Why is it considered unlucky when an elephants trunk goes downward?
“The lucky elephant charm is a deliberate bit of cultural exoticism found in America and Europe. Historically linked to to the era of British colonialism in India, it entered popular culture folk-magic during the late 19th century and probably reached its apotheosis in the 1930s, when lucky elephant charms and knick-knacks were all the rage in the United States, Canada, and Europe. The origins of the lucky elephant charm can be found in the Hindu religion of India. There, the god Ganesha, the elephant-headed son of Siva and Parvati, is worshipped as an opener of the way and luck-god. Ganesha has his own iconography in India, and his best-known symbol is the swastika, which was also popular as a luck-symbol in America, at least until the Nazis corrupted its referential connotations. The American lucky elephant craze of the early to mid 20th century did not make use of elephant-headed Ganesha imagery. Instead, it conflated the luck-god with the elephant itself, perhaps because there was
