I developed the concept of origin-as-essence in the context of my research into the history of morris dancing (Forrest 1999). The concept is a variant of E.B. Tylor’s speculative notion of “survivals,” which he characterized as customs that once had a purpose, but whose original function was long lost. Nonetheless, unthinking communities/individuals continued to perpetuate these customs simply because they had always done them. He described survivals as “processes, customs, and opinions, and so forth, which have been carried on by force of habit into a new state of society different from that in which they had their original home, and they thus remain as proofs and examples of an older condition of culture out of which a newer has been evolved” (Tylor 1920: 16). When Cecil Sharp began recording morris dances from the few surviving practitioners in England at the beginning of the twentieth century, he latched on to Tylor’s notion of survivals, projecting the origins of morris dancing back into a fantasized pagan, Anglo-Saxon England where the dances functioned as fertility rituals for agriculturalists who felt the need to add a magical element to their work to ensure success.
Sharp’s speculation lacked any evidence whatsoever, and, in numerous ways is quite obviously wrong. Even so, the idea will not die, possibly because it is the kind of fantasy that the English like. When I published my magnum opus on the history of morris dancing in England, demonstrating, through the critical analysis of primary sources, that the dances could not be older than the fifteenth century, and that their evolution involved influences from Italy, France, and Spain (Forrest 1999), I got tremendous blowback from older dancers who cleaved to the Anglo-Saxon pagan ritual hypothesis despite the utter lack of evidence. Grey beards gathering each summer to swill real ale and jingle their bells about village streets waving hankies, found having a self-image of preserving traditions whose origins were lost in the “mists of time” much more appealing than imagining that they were performing dances of a highly eclectic nature whose elements originated in continental Europe—horrors!!!!
Surely the dances were homegrown on sturdy English soil. The English have a general distaste for thinking of themselves as Europeans—“Europe” means continental Europe to them even though a geologist could easily counter this bias with raw data. Thinking of something that seems, on the surface, to be as quintessentially English as morris dancing has roots in Continental customs is pure blasphemy. In this respect, the speculation that the dances originate in Anglo-Saxon fertility rites is akin to the arguments that people make who believe that the Earth is flat because when they look at the horizon it appears flat to them. They cannot grasp the enormous size of the Earth’s circumference, and how small a percentage of it is the arc which one can see from sea level. “It looks flat to me, therefore, it must be flat.” “Morris dancing feels like a pagan ritual to me, therefore it must be the survival of one.”
Simple question: What do these people know about Anglo-Saxon fertility rituals? Simple answer: nothing. The territory in England occupied by Angles and Saxons varied considerably over the five centuries from the time they invaded from continental Europe until the Norman Conquest, with individual kingdoms rising and falling periodically (and with Danes, such as Cnut, becoming king from time to time). Primary sources from that period concerning pagan rituals simply do not exist. In the absence of hard evidence, people with little to no formal education in the history and culture of the times feel free to imagine them in whatever way suits their preconceptions.
Three questions permeate this book:
When I was the go-to person for callers to my university who wanted information about cultural issues, because I was the head of anthropology—more often than not, young reporters looking for tidbits for a story—there would be the inevitable inquiry just before a Friday 13th from some aspiring journalist wanting the skinny on the origins of the superstition. The motivation of the reporter was not complicated. Some editor had assigned the job to a newbie whose main tasks involved writing “interest” stories for inside filler, rather than major investigative pieces, which were assigned to seasoned veterans; or else the inquirer was a stringer looking for work and thought that something on Friday 13th would sell.
The easy answer, which was never welcome news, was that no one knows how the superstition originated, although there are endless speculations with little merit. Friday 13th is not considered unlucky outside the Anglo-American world, and there is no record of the superstition before the nineteenth century. So much for “ancient” customs. The commonest hypothesis is that Friday is an inauspicious day of the week in many Christian cultures because Jesus was crucified on a Friday, and, hence, from early Christian times, Friday was a fasting day as a sign of reverence. Add to this the fact that there were thirteen men at the Last Supper (held on Nissan 13th), and you have the germ of an idea as to why thirteen is an unlucky number.
Then again, thirteen is a baker’s dozen, which is far from unfortunate. It too is a custom weighed down with false narratives. Sources often trace the phrase to some undefined medieval period when bakers sold thirteen loaves of bread when asked for a dozen so that they could not be accused (and potentially prosecuted) for selling their wares underweight. There are zero primary sources for this conjecture, and no obvious logic to the tale either. Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd edition (OED 3) is slightly (only slightly) better. The first entry for the term is for 1591, and the dictionary definition adds: “apparently so called after the former practice among bakers of including a thirteenth loaf when selling a dozen to a retailer, the extra loaf representing the retailer’s profit.” There is no evidence for this claim in the sample quotes, which all simply mention that a baker’s dozen is thirteen—no reason given. About the best reason I can think of is that giving an extra roll or bun to a good customer when ordering a dozen was a gesture of goodwill, but that is no more than a guess.
The fact that there is an English word for twelve (dozen), as well as for 12 × 12 (gross), is testament to the importance of the number—which is not culturally universal; ten is a much more common round number because of the way the decimal/metric system works. In all of Asia, for example, eggs are sold in packs of ten. In the old imperial system in Britain, however, twelve rivalled ten as a round number, and its roundness stretches into antiquity in multiple cultures. There were twelve pence in a shilling in the pre-decimal currency of the U.K. and Commonwealth, twelve inches to the foot, and numerous items, especially eggs, were sold by the dozen. The Bible reports the existence of twelve tribes of Israel descended from Jacob’s twelve sons, and, not by coincidence, twelve apostles of Jesus. In the latter case there seems to be an element of fudging because the gospels, while agreeing that there twelve of them, do not agree on who they were outside of the inner core of Peter (Simeon), James, and John.
The number twelve is also convenient for basic arithmetic because it is divisible by two, three, four, and six, whereas thirteen is an ugly prime (and no one learns the thirteen times table). There is a sense that thirteen is one too many, but its unluckiness is by no means universal. The number four is unlucky in China because its name sounds like “death” in Chinese (and also in Japanese). In Italy the seventeenth of every month is considered unlucky. In both Thailand and Vietnam, the number seven is considered inauspicious (spot the irony in relation to Anglo-America) because the seventh month is the ghost month when hell is opened, and the spirits of the dead are free to wander the Earth.
I am a little curious to know why some cultures, such as Italy, single out one day in every month as infelicitous. The critical fact about Friday 13th is that it occurs only rarely—sometimes only once in a year (but there is always at least one). There can be no more than three Friday 13ths in a single calendar year; either in February, March, and November in a common year starting on Thursday (such as 2009, 2015, or 2026), or January, April, and July in a leap year starting on Sunday (such as 1984, 2012, or 2040). The years 2021 and 2022 had only one Friday 13th.
Regardless, the curiosity concerning the origin of the superstition is transient, and largely confined to young reporters in search of a story. Other customs are more freighted. Take Halloween, for example. I will explore its supposed origins in Chapter 1, but for now we can note that a great many evangelical Christians, including my former neighbors in New York, are adamant about not celebrating the holiday because they believe that it originated in devil worship (or some Satanic ritual). This idea has no evidence in primary sources, but it will not die. The belief is a classic example of origin-as-essence: it was once a celebration of the devil; therefore it always will be (even if the celebrants are unaware of the “fact”).
This book seeks to uncover the origin-as-essence hypothesis in a slew of arenas beside common customs. We will see, for example, that the study of etymology can be influenced unduly by the hypothesis, as can a number of realms of interest to social science including race and gender, economic and political theory, and kinship. Always the question at the forefront is WHY?—the only important question.
One simplistic answer to the question WHY? is that a satisfying answer concerning the origins of the world is foundational to all worldviews, and, as such, those origins are ever present in our conceptions of ourselves and of our identity. Thus, a person who believes that the universe and all it contains was created by a deity in six days is likely to have a markedly different conception of how the world works and what effective methods of achieving desired outcomes are from a person who believes that the universe developed through naturalistic causes which are discoverable by the physical sciences. Therefore, an exploration of conceptions of the origins of things is essential in the analysis of human cognition and consciousness because the answer to the question, “Where did I come from?” is a vital part of answering the perennial and ponderous question, “What is the meaning of life?”