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Leonard Ncube, Victoria Falls Reporter
the superstitious shuddered through Friday the 13th last week, looking out for all sorts of omens that might fit into the aura of the day.
The day is associated with bad luck and fear depending on one’s culture.
Friday the 13th has been given various uncommon names in the Western world.
Any calendar year has at least one Friday the 13th but it can have as many as three.
A random study of the calendar will show that any month that starts on a Sunday will have a Friday the 13th.
This year, there are two Fridays that fall on the 13th; last week Friday and 13 October later in the year.
Whenever the 13th of any month falls on a Friday, the day is associated with myths and bad omens in some cultures.
Friday the 13th inspired a late 19th-century secret society, novels and the 1980s Friday the 13th horror franchise film where a fictional killer character Jason Voorhees was thought to have drowned as a boy at Camp Crystal Lake and decades later, the lake is rumoured to be cursed and causing a series of mass murders.
It is not clear though when associating Friday the 13th with bad things began but indications are that the myth has been around for centuries.
Some believe the bad luck dates back to the tragedy of hundreds of Trials of the Knights Templar, a powerful religious and military order formed in the 12th century for the defence of the Holy Land who were arrested on Friday 13 October 1307 and executed by men sent by Philip IV of France who wanted to take over their wealth.
A number of events have occurred on Friday the 13th and have been associated with bad luck. Some of them are the German bombing of Buckingham Palace (September 1940), the murder of Kitty Genovese in Queens, New York (March 1964), a cyclone that killed more than 300 000 people in Bangladesh (November 1970), the disappearance of a Chilean Air Force plane in the Andes (October 1972), the death of rapper Tupac Shakur (September 1996) and the crash of the Costa Concordia cruise ship off the coast of Italy which killed 30 people in January 2012.
People believe that it is bad luck to be born or to bear a child on Friday the 13th, while being rejected or divorced on the day is also thought to be a bad omen
Jaison Muvhevhi, a former police officer, allegedly fatally shot three people in Wedza on Friday afternoon.
There are people who are afraid of travelling on Friday the 13th.
In some instances, students would debate in school about Friday the 13th, with some concerned about tests written on such days.
There are different views around Friday the 13th. Many believe it is a Western culture while others believe the day is a non-event.
The views are usually culturally or religiously rooted.
Bulawayo based traditionalist Mr David Mhabhinyana Ngwenya said myths around Friday the 13th are foreign to black or African culture.
“This is not in our culture,” he said in an interview.
“In our culture, there are things you can do and can’t do, things known to be taboo like doing fieldwork on a Wednesday or Thursday depending on where you’re from,” he said.
There are common beliefs that people from different cultural backgrounds follow and respect.
“A new moon is believed to have power to cleanse bad luck and cause a person to heal by merely calling out “phu kholiwe hamba lomkhuhlane wami (new moon may you heal/cleanse me.)”
Other common beliefs are crossing paths with a black cat or a herd of cattle, eating food in a dream, walking backwards while entering a room, sitting in the middle of a road, while sweeping and leaving garbage in the yard or passage is believed to be a bad omen for unmarried women.
Victoria Falls based traditionalist, Mr Jaheliduna Ndlovu, popularly known as Mpisi said Friday the 13th is popular in the Western culture.
He said some Africans celebrate or observe such days without even giving a thought about the effects.
“When whites came, they brought their culture and these are some of the things which when fused with ours become myths. If you read even the Bible, God would go into the temple on the 13th and during such days some people would even be killed as sacrifice.
“It’s such concepts that are one of the origins of such a myth. In our culture, you would find teachings that say don’t do this or that on certain days or at certain times. There are some instances when people were not expected to indulge in sexual intercourse. Some of these practices are rooted in satanic practices and we embrace them as ours,” he said.
Pastor Travina Chichoni of the Methodist Revival Church said Christians interpret dreams and numbers and Friday the 13th represents female rebellion which is bad luck.
“Ordinarily, the number 1 represents singleness and 3 stands for trinity but when its 13, it is bad luck,” said Pastor Chichoni.
“The digit 13 on its own is associated with bad luck but in all Christian religions, Friday is just a day because we don’t talk about days as we borrow from the Greek and Hebrew. So I don’t think it’s significant in Christianity hence it’s irrelevant,” added Pastor Chichoni.
There is no known scholarly research about Friday the 13th.
However, according to the Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute in Asheville, North Carolina, more than 80 percent of high-rise buildings in the United States do not have a 13th floor while some hotels and hospitals reportedly avoid using the number for rooms and gates as well.
There is also a belief that having 13 guests at the same dinner table courts death, and the interpretation is rooted in Jesus’ Last Supper with his 12 disciples including Judas Iscariot who betrayed him. – @ncubeleon
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