Rabbits’ Feet… not good luck for the rabbit

The origin of rabbits’ feet as a good luck charm may go back as far as ancient Rome, when the feet of hares and rabbits were thought to have medicinal powers. For centuries in Europe, people carried paws from rabbits or hares for their supposed effects against cramps and other ailments. The idea of rabbits’ feet as good luck then transformed in America, where it may have been appropriated from an African culture, or based on a joke among African Americans that European Americans didn’t fully understand. In the early 20th century, merchants started selling rabbits’ feet with marketing claiming that they’d been harvested under spooky circumstances, like under the dark of the moon on a Friday the 13th; Black people were often said to have been the ones doing the harvesting.

The use of the symbol could also be connected to the Hand of Glory, a hand cut from a hanged man, usually the left one, and often pickled, after which it was said to have mystical powers. In a sense, the use of the rabbit’s foot was thought to stand in for the human appendage.