Show WHY of superstitions by H IRVIN KINQ RAISING THE WIND BESIDES whistling for or a wind sailors LJ have another way of making it ii blow and anyone who happens to be on board a sailing vessel in a calm will probably see it tried this la Is by bv sticking a knife into the mast say it should be the foremast some say the mizzen or if the vessel la 19 a two master the main but the foremast Is generally selected for the operation the sailor takes his bis knife and drives it hard into the mast US as lf t ke he were angry and then the wind b 16 w a aigler a R e i a while tt Is 1 g merely m re a case of waiting this custom Is a survival from very early days and uv comes from om the custom primitive man had of bulldozing his gods when they were not propitious or were not attending to business among savages today the idol or fetish Is not infrequently scolded or beaten it if it falls to respond to the supplications ions of its vo voter fes and among the lower orders of the early classical heathen such a custom was not unknown primitive man and the ho heathen he athen constructed thelt theli gods so much in their own image that while generally standing in awe of them they were still possessed of a lurking idea that upon occasions they might be coerced so when a sailor on a a coasting schooner drives his knife into the mast to make mahe the wind mow blow he be Is in reality threatening the god of the winds in the same manner that his bis predecessor did on board the phoenician galley exploring the coast of spain in the early dusk and dawn of history tz 0 by mcclure newspaper syndicate 1 |