Beliefs / Superstitions

Grandma Mieta believed that the secret to making a successful tart was in how the rise of the dough. While the dough was made, the word “dough” may not be used. Both doors to the kitchen, the one to the outside and to the rest of the house, were closed. If there was any wind on the dough, it wouldn’t rise either.

She was also convinced that it was wrong to cut a pattern for clothes on a Friday. It would make you very unlucky. The same would happen if you walked under a ladder that was standing against a wall.

Uncle Paul (Boeta Paul) was very scared of ghosts. His car was in the wagon house approximately fifty meters from his house. When he had to push his car at night, he apparently believed in throwing a matchstick over his left shoulder. That would keep the ghost away.

When you took off your shoes at night and you’d want to keep away ghosts, you would have to place your footwear so that the points are in opposite directions. Even if you only curse a ghost, that would keep it from coming any nearer!

In earlier years the people also believed that when the thunder started, you had to close all the windows in your house so that the weather couldn’t come in. When you see reptiles walk, like for instance snakes and turtles, it could be a sign of rain coming. If you see a viper, it could mean big rain is on the way.

The Sishen-Saldanha railway goes right north of Willemsrivier. If you can hear the train, then it is a sign of rain, because then the air is set northwest. When you stand on the plato and look in a northeastern direction and see fog lying in a thick bank under the mountain in all of the canyons, then rain is coming. When a fog bank comes out, then it is a definitive sign of rain. This could just be cool air though.