the room and proceeded with his board of trustees meeting that evening. The police were called, grave sites were checked and the science teacher disappeared. A one-armed body was found buried at a construction site on Dublin Street in Mount Forest. The body snatching school teacher was also studying to become a doctor.
Smith ended the presentation with a card trick involving an audience volunteer.
