Superstitions are part of the life and breath of the human race. No matter where you go in the world, there will be a list of things you should do to bring good luck and a list of things you should not do in order to avoid bad luck.
Peru has plenty of traditional superstitions to offer and they’re fascinating. Here are a few to chew on while you’re getting ready to contact TOUR IN PERU and come out to see the country, and perhaps the superstitions, for yourself.
If you’re camping out on the Inca Trail or any other outdoor setting — and you’re a woman — then beware of becoming “enchanted” by the mythical spirit snake, Tiracha. How bad can a snake enchantment be? Well, we don’t know, but women who sleep in the open air run the risk of waking up pregnant if Tiracha should happen upon them.
This next one sounds like food poisoning from eating Skittles, but no eating is required to contract “rainbow sickness,” or The k’uychi onqoy. The name makes it sound benign enough, but explaining it when you get home will be hard to do.
If a woman is in the midst of menstruation and passes near waterfalls, springs, or cascades and a rainbow appears in the mists, look out! The proximity of the rainbow can result in pregnancy!
Dragonflies are an object of fear in Peruvian superstition. They’re laden with mystical powers, and most of them aren’t good.
They can be messengers, depending on which part of the country you live in. The visit of a dragonfly upon a household can be an omen of a number of events or outcomes. The worst of them is the death of a loved one.
Dragonflies are strongly connected with witchcraft. They can be sent by a witch or a sorcerer to visit a certain person and steal a fragment of their soul, causing psychic damage to the victim. This is usually done at the behest of a client of the sorcerer who wants to see a certain person harmed.
If you encounter a beetle, now that’s a different matter. If you flip over a beetle that is stuck on its back, you can expect to have good luck. So is having a ladybird beetle land on your shirt cuff.
Here’s one for the kids. If you step in dog or horse poop… And it only counts if you do it accidentally… you can expect your good luck to be boosted. So no sending your children out on poop-squashing missions to help the luck out at home.
If you’re out dining and you accept ají chili sauce that’s been passed hand to hand, plan on losing a friend. It’s said that bad blood will develop between you and whoever passed it to you. This belief is so strongly entrenched in some regions that it’s considered common courtesy to pass the condiment to someone by placing it on the table within reach when they ask for it.
The evil eye is a magical curse that is almost unfair. You can get it just by being the recipient of an overly intense stare by a stranger. A child that has been evil-eyed will have fits of crying, fever, and lots of yawning. You can speed up recovery with a fresh chicken egg and a tall glass of clean water. The egg is passed over the child’s body and head, acting as a sponge for the evil energy and extracting it.
The egg is cracked into the glass and allowed to float for five minutes. If the yolk and white hold together, you should be able to see in the embryonic mass a tiny eye. This confirms that there was a legitimate magical assault. But if the yolk and white meld together, there was no harmful magic at work.
Superstitions are fascinating, if not exhausting to uphold. They’re just one of the things you can learn about in person when you take a trip to Peru with the help of TOUR IN PERU.
