Bathing, garlic in your pocket and not eating poultry: superstitions to attract good energy in 2023

Marcela Leiros – Cenarium Magazine

MANAUS – The last day of 2022 is celebrated this Saturday, 31, and it is common to reflect on what has passed and make plans for next year. Among the “promises of the turn” are changes in personal life, love and financial. Some people usually have superstitions or make sympathies that they believe will attract a little more help to have a more prosperous year.

This is the case of micro-entrepreneur Indira Abreu de Souza. She believes that bathing in running water on New Year’s Eve can leave the bad behind and make room for the new.

“I really like going to the Ponta Negra or to my friends’ places to bathe, wash my body, wash my soul, so that the current takes away everything bad and starts everything new. Every year that it is possible I go. Water purifies. When you take a bath, you renew yourself. So, let’s renew for next year”, she says.

Read also: Sympathy: blow cinnamon on the first day of the year to bring luck and prosperity

Money in your pocket

The industrialist Suzi Colares strictly follows the superstition of spending the turn of the year with money in her pocket to attract more wealth in the coming year: “At midnight you put the money in your pocket because it pays for the whole year, there is no lack of money. A friend of mine told me about it and since then, to this day, I put the money in my pocket”, she says.

Read also: Tradition of Cosme and Damião: from demonization to distribution of sweets

No birds and no booze

The indigenous Ismael Munduruku avoids eating flightless birds and drinking alcohol before January 1. According to him, the reasons are to avoid things not “taking off” and to celebrate ahead of time.

“My superstition is with birds. I don’t eat chicken, turkey, those things, because I hope that in the New Year things take off, that they fly, and those birds don’t fly. The other is the question of [alcoholic] drink that can only be ingested on the 1st, because before midnight, you are not celebrating anything, everything is old, so you have to celebrate new things”, Munduruku explained about his superstitions.

Yellow clothes and money in the pocket

The superstition of street vendor Helder Costa is to wear yellow clothes to attract money, and garlic in his pocket to ward off the evil eye. “At the end of the year, I generally like to wear yellow clothes, a yellow shirt, yellow underwear and white shorts to attract money, to attract gold. And I like to carry garlic in my pocket to ward off the evil eye and envy”, he says.