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Few
things have changed as much as dying.
In early East Texas, the
death of a family member or friend was a serious event surrounded
by traditional rituals, a lengthy period of mourning and widespread
respect for the deceased.
Death was also accompanied by a variety of superstitions, some of
which are still respected in the homes of our grandparents. Here are
some examples we’ve picked up over the years.
When the head
of a household dies, someone should be appointed to go to the bee
hives and inform the bees. If this didn’t happen, it was believed
the bees would die or leave.
Flowers or
greenery pinned to the pillow of the casket should be burned and
both the ashes and the pins thrown in the outhouse. It was believed
to be bad luck to use one of the pins.
If the deceased
was a good person, it was believed flowers would grow on their grave.
If they were bad, only weeds would grow.
Family members
should always kill lizards on a grave. They were a universal sign
of ill fortune.
If you pointed
at a funeral procession, you would die within a month.
You should
hold your breath while passing a cemetery so you would not breathe
in the spirit of someone recently buried.
If it rained
or lightning struck nearby during a burial, the devil was coming
for the soul of the deceased. But thunder after a funeral meant
the person’s soul had reached heaven.
To leave a
grave open all night would bring pestilence and death to everyone
in the family.
Don’t count
the number of cars in a funeral procession or you’ll have bad luck.
Always pick
a rainy day for a funeral so the deceased will go directly to heaven.
Don’t point
at a grave or your finger will rot.
It was bad
luck to put shoes on the dead.
A person who
died on Good Friday would immediately go to heaven.
On the night
after November 1, you should light a candle in the room where someone
has died.
A dog howling
at the stroke of midnight meant someone in the house would surely
die.
If you dipped
a dead cat in stump water on the day someone died, they were destined
for heaven.
There were also a serious of signs that someone you love would die
if (a) you sneezed while eating, (b) you dreamed of pork meat, (c)
you dreamed of a wedding, and (d) you dreamed of someone asking
you to marry them.
And, finally, a friend sent us this remedy for a homemade funeral:
“When a person dies, if you don’t have the money to have them embalmed,
or keep the body from smelling or spoiling, you should buy a nickel’s
worth of charcoal, two packs of King Bee tobacco, and some whiskey.
Beat the charcoal to fine dust and mix it with the tobacco.
“Wash the body, take one half of an old sheet and put the tobacco
and charcoal in the sheet. Put the sheet on the body as you would
a diaper on a baby, and hold the body up and pour the whiskey into
the body’s mouth. You can keep a body as long as you wish.”
Don’t blame me if it doesn’t work.
© Bob
Bowman June
11, 2007 Column, Updated 8-5-12
Bob Bowman's East
Texas
A weekly
column syndicated in 109 East Texas newspapers
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