Don't put your finger in your belly-button

Old wives' tales and senseless superstitions are an integral part of growing up in Brazil. Much more so than most of my big city friends, I was exposed to Brazilian folklore through vacations spent in the much poorer and rural parts of the country, in the arid northeast with my father's side of the family or on long summer vacations at a farm owned by my uncle in the interior of Sao Paulo state.

Growing up in a cosmopolitan city with access to an international education, however, quickly moved me away from the tendency of children to take such tales literally. I was defiant and challenged them head-on with a somewhat callous attitude. I recall for instance, a nanny who warned me not to put my finger in my belly-button lest I do some sort of irreversible damage to my digestive tract. A finger in a belly-button could result in sudden death.

"That's not true, I've put my finger in my belly-button before", I challenged. And after a moment's trepidation I stuck my finger in my belly-button, wiggling it around for good measure.

Silence.

The poor nanny's face was ashen. She looked like she was either going to be sick, or faint. Maybe both.

"Never do that again" she said, in a hoarse whisper.

"Why not?" I asked, sticking my finger in my belly-button again, more confident this time that I wasn't going to die a sudden and painful death.


Despite such stubbornness on my part I must admit that it was sort of scary to defy my nanny and stick my finger in my belly-button. Surviving the incident came somewhat as a relief -- after all, what if she was right? And the extent to which some of those beliefs stuck with me was only to be realized many years later.