Egyptian Superstitions

If you spend any time at all with Egyptians you will soon notice that they are a remarkably superstitious people.  These superstitions have little to no basis in religion, and (being superstitions) they certainly don't have any scientific underpinnings.   I have been surprised at how many superstitions even well-educated Egyptians hold, but then I realized my european neighbor with a philosophy degree 'knocks on wood' on a regular basis.  I suppose no one is completely immune!  Here are the most entertaining and puzzling superstitions I have come across.

Do not eat catfish.  This superstition dates from Ancient Egyptian times.  Egyptologists speculate that one of the ancient gods might have taken a catfish form at one point, resulting in this prohibition.  What is puzzling is how persistent this superstition has been.  The Nile has an abundant supply of catfish and (apart from general concerns of pollution) there is no reason whatsoever to avoid these fish.  There is nothing in either Islam or Christianity to prohibit eating catfish, but you will never catch a modern Egyptian even considering it.

Don't clean your house after dark.  This also seems to be a holdover from ancient times.  And like the former superstition, it has absolutely no basis in fact.  One of my Arabic teachers told me about this belief and said that her mother would throw a fit if anyone did any cleaning after dark.  My teacher kind of laughed about it, but said she won't clean her own house after dark either!

Lettuce increases fertility in men.   When our tour guide in Luxor found out we had been married for a year and a half and still didn't have children, he very seriously advised my husband to eat more lettuce (apparently not being ready for children isn't a plausible explanation!)  We laughed at first, but then the tour guide turned to another person in our group who was a medical doctor and asked for his verification.  This doctor was Egyptian but had immigrated to the U.S. after medical school.  And although he looked a bit shamefaced about it, he speculated that there were perhaps useful minerals in lettuce and, 'it couldn't hurt'!

Don't tempt the Evil Eye.  The Evil Eye will strike you down at a moment's notice for any number of violations.  The most common, however, is what we might call hubris.  If you are especially proud of your house, your car, your clothes, your wife's beauty, or your baby or if someone else notices what nice things you have, you are sure to lose them in a dramatic way.  People who believe in this go to great lengths to draw attention away from their new or valuable things.  And it is considered very bad manners to compliment someone on their possessions.  In Upper Egypt where this belief is strongest parents of a new baby will give their child an odd name (Muhammad for a Christian child, for example, or a random word like 'Mop') or dress their child in odd clothes in order to draw attention away from the baby's beauty.  One father was so afraid that people would notice his remarkably pretty new son that he took ashes and made a large mark on the baby's forehead.  Then, when people came to visit they spent all their time wondering why the baby had such a strange mark on its head rather than noticing that he was a beautiful child. 

There is a steady demand for symbols to ward off the evil eye here.  One of the most common looks like this:

You can see this symbol embroidered into clothes or made into earrings or necklaces.  This symbol is also found in carpets and in wall hangings.

These superstitions appear to be fairly mundane, but they do seem at times to limit the holder's ability to think clearly about a situation.  As my neighbor demonstrates, however, holding superstitions does seem to more a characteristic of being human rather than a lack of education.