As A c******n Saw Us

Chapter 5

THE SUPERSTITIONS OF THE AMERICANS

Among the many topics I have discussed with Americans, our alleged superstitions, or our belief in so-called dragons, genii, ghosts, etc., seem to have made the deepest impression. A charming American woman, whom I met at the ---- Embassy at dinner, told me with seriousness that our people may be intelligent, but the fact that in San Francisco and Los Angeles they at certain times drag through the streets a dragon five hundred feet long to exorcise the evil spirits, showed that the Chinese were grossly superstitious. If I had told my companion that she was the victim of a thousand superstitions, she would have taken it as an affront, because, according to American usage, it is not proper to dispute with a lady. The Americans are the most superstitious people in the world. They will not sit down to a dinner-table when there are thirteen persons. No hostess would attempt such a thing, the belief being general that some one of the guests would die within a year. I was a guest at a dinner-party when a lady suddenly remarked, "We are thirteen." Several of the guests were evidently much annoyed, and the hostess, a most pleasing woman, apologized, and replied that she had invited fourteen, but one guest had failed her. It was apparent that something must be done, and this was cleverly solved by the hostess sending for her mother, who joined the party, and the dinner proceeded. I do not think all the guests believed in this absurd superstition, but they were all very uncomfortable. I do not believe I met a society woman in Washington or New York who would walk through a cemetery or graveyard at midnight alone. I asked several ladies if they would do this, and all were horrified at the idea, though strongly denying any belief in ghosts or spirits.

In nearly every American city one or more houses may be found haunted by ghosts, which Americans believe have made the places so disagreeable that the houses have been in consequence deserted. So well-defined is the superstition, and so recurrent are the beliefs in ghosts and spirits, that the best-educated people have found it necessary to establish a society, called the Society for Psychical Research, in order to demonstrate that ghosts are not possible. I believe I am not overstepping the bounds when I say that this vainglorious people, who claim to have the finest public-school system in the world, are, considering their advantages, the most superstitious of all the white races. Out of perhaps thirty men, whom I asked, not one was willing to say he could pass through a graveyard at night without fear at heart, an undefined nervous feeling, due to innate superstition. The middle-class woman who stumbles upstairs considers it to mean that she will not marry. To break a mirror, or receive as a present a knife, also means bad luck. Many people wear amulets, safe-guards, and good-luck stones. Several millions of the Catholic sect wear a charm, which they think will save them from sudden death. All Catholics believe that some of their churches own the bones of saints, which have the power to give them health and other good things. Many Americans wear the seed of the horse-chestnut, and many others wear lucky coins. Belief in the luck of the four-leaf clover, instead of that with three leaves, is so strong that people will spend hours in hunting for one. They are designed into pins and certain insignia, and used in a hundred other ways.

But more remarkable than all is the old horseshoe superstition. I have seen beautifully gowned ladies stop their driver, descend from the carriage, and pick up such a shoe and carry it home, telling me that they never failed to pick up one, as it brought good luck; yet this lady laughed at our dragon! In the country, horseshoes are commonly seen over the doors of stables, and even of houses. These same people once hung women for witchcraft, and slaughtered women for persisting in certain religious beliefs. I had the pleasure of meeting a well-known man, who stated that he had the power of the "evil eye." Innumerable people believe the paw of an animal called the rabbit to contain sovereign good luck. They carry it about, and can buy it in shops. Indeed, I could fill a volume, much less a letter, with the absurd superstitions of these people who send women to China to convert the "Heathen Chinee," who may be "peculiar," as Mr. Harte states in his poem; but the c******n certainly has not the marvelous variety of superstitions possessed by the American, who does not allow cats about rooms where there are infants, fearing that they will suck the child's breath; who believe that certain snakes milk cows, and that mermen are possible. I stood in a tent last summer at Atlantic City--a large seaside resort--and watched a line of middle-class people passing to see a "Chinese mermaid," of the kind the Japanese manufacture so cleverly. It was to be seen on the water. All, so far as I could judge, accepted it as real. So much for the influence of the American public school, where physiology is taught.