# Peacocks as an indicator of mental instability? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 22, 2009, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peacocks-as-an-indicator-of-mental-instability/503929 "2009-07-22T23:19:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![apollonia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2bfe46/32.png) [@apollonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/apollonia)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peacocks-as-an-indicator-of-mental-instability/503929/21 "2009-07-23T18:37:32Z")
Another vote for not crazy, but bad luck. I wouldn’t keep peacock feathers in my home, but I’m superstitious. Is it possible your husband is conflating a couple things together–peacock feathers are unlucky, and mentally unstable people are attracted to the colour purple, possibly? ---
**Author:** ![appleciders](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85f322/32.png) [@appleciders](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/appleciders)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peacocks-as-an-indicator-of-mental-instability/503929/22 "2009-07-23T18:42:04Z")
Owning peacocks seems pretty crazy to me. Have you ever had one screaming outside your bedroom window at five a.m.? ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peacocks-as-an-indicator-of-mental-instability/503929/23 "2009-07-23T19:49:26Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Hunter S. Thompson kept peacocks on his ranch in Aspen, which might be one data point in your husband’s favor. Precisely what I was going to say. ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peacocks-as-an-indicator-of-mental-instability/503929/24 "2009-07-23T23:18:29Z")
From The Return of Fu Manchu by Sax Rohmer, Fu Manchu speaks first. > [@](#): > > “O god of Cathay!” he cried, sibilantly, “in what have I sinned that this catastrophe has been visited upon my head! Learn, my two dear friends, that the sacred white peacock brought to these misty shores for my undying glory, has been lost to me! Death is the penalty of such a sacrilege; death shall be my lot, since death I deserve.” > > Covertly Smith nudged me with his elbow. I knew what the nudge was designed to convey; he would remind me of his words–anent the childish trifles which sway the life of intellectual China. Dr. Petrie starts speaking. > [@](#): > > “I can restore your white peacock,” I said; “I and I alone, know where it is!”–and I strove not to shrink from the face so close to mine. > > Upright shot the tall figure; high above his head Fu-Manchu threw his arms–and a light of exaltation gleamed in the now widely opened, catlike eyes. > > “O god!” he screamed, frenziedly–“O god of the Golden Age! like a phoenix I arise from the ashes of myself!” He turned to me. “Quick! Quick! make your bargain! End my suspense!” Once again Dr. Petrie is speaking. > [@](#): > > I sat in a low vaulted room. The roof was of ancient brickwork, but the walls were draped with exquisite Chinese fabric having a green ground whereon was a design representing a grotesque procession of white peacocks. A green carpet covered the floor, and the whole of the furniture was of the same material as the chair to which I was strapped, viz:–ebony inlaid with ivory. This furniture was scanty. There was a heavy table in one corner of the dungeonesque place, on which were a number of books and papers. Before this table was a high-backed, heavily carven chair. A smaller table stood upon the right of the only visible opening, a low door partially draped with bead work curtains, above which hung a silver lamp. On this smaller table, a stick of incense, in a silver holder, sent up a pencil of vapor into the air, and the chamber was loaded with the sickly sweet fumes. A faint haze from the incense-stick hovered up under the roof. > > In the high-backed chair sat Dr. Fu-Manchu, wearing a green robe upon which was embroidered a design, the subject of which at first glance was not perceptible, but which presently I made out to be a huge white peacock. He wore a little cap perched upon the dome of his amazing skull, and with one clawish hand resting upon the ebony of the table, be sat slightly turned toward me, his emotionless face a mask of incredible evil. In spite of, or because of, the high intellect written upon it, the face of Dr. Fu-Manchu was more utterly repellent than any I have ever known, and the green eyes, eyes green as those of a cat in the darkness, which sometimes burned like witch lamps, and sometimes were horribly filmed like nothing human or imaginable, might have mirrored not a soul, but an emanation of hell, incarnate in this gaunt, high-shouldered body. Dr. Fu Manchu is the craziest character I know of connected to the peacock. ---
**Author:** ![Cazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cazzle/32/75_2.png) [@Cazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cazzle)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peacocks-as-an-indicator-of-mental-instability/503929/25 "2009-07-23T23:35:24Z")
Peacocks attract the insane? That’s crazy talk! ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peacocks-as-an-indicator-of-mental-instability/503929/26 "2009-07-23T23:36:32Z")
> [@Bridget\_Burke](#): > > Is he frightened of _Tawûsê Melek_, [The Peacock Angel](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melek_Taus)? > > - A Kurdish minority religion–persecuted by Islam & Christianity. The majority religions identify The Peacock Angel with Shaitan or Satan. > > This colorful fellow has gotten into popular culture & literature. As usual, _much more_ may be found on the Internet. Well, that’s the SDMB for you. This was the first thing I thought of, & was going to wow the crowd with it. This Board is **still** full of very sharp people.🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Atomic\_Mama](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b5ac83/32.png) [@Atomic\_Mama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atomic_Mama)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peacocks-as-an-indicator-of-mental-instability/503929/27 "2009-07-23T23:56:12Z")
My ex-mother-in-law used to try to raise peacocks (she lived in Mobile, AL) … and she was nutty as a fruitcake. FWIW. ---
**Author:** ![Green\_Bean](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/green_bean/32/1760_2.png) [@Green\_Bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Bean)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peacocks-as-an-indicator-of-mental-instability/503929/28 "2009-07-24T01:50:39Z")
Insane? You’d be insane for _not_ wearing that dress! It’s faboo. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peacocks-as-an-indicator-of-mental-instability/503929/29 "2009-07-24T02:25:42Z")
Flannery O’Connor was famous for her peacocks. She raised them on [her farm](http://www.andalusiafarm.org/), they had free run of her house (which didn’t please her mother), they nested in everything from tires to unused cars on her place, and the pick of their feathers was a frequent gift to friends and adorned everything she owned. Peacock feathers were basically her logo, and today in her hometown [not birthplace, but hometown] of Milledgeville, GA you see the peacock feather used everywhere as an homage. Many of her characters were insane, but Flannery wasn’t generally regarded as such. Eccentric, most definitely physically ill (she fought lupus for most of her life before dying of it at 39), but not actually insane, though many of her characters would surely have qualified. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peacocks-as-an-indicator-of-mental-instability/503929/30 "2009-07-24T02:45:27Z")
Who cares – that dress is GORGEOUS!!! Must HAVE!!! ---
**Author:** ![gwendee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/35a633/32.png) [@gwendee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gwendee)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peacocks-as-an-indicator-of-mental-instability/503929/31 "2009-07-24T20:12:46Z")
> [@apollonia](#): > > Is it possible your husband is conflating a couple things together–peacock feathers are unlucky, and mentally unstable people are attracted to the colour purple, possibly? Not only possible, but I’d go so far as to say likely. Since I’ve been thinking about it it’s also occurred to me that he might have dated someone before me who was A) menatlly ill and B) had a lot of peacock crap in her house, so it’s more af an association thing. > [@Green\_Bean](#): > > Insane? You’d be insane for _not_ wearing that dress! It’s faboo. I know, right? ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2009, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peacocks-as-an-indicator-of-mental-instability/503929/32 "2009-07-25T01:44:14Z")
I agree the dress is gorgeous. I want a shirt like that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peacocks-as-an-indicator-of-mental-instability/503929.md?page=1)