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 Chinaman
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.