As a child, everyone must have wagged their fingers when they wanted someone to promise to do something. But the real origin of this act is not so cute.
When we were young, everyone must have shaken hands with a friend when we promised each other something.
But where does that action come from, or why do we do it?
Everyone must have done this when they were kids, right?
To find the answer, let’s first find out who was the first to use this gesture to symbolize a promise.
Today, the handshake is understood as a sign of a very intimate promise, between friends. However, the real origin of this action stems from a rule of Japanese gangsters from the Edo period (1603 -1868). At that time, this handshake was quite scary, not as we think now.
Photo of an old Japanese gangster member.
These organizations have an unwritten rule that puts loyalty and credibility as the top two qualities that every member must have. The reason is because when performing any task, it requires many people, each person taking on a stage. Just one member distracts or betrays the gang, which means that one link of the large system will be broken and the whole mission will fail.
To avoid this possibility, these organizations always set very strict penalties for violators. And the type of punishment is very familiar: cutting off part of the body of the other “destructor”.
A painful punishment is always the best bond.
Yet there it is. When there is a mission, or when there is a contract between two members, they will promise to do it.
They intertwine their little fingers and recite the oath: “If a man lies, he will have his little finger cut off, beaten ten thousand times, and have to swallow a thousand needles”. This is an oath that no one has the right to break or reverse.
If the promise is not fulfilled, the pinky finger of the violator will be cut off for any reason.
If the promise is not fulfilled, obviously the pinky finger of the violator will be cut off for any reason. The one who broke his promise was forced to cut himself, or the other person would do it for them – there was no way to avoid bloodshed.
This is also one reason why most members of the Japanese gangster class have fingers that are shorter than normal, or are completely amputated.
Today, the handshake is understood as a sign of a very intimate promise between two friends.
Later, somehow – Japanese children turned this terrifying punishment into the very cute thing we see now.
Later, through the media and cultural exchanges between Japan and the world, finger twirling also became a symbolic act for the unbreakable promise.