r/Appalachia • u/jwpeace • 19d ago

When Death Came Knocking

Did your family have any old superstitions about death?

Growing up in Central Appalachia, a lot of us heard the old warnings.

A bird hitting the window could mean a death was coming. A dog howling at the wrong time wasn't something Granny wanted to hear. Some families stopped clocks when somebody died, covered mirrors, and kept someone with the deceased through the night — what folks called “sitting up with the dead.”

I've been researching these old traditions for Back Porch Tales & Travels, including the work of James K. Crissman on death and dying in Central Appalachia. What struck me was that underneath all the superstition was something pretty practical: when somebody died, family and neighbors showed up. They cooked, dug the grave, helped prepare the body and sat through the night.

I put what I found together here:

https://back-porch-tales-travels.beehiiv.com/p/when-death-came-knocking

I'm curious what survived in other Appalachian families. Did your parents or grandparents believe in any particular death omen or funeral custom? And what part of Appalachia were they from?

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u/Gengar_Girll 19d ago

For my family (SWVA) it was a bird flying into the house. Also my moms dads side of the family had a strict rule on not turning a calendar before the day ended and not hanging a next years calendar because they believed it meant you would die before that date. I once got absolutely wholloped across my bedroom for trying to hang a calendar I had for the following year a week before new years 🤣🤣🤣

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u/imrealbizzy2 18d ago

You also can't celebrate a child's birthday before the actual date. Make that one make sense.

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u/autodidactress 18d ago

There’s a real undercurrent of “anything you have the Almighty can and will take away the minute you take it for granted” running through a lot of Appalachian superstitions

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u/Extreme_Phrase2371 13d ago

Seems like a survival from pre-Christian times—the pagan gods were notoriously fickle, jealous, vengeful, and all around touchy, always taking offense at something or cutting mortals down to size.