Seventh Heaven?

So...I know i'm a dork-we all know this. But a friend of mine (who is also the baby of seven kids) brought this to my attention. All i have to say is, "y'all should be treating me a little more carefully from now on!" I'll be taking appointments for the healings! tee-hee!


Specifically, Bloch noted that from at least the sixteenth century onwards, children born into a seventh position in their family supposedly had--like sacred kings--a power to heal by touch. Such extraordinary children, often deemed sorcerers even "devils"--and referred to by expressions such as panseux de secret, "healers of secret," clearly had the ambivalent privilege of tapping invisible powers. Theirs was a healing and divinatory power, which could entail animal metamorphosis (Bloch 1983, 293-4). Now, this risk is exactly what, according to Portuguese data, the custom of choosing the eldest children to act as godparents to last-born siblings seeks to avoid. Another method in use was to give such children special names, like Narciso or Bento. Note that a bento is both a healer and a soothsayer (Leite de Vasconcelos 1980, 102-3; Pedroso 1988, 187 and 193). The special baptism given to seventh children relates, therefore, to their twofold distinctiveness: powers of healing or prophecy on the one hand, and danger of metamorphosis on the other.