Peacock Evil Eye?

[Duvet]

Are peacock feathers okay as gifts? I've a nagging notion (I think a remembered comment from an elderly long dead relative) that they represent bad luck or death. Where I work has free-range peacocks, and I sometimes get their tail feathers. I want to give some to dancers I know, but they might be sensitive to superstitious beliefs. If it were me, I’d be grateful for the freebie, but are there any negative superstitions attached to these feathers?

 

[Shanazel]

Seems like my grandmother said peacock feathers in the house were bad luck. She also said if you let someone sweep under your feet while you were sitting down you'd never get married. I've been married over thirty years...

Peacock feathers would be a lovely gift.

 

[khanjar]

Well, it says here, giving the origin of the superstition ;

Peacock's Feather Unlucky — Infoplease.com

 

[Mosaic]

I've got peacock feathers in my house - have had for years hmmmm maybe that is why I am not a multi millionaire, always wondered why Oh well never mind, I love my peacock feathers so will stick with them. I'd happily accept them as a gift so go for it unless you think the receiver is very superstitious & might be upset, then maybe not
~Mosaic

 

[Kashmir]

The secret is to pierce each eye with a needle - do this before giving away the feathers and there should be no problems.

 

[Farasha Hanem]

I love peacock feathers, and have earrings and hair do-dads, so I guess it just depends on the individual person. I've never even heard of any superstitions before relating to peacock feathers and bad luck!

 

[khanjar]

I have heard the superstitions from my youth, but I find with superstitions, if one understands the origin, many superstitions can be laid to rest.

Superstition; It is unlucky to walk under a ladder - you don't say, experience of working on many a construction site anything to do with ladders, people and gravity and unluckiness is usually something landing on the head, it is why hard hats are used. So basically the superstition is a warning to be careful around ladders.

Etc.


Peacock feathers, maybe it is they are not unlucky, perhaps the original fable was to act as a reminder, to use the feather as a visual reminder that there are always people around that have mal intent, perhaps the peacock eye was to remind one to keep an eye out for bad people ?

I wonder how many superstitions started out as learning illustrations and ended up perverted from their original intent through plain old misunderstanding and not using the exact original terminology in it's orignal context.

 

[Duvet]

I think it was actually to do with bringing peacock feathers into a sickroom - it encouraged the person to die. The same applied to flowers, particularly lillies. Flowers I can understand, as they presage funeral wreaths. Peacock feathers - maybe the old idea that they were angel feathers, and so were an omen an angel was coming to take the soul away, or the evil eye image was just bad luck?

I guess if my friends are going to be superstitiuos about peacock feathers as a gift, they probably have other superstitions I don't know about and will inadvertantly transgress (wearing blue on a Friday, peeling oranges anti-clockwise, etc.). They could always give them back.

 

[Duvet]

I have heard the superstitions from my youth, but I find with superstitions, if one understands the origin, many superstitions can be laid to rest.

I wonder how many superstitions started out as learning illustrations and ended up perverted from their original intent through plain old misunderstanding and not using the exact original terminology in it's orignal context.

I've also read peacocks were sacred birds, belonging to the temple or the monarch. If you had a peacock feather in the house, it meant you had stolen it, and thus subject to punishment. Having one in the house was a dangerous thing to do, as it was illegal. As time passed the feather itself was seen as unlucky, and the theft element forgotten.

Neat idea, but peacocks aren't native to England, so I wonder how these ideas got into my family culture (and presumably yours, Khanjar - or anyone elses)?

 

[khanjar]

What superstitions come down through families are the result of families teaching their young and no doubt more local superstitions garnered by personal experience.

But that is another one I just remembered, it was once considered unlucky to cut an apple in half across the stem, because of what is revealed inside the apple, a pentagram, which then goes on to make me wonder at the links between the apples, witchcraft and the Isle of Apples and the fact that if one thinks about it Somerset has links to non christian thought through cider and then there is the wassail.

Now memories of Old Scrumps at Mudgeley, drinking cider at 10 am on a sunday morning was not good, especially after having spent the night in a reconstructed Iron Age round house, coffee was what I needed, not cider.