{"id":119,"date":"2009-01-18T00:00:16","date_gmt":"2009-01-17T23:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/?p=119"},"modified":"2023-07-24T15:46:21","modified_gmt":"2023-07-24T13:46:21","slug":"why-does-sneezing-elicit-blessing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/blogs\/dan-sperber\/why-does-sneezing-elicit-blessing\/","title":{"rendered":"Why does sneezing elicit blessing?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have long been puzzled by the title question, and have never come across a satisfactory answer. So, let me share the puzzle and raise a few more specific questions:<\/p>\n

A) Ethnographic questions<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Examples of different blessing elicited by sneezing (e.g., among the Dorze of Southern Ethiopia where I did fieldwork, \u201cbear a son\u201d for a woman, \u201ckill an elephant\u201d for a man, \u201cgrow up\u201d for a child)<\/li>\n
  2. Examples of other hard to control sudden bodily events (coughing, belching, farting, and so on) eliciting a standard reaction<\/li>\n
  3. Folk interpretations of these practices<\/li>\n
  4. Examples of societies without any such pairing of sneezing and blessing<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    B) Anthropological question<\/strong>:
    \nWhy should such practices be widespread? (Attributing a universal meaning to sneezing, even if it were properly argued, would at best displace the question, not answer it)<\/p>\n

    C) Primatological question<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

    Any evidence of sneezing in other primates eliciting a specific reaction?<\/p>\n

    Please, DO help with answers!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I have long been puzzled by the title question, and have never come across a satisfactory answer. So, let me share the puzzle and raise a few more specific questions: A) Ethnographic questions: Examples of different blessing elicited by sneezing (e.g., among the Dorze of Southern Ethiopia where I did fieldwork, \u201cbear a son\u201d for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":677,"featured_media":15177,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhy does sneezing elicit blessing? - International Cognition and Culture Institute<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/blogs\/dan-sperber\/why-does-sneezing-elicit-blessing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why does sneezing elicit blessing? - International Cognition and Culture Institute\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I have long been puzzled by the title question, and have never come across a satisfactory answer. So, let me share the puzzle and raise a few more specific questions: A) Ethnographic questions: Examples of different blessing elicited by sneezing (e.g., among the Dorze of Southern Ethiopia where I did fieldwork, \u201cbear a son\u201d for […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/blogs\/dan-sperber\/why-does-sneezing-elicit-blessing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"International Cognition and Culture Institute\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-01-17T23:00:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-07-24T13:46:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/sneezingpope.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"937\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"528\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@dzfsqsd\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\">\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Dan Sperber\">\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Estimated reading time\">\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\">\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/\",\"name\":\"International Cognition and Culture Institute\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":\"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/?s={search_term_string}\",\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/blogs\/dan-sperber\/why-does-sneezing-elicit-blessing\/#primaryimage\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/sneezingpope.jpg\",\"width\":937,\"height\":528},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/blogs\/dan-sperber\/why-does-sneezing-elicit-blessing\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/blogs\/dan-sperber\/why-does-sneezing-elicit-blessing\/\",\"name\":\"Why does sneezing elicit blessing? - International Cognition and Culture Institute\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/blogs\/dan-sperber\/why-does-sneezing-elicit-blessing\/#primaryimage\"},\"datePublished\":\"2009-01-17T23:00:16+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-07-24T13:46:21+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/#\/schema\/person\/6d6c8fd5968dd89eb28b9a6bd5e500a9\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/blogs\/dan-sperber\/why-does-sneezing-elicit-blessing\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/#\/schema\/person\/6d6c8fd5968dd89eb28b9a6bd5e500a9\",\"name\":\"Dan Sperber\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/#personlogo\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/dan-96x96.jpg\",\"caption\":\"Dan Sperber\"},\"description\":\"description\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/www.dan.sperber.fr\",\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/dzfsqsd\"]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/677"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17405,"href":"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions\/17405"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}