Question on Appalachian Folk Beliefs
My father had a kind of folk superstition about the direction one should orient the body when sleeping. For instance, I think he said that the head should not be oriented downhill or in the direction of the nearest source of running water. I don't think the feet were supposed to point towards water or downhill, either. As I recall, it was not
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I personally have preferences about where I sleep in a room in relation to side of a bed and orientation to the doors. But that has nothing to do with anything I was ever taught, it's just my own habits.
I do feel quite strongly that when sleeping on a non-level surface, as camping or otherwise sleeping on the ground, the feet should be the lowest part of my body. That is because if I am oriented any other way I feel like I am falling.
I suppose if your head faced north, you slept on the right side of the bed, and you had east facing windows, you would get an eyefull of sunshine at dawn every morning, but that's not exactly the same thing as a blanket statement saying your head shouldn't point north.
Maybe if you have the doors and windows open you get a cross breeze but if your head is under the window you get too much wind?
Could your dad have just had a lot of little personal quirks that added up to something that seemed to your younger self like a belief system? Not that I'm trying to disrespect his beliefs, just trying to fit what I know and what I remember of him with my own experiences.
And.. Has it really been 19 years since you guys moved to that house in town? That seems so odd to me. I still sort of thought of that as "the new place" all the way up until he passed away.
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