The Basis Of Superstition!!!
hive-153850·@bruno-kema·
0.000 HBDThe Basis Of Superstition!!!
 *** <br>  A lot of the superstitions that many of us believe today, I’ve always wondered if they were simply cautionary tales that were passed down through the generations and for some cultures, turned into a full-blown tradition. Some even go on to become taboo, while others become the staple upon which the tribe or race is built. All these, passed down through word of mouth, have evolved over time. And while it passes from generation to generation, the story changes just a little bit more. And by the time a hundred or a thousand years have passed, the real reason the story was told could be lost to time. Now, everyone will simply be living their lives based on this particular superstition.  When I returned to school for my HND program, I stayed off campus. However, I bungled the arrangement of my lodge and I didn’t really put the bed in the right way. This caused it so that when I slept, the breeze didn’t really touch my head and my chest, but my feet. By the time I realized this, it was already too late in the night, and I had only two options; rearrange the entire room at that late hour, or simply turn around in the bed. That is, I would lie down so that my head would be where my feet previously were. If I did this, I would be lying with my feet towards the door. I don’t know about other tribes, but in Igbo culture, it’s considered taboo to sleep with your feet facing the door, especially the door that leads into and out of the room you’re sleeping in. According to the lore, it’s the way spirits can come steal souls (not sure about this), and also, majorly because most dead bodies are carried out of and into rooms feet first. That’s why it was deemed a taboo.  Such things don’t really have much sway in the world of today, however, many people still observe it. But then, I began to think. Could it be that a lot of these superstitions were actually cautionary tales during their time? I noticed that the arrangement of your bed is really important, not just for ventilation, but also for security. You need to set it in a way that once you sense someone unfriendly in your room, you’ll be able to act up. Or in a way that you can easily turn and see who it is. Most of the time, the best way to achieve this is by sleeping with your head facing the door. That way, it’s easy to coordinate yourself in the event of an emergency. This is my opinion though, so I could be grossly wrong. But this is not just with sleeping on your bed. It was also part of the stories we were told while growing up. As kids, we heard tales of children who picked up money from the ground and turned it into goats and yams, we heard of kids who took biscuits and sweets from strangers and magically disappeared into thin air. At the time, we believed that these things happened.  But growing up, we realized that these things happened during a period where kidnapping was rampant and most kidnaps occurred because the kids were lured somewhere. So many stories were told to us, making us scared of strangers. And it worked. To date, many people will see money on the ground and will be scared to pick it up simply because they don’t want to turn into a tuber of yam. They know that they won’t turn into one, but the idea is already ingrained in their subconscious. So then, what am I saying? Are all the superstitions simply superstitions? Are they just cautionary tales to get us to stop doing things? Because from where I stand, telling a child that following strangers is bad will not have the same effect as telling the same child the story of one that vanished after refusing to listen to their parent and getting too close to a stranger. Well, it is what it is. I guess that storytelling has always been a part of the human race. We use stories to do everything we want and to get the right reactions that we want from our audience. Be it religion, culture, or race, stories will always be a viable tool to either bring us together or drive us apart. The future belongs to those who know how to tell their stories best.  *** <br> <center><sub>Thank you for reading. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below, I would love to know what you’re thinking. Till we meet in the next post.</sub></center> *** <br> <center><sub>N.B: All images used in this post are mine. The thumbnail was designed using Canva.</sub></center> *** <br> 
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