Birth of a Superstition

When someone knocks over a salt shaker, standard superstition protocol dictates that the perpetrator must toss a pinch of the spilt salt over their left shoulder. This practice began as nothing more than a wry joke among friends one foggy night in a dockside tavern on the east coast of Bermuda.

Seasoned sailors have long been called “salts,” likely due to their extended association with seawater. When a “salt” would pass away during a long fishing voyage, burial at sea was the tradition. The youngest crew member was required to hoist the old sailor over his left shoulder (the one closer to the heart) and cast the dead into the sea. The legend was that the last man to touch an “old salt” would gain some of the elder’s wisdom and experience through bodily and spiritual contact.

One night at the Ship & Shore, following the watery burial of a beloved salt, a young crew member inadvertently knocked over the salt shaker during a tequila-drinking contest. “You’ve killed the salt!” shouted one of the old fish hands. And the young man, conforming to custom, grabbed a pinch of the downed salt and tossed it over his left shoulder.