Right versus left: politics of the body

AN INTERESTING project is underway at UCD: post-graduate student Jack Murphy is studying horses. His concern, however, is not with their health strength or breeding performance. Jack is examining the property known as “handedness” and the form it takes in horses.

Each of us has a strong side. Most people kick with the right foot and can usually muster more strength with their right arm than with their left. Right arms tend to be a tiny bit longer than left ones and there are claims that this was the case even with our ancestors tens of thousands of years ago.

In Christian tradition, Christ sits at the right hand of God the Father, while the Devil was supposed to baptise his followers with the left hand. The Latin “sinistra”, meaning “left”, gave us the adjective “sinister”; evil spirits lurk behind our left shoulder and salt was thrown in that direction to ward them off. This superstition was taken seriously; in Roman times, salt was a valuable commodity and a form of money, hence the term “salary”, the salt allowance paid to the Roman soldier.