Supernatural Friday: Did a Black Cat Cross Your Path Today?

I own a black cat. Love her.  I can’t ever see her as devilish or evil. And yet, black cats are in the United States considered bad luck if one crosses your path. Plus they are associated with witches around Halloween. What started this for our furry black felines?

These obsidian felines were not always feared or a part of superstitious lore. Dating back as far as 3000 BC in Egypt, cats of all colors, including black ones, were held in high esteem. To kill one was considered a capital crime.

The Nordic goddess, Freya was also a fierce warrior as shared with us by Ethan S. One of the many names by which she was known was the Mistress of the Cats, and it was said that the chariot in which she sat was drawn by a pairs of great cats with fur blacker than the midnight sky.

Then around medieval times, cats taken care of by old women who practiced healing and lived alone were considered familiars if the old woman (and sometimes man) were accused of witchcraft and convicted, burned at the stake. As for why particularly black cats, it seem to superstitious people, once the cat went out into the dark of night they appeared to disappear, except for their yellow or green eyes. The same would go for black dogs too. Of course, we know that the animal having black fur and the night being pitch black, well, yeah, they seemed to vanish.  Plus black cats born in May seemed to be strongly associated with witchcraft and were often drowned. It is bad luck to discuss family matters when a black cat is present, lest it be a witch in disguise.

Evil omens and harboring the ability to change into human shape to act as a spy or messenger for witches or demons are some of the mostly widely known legends of black cats (in the US). When settlers arrived in the Americas, they already had a deepening suspicion of anything associated with the devil. Due to the sisterhood of witch and black cat, anyone caught with a black cat was severely punished or even killed. Similar superstitions led people to kill black cats during the Middle Ages, increasing the rat population and the spread of the bubonic plague.

A legend in Wales tells about one black cat. When people arrived in this town that had been ravaged by the Black Plague, the only living creature they found was a single black cat. The black cat is now the traditional mascot of Kidwelly!

In Great Britain and in Ireland, black cats are considered good luck. One way this might be so, English monarch Charles I held a belief that when his treasured black cat passed, he claimed that his luck was gone and he was arrested the very next day and charged with high treason.  Also, in the UK, a black cat crossing your patch is a sign of good luck.

Some bad luck a black cat might deliver:

If you are driving and a black cat crosses in front of you, you should turn your car around or receive bad luck.

The gambling world holds the belief that as you are driving to a casino, if a black cat runs across your road or path, you should not go to the casino. Most players believe that black cats bring bad luck.

Crossing paths of a person is considered an omen of misfortune and death—kind of like the banshee’s scream heralds death for the person who hears it. Things are a bit more complicated in Germany. In Germany though, if a black cat crosses a person’s path from right to left, that is a bad omen, and yet, if done from left to right,  the cat is granting favorable times.

Pirates in the 19th Century believed that if a black cat walks towards someone, that person will have bad luck. But if it walks away from someone, that will bring good luck to that person. If a black cat walks onto a ship and then walks off it, the ship is doomed to sink on its next trip.

Sailors often sought out a black cat to become a ship’s cat, as it brought good luck. Fishermen’s wives kept black cats at home in the hope that they would be able to use their influence to protect their husbands while at sea.

In Japan, black manekineko (beckoning cats) are a wish for good health.

Dreaming of a black cat us considered lucky for the dreamer.

Black cats protect their human’s house from evil spirits, and it is said, take away the bad energy in the house.

From Scottish lore, a strange black cat on a porch brings prosperity to the owner.

It is believed that a lady who owns a black cat will have many suitors. So, for those looking for a boyfriend, get a black cat!

Not just black cats, but all:

Cats should never be bought with money. Doing so means they will be bad mousers. (Shelters looking to get their cats adopted, this might be a good ploy to use.)

And last, but not least, a story about a black cat by Edgar Allan Poe.   Black Cat

 

Supernatural Friday: Ghosts Are Hungry!

The first time I heard of this came from one of those paranormal shows. I can not remember which one, but this family that moved into this house in China as the father got transferred to a job there began having frightening occurrences. I think they had to ‘feed’ the ghosts to exorcise them.

Now ghosts are only souls of those who passed on. I assume they would be beyond the need for physical things, like eating. But in China and nearby Asian countries, it appears not. Hungry ghosts are believed to be those who in their former lives were given to jealousy or greed - and have, therefore, been reborn into one of the lower of the six realms of Buddhism. These creatures have voracious appetites, but are able to eat little or nothing.

The Hungry Ghost Festival, also known as the Zhongyuan Festival is one of four traditional festivals in China to worship ancestors. The other three are the Spring Festival, the Qingming Festival, and the Double Ninth Festival. The Taoist name for the Hungry Ghost Festival is the Zhongyuan Festival, and Buddhists call it the Yulanpen Festival. It is celebrated on August 20^th of the seventh lunar month. The full moon is usually at this time. The Hungry Ghost Festival is one of the important days of Ghost Month. They believe that the ghosts of ancestors are let out of hell on the first day of the month was August 7^th this year), so by the 15th day (when there is a full moon) they are very hungry. So people traditionally prepare a meal for them, burn incense or pray to them on Hungry Ghost Festival day. It is believed that their ancestors pay visits especially on this day of the full moon, and for two weeks of mundane activity afterwards, the phantoms are famished, tired, and perhaps angry, so the living must worship their ancestors. Not unlike Mexico’s Day of the Dead.

The ceremony is usually held at dusk, and people put the family’s ancestral tablets on a table, then burn incense and prepare food three times a day. Plates of food are put out for the ghosts on the table, and the people kowtow and pray in front of the memorial tablets in hopes that their ancestors bless them. People also feast on this night, and even leaving a place open at the table for their lost ancestors.

It is also thought that some of these wandering ghosts (also called ‘good brothers’) are believed to be the spirits of those with no relatives to venerate them after their death or those who had a bad death or did not receive a proper burial.

It is celebrated by some on the 14th day of the seventh lunar month or August 13^th, in South China. The people in South China are said to have celebrated the festival a day earlier to avoid being caught by enemies at a time when there was a lot of warfare. In Jiangxi Province and Hunan Province, the Hungry Ghost Festival is considered to be more important than the Qingming Festival and the Double Ninth Festival. 

Ghost Festival in Other Countries:

Vietnam: The Vietnamese view this festival as a time when spirits are pardoned and released from hell. Appeasement is made to homeless spirits by offering food. This festival occurs at the same time as the Buddhist Vu Lan. Vu Lan has become a time to honor and thank living mothers; those without living mothers attend services to pray for the dead.

Japan: Japanese Buddhists celebrate a similar festival called O-bon or Bon—the Day of the Dead. Over the centuries, this celebration evolved into a time of family reunions when those who live in the cities return to the towns of their ancestors to visit and clean family graves.

Ghosts in Taiwan: Cut off from the mainland since 1949, Taiwan gives the clearest picture of what Chinese spirituality was like before the rise of a Communist government zealous to remove religion and superstition. Ghost Month is a major spiritual event for the Taiwanese. Up to 90% of the population of Taiwan believes in ghosts. Dealing with ghosts is big business there. Experts in the afterlife advise distressed clients on how to appease angry ancestors. Ghost-busting in Taiwan isn’t comedy—it is serious business. Taiwanese do their best to protect themselves from ghost-encounters, avoiding mountains and swimming at night or wearing a temple talisman with a protective prayer.

There are still hauntings by ghosts reported though. One woman tells of the ghost of her mother who visits her in the middle of the night, demanding money. Another concerns a teenager who claims a ghost has slept on him so that he couldn’t move. He now keeps his windows and doors locked all year to keep out the ghosts. Though anything that can walk through walls, well…

The seventh month is the scariest month of the year for the Chinese, due to the ghosts being released from hell. These evil ghosts go looking for entertainment. Many people avoid dangerous activities at night such as swimming (because it is said ghosts inhabit water) or being out alone. It is thought that the ghosts may attack their enemies or be angry or malicious. Because of fear of ghosts, many activities are curtailed during Ghost Month. Whistling is avoided as it will draw ghosts to one’s home. Events such as traveling, moving to a new home, medical procedures, or weddings are scheduled for other months; special plans and business deals are avoided at this time.

The Chinese have certain traditions what to do about the situation on the first, 14^th, 15th, and also on the last day of the seventh lunar month. To fight off the ghosts, people burn fake paper money outside of their homes, businesses, along the sides of roads, or in fields on the first day, or even head to temples to do this. There is the explanation that the ghosts need money to use. They light incense and may make sacrifices of food, to appease these hungry, unhappy ghosts. There is the thought that the ghosts will not bring bad luck after eating their sacrifices. Red painted paper lanterns are found everywhere, including business and residential areas. Street ceremonies, market ceremonies, and temple ceremonies are held. During street and market ceremonies, people gather to celebrate the festival. For the temple ceremonies, monks in temples organize the festive activities. 

The end of ghost month falls on the last day of the seventh lunar month. This year it is September 4th. The last day of the month is when the gates of hell are closed up again. People celebrate and observe this day in various ways. Many burn more paper money and clothing so that the ghosts can use them in their society in hell. Pictures and tablets of ancestors may be put away back on the shelves or hung back on the walls. In order to encourage the ghosts to go, Taoist monks chant to make them leave. 

A common tradition that many families participate in is the floating of river lanterns. Colorful lanterns are made out of wood and paper. Families write their ancestors’ names on the lanterns. A floating river lantern is believed to take or guide those ghosts. On the night of the festival, people place paper boats with the paper lanterns in the river. The living watches the boats as they float away. Like the River Styx in Greek mythology, it is hope the dead follow the lanterns back to the gates of Hell.

How long ago in history has this tradition began?  It is interesting that cultures in Asia all the way from India to Cambodia to Japan share similar beliefs. These traditions seem to date from before Buddha was alive; more ancient folk religions seem to cover the entire area. Taoism is the indigenous religion of China where a lot of the ancient folk religion is incorporated. According to Taoist records, the gates of hell are opened and hungry ghosts are released to find food or to take revenge on those who have behaved badly in the seventh lunar month. The Taoists chant together to free the ghosts. Another story talks about how the King Yama opens the gates of hell on the Hungry Ghost Festival and allows a few wild ghosts to enjoy sacrifice on the first day of the seventh lunar month. The gates are closed on the last day of that month, where the wild, hungry ghosts return to hell. Some Chinese believe that the gates of heaven are also opened during this month, and they worship their ancestors from heaven. 

Trends for the Future:

Taiwan: Globalization, education, and modern technology have caused some erosion in traditional Chinese religion, though Taiwanese belief in the ghost world has seen no such decline. There are many Taiwanese youth are becoming disillusioned with modern materialism and are returning to traditional spiritual beliefs.

China: Not only are the Taiwanese holding onto traditional Chinese religion, even taking it back to the mainland. 

 

Supernatural Friday: Weird Facts

Sometimes some facts are useful knowledge. But then again, there are facts that might be considered strange and true, but not useful at all. Like the state of Alaska is 429 times larger than the state of Rhode Island is.  But Rhode Island has a significantly larger population than Alaska does. Or Montana has three times as many cows as it does people. Would any of this be useful to you? And yet, weird as it may seem, someone might find this information interesting.

Do we really need to know that the United States has 845 motor vehicles for every 1,000 people?  Or that Japan only has 593 for every 1,000 people and Germany only has 540 for every 1,000 people? All that means is a lot of smog to me. 

Other maybe useless, but maybe not weird facts:

Jimmy Carter was the first U.S. president to have been born in a hospital.

One survey found that 25 percent of all employees that have Internet access in the United States visit pornography websites while they are at work. (Really? I don't even want to know what they might be doing in their cubicles while looking at the sites!)

There are three towns in the United States that have the name "Santa Claus".

In Tokyo, a bicycle is faster than a car for most trips of less than 50 minutes!

There are 18 different animal shapes in the Animal Crackers cookie zoo!

The king of hearts is the only king without a mustache on a standard playing card!

There are no clocks in Las Vegas gambling casinos!

Tourists visiting Iceland should know that tipping at a restaurant is considered an insult!

Until the nineteenth century, solid blocks of tea were used as money in Siberia!

The two-foot long bird called a Kea that lives in New Zealand likes to eat the strips of rubber around car windows!

It's illegal to drink beer out of a bucket while you're sitting on a curb in St. Louis!

A group of geese on the ground is a gaggle, a group of geese in the air is a skein!

Clinophobia is the fear of beds!

A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second!

The sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog." uses every letter of the alphabet!

Cat urine glows under a black-light! (I wonder how someone determined this?)

Ancient Egyptians slept on pillows made of stone!

Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming 1/10 of a calorie!

In Natoma, Kansas, it's illegal to throw knives at men wearing striped suits.

It was once against the law to have a pet dog in a city in Iceland!

Supernatural Friday: Harbinger of Autumn Harvest: Myth of the Scarecrow

Scarecrows are a sign of autumn. They maybe in the farmer’s fields all summer, but most people think of them connected with corn stalks and pumpkins, with Halloween to Thanksgiving. Scarecrows link to the planting and protection of crops and the changing of the seasons. In agrarian societies, Spring was celebrated as a time of resurrection – of life reborn after the dark winter. Sacrifice is bound up in this cycle. Winter kills that which grows, and breeds, until it is reborn in Spring. A description for a scarecrow: that which frightens or is intended to frighten without doing physical harm. Literally that which - scares away crows, hence the name scarecrow.

Scarecrows fascinate us. Daniel Defoe is generally thought of as the first English novelist to use the term "scarecrow", in his 1719 novel "Robinson Crusoe." Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story "Feathertop" is about a scarecrow created and brought to life in seventeenth century Salem, Massachusetts by a witch in league with the devil. He is intended to be used for sinister purposes and at first believes himself to be human, but develops human feelings and deliberately cuts his own life short when he realizes what he really is. The basic framework of the story was used by American dramatist Percy MacKaye in his 1908 play The Scarecrow. After all, in the Batman comics one of his villainous adversaries is the Scarecrow! A scary scarecrow was the center monster in Supernatural Season 1, Episode 11, entitled “Scarecrow.” Sam and Dean Winchester travel to a small town in Indiana where couples have gone missing the same day each year, only to discover the local farmers are sacrificing the innocent victims in order to end a geographic blight long cursing the region, to a Pagan God who takes the form of a scarecrow.

The Scarecrow is the alter ego of the Reverend Doctor Christopher Syn, the smuggler-Robin-Hood hero in a series of novels written by Russell Thorndike. The first book, Doctor Syn: A Tale of the Romney Marsh, was published in 1915. The story was made into a movie (1937) and later taken up by Disney in 1963 and dramatized for its Sunday night audience as Dr. Syn: The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh starring Patrick McGoohan.

There are other scarecrows in film and TV shows. ‘The Wizard of Oz’: not a horror film, but more fantasy. This film features a talking scarecrow who sings "If I Only had a Brain".

‘The Wickerman is a chilling 1973 horror movie in which a policeman travels to a Hebridean island to investigate the disappearance of a young girl. Instead he finds a neo-pagan cult who demand a sacrifice each year – someone they burn inside a giant wicker figure. There’s a remake to this cult classic.

‘Children of the Corn’ is another. A young couple stumble onto a town of creepy children and “He Who Walks Behind the Rows”.

Doctor Who has an episode “Family of Blood,” where formless aliens control an animate army of scarecrows. When the Doctor finally defeats them, he traps one of them inside the form of a scarecrow.

Back in ancient Greece, wooden statues were placed in the fields, carved to represent Priapus. Although he was the son of Aphrodite, Priapus was hideously ugly. His most prominent feature was his constant and huge erection. Birds tended to avoid fields where Priapus resided, so as Greek influence spread into Roman territory, Roman farmers adopted the practice.

Different kinds of scarecrows were used in pre-feudal Japanese rice fields. The most popular one was the kakashi. Farmers used old dirty rags and noisemakers like bells and sticks mounted on a pole in the field and lit it all on fire. The flames—and no doubt, the smell—kept birds and other animals away from the rice fields. Of course, the word kakashi meant "something stinky." Over time,  Japanese farmers began making scarecrows that looked like people in raincoats and hats. These scarecrows were equipped with weaponry to make them look even more frightening. In Kojiki, the oldest surviving book in Japan (compiled in the year 712), a scarecrow known as Kuebiko appears as a deity who cannot walk, yet knows everything about the world.

The Middle Ages in Britain and Europe had small children become crow-scarers. They had to run around in the fields, clapping blocks of wood together to frighten away birds that might eat the grain. As the medieval period wound down and populations decreased due to plague, farmers discovered there was a shortage of spare children to shoo birds away. In medieval England, animal skulls were secured to posts in order to frighten away birds and other animals from the crops. But before long, those in Britain and Europe took to stuffing old clothes with straw, placed a turnip or gourd up on top, and mounted the figure in the fields. They soon realized these lifelike guardians did a pretty good job of keeping crows away.

He takes care of the crops. His size corresponds to the height of the cornfield and he is coated with wax from nine beehives. A witch doctor places the eyes, which are two beans; his teeth are maize and his nails are white beans; he is dressed in “holoch” (corn husks). Each time the witch places one of these elements on the scarecrow, he calls to the four winds to protect the corn.

 

Scarecrows came to North America with European emigrants. German settlers in Pennsylvania brought with them the bootzamon—bogeyman—which stood guard over the fields. A female counterpart would be added to the opposite end of the field or orchard sometimes. In the southern Appalachians, another common method of scaring off crows was use of a dead crow hung upside down from a pole.

Mayan Scarecrow Myth:
The scarecrow is presented to the Sun God and given as an offering to the Rain God. Fragrant herbs and anise are burned, and the sacred fire is kept burning for about an hour. Meanwhile, the witch doctor distributes “balché” to the witnesses, which is a very intoxicating liquor, so that the humans won’t be aware when the gods come down to earth. The ceremony should take place when the sun is in the middle of the sky. At that hour, the witch doctor makes a wound on the little finger of the owner of the cornfield, then squeezes out nine drops of blood into a hole in the right hand of the scarecrow; this hole reaches to the elbow.
The witch doctor closes the hole in the scarecrow's hand and in a peremptory voice commands: "Today your life begins. This man (pointing to the owner) is your lord and master. Obedience, scarecrow, obedience ... may the gods punish you if you fail. The cornfield is yours. You must punish the intruder and the thief. Here's your weapon." At this moment he places a rock in the right hand of the scarecrow.
During the burning and the growth of the cornfield, the scarecrow is covered with guano palm, but when the fruit starts to emerge, he is uncovered.
The people say that if a thief or mischief-maker tries to steal the crops, he is stoned to death. Therefore, in the cornfields where scarecrows stand guard, nothing is ever stolen.
After the harvest, a “hanincol” (meal in the cornfield) is served in honor of the scarecrow. After the ceremony, wax scarecrow is melted and the wax is used to make candles, which are burned in the pagan and Christian altars.

Next time, you drive past a field and see a scarecrow, think. Are they truly scary, or is it all bad press?

All the above scarecrows are from Agecroft  Hall's Scarecrow: The Challenge and the Exhibit, which goes through this Sunday, November 4, 2012. http://agecroft-scarecrow.com/