Keep Your Hands To Yourself

I spent the first two weeks of January with a terrible flu. It was one of the worst periods of influenza that I ever had to deal with. In the middle of feeling weak and constantly coughing, I saw a doctor who suspected a secondary bacterial infection. He gave me a prescription of antibiotics and in a week I was on my way to recovery. This flu was so bad that even the recovery was a slow process. I could feel the flu just hanging on for weeks after I was able to get out of bed. It felt like my sickness lingered for a long before I felt normal again.

After my sickness, I was fearful of getting another flu or cold of any kind. I did not want to get that sick again. I started researching where or when I might have picked up this bout of flu. It didn’t take long to find out that public places are a hazard for bacteria and viruses and that most people pick up sickness from contaminated surfaces, shaking hands with those who are ill and being close people who cough and spread germs in the air. After this terrible ordeal with this flu, I became more aware of what I touch and I am now committed to washing my hands often when I am in malls, stores, restaurants or at events.

I became ill with this flu during the holiday season, which for most of us it is an intense period when we all meet family and friends we have not seen in months. It is a cultural tradition in North America to reach out to shake hands in public as a gesture of good will, greeting and friendship. During the holidays, when families are getting together, handshaking is like a sporting event and people are rubbing palms dozens of times a day.

From a social point-of-view a handshake is a quick, intimate and good-willed gesture. The negative part is that this touching of hands is a great way for a bacteria or virus to directly travel from one person to another. If we are careful and wash our hands regularly than a handshake wouldn’t be such a problem. However, when we walk into a social gathering, a lot of the time there is food and drink involved. Inevitably, we are using our hands to put food directly into our mouths as part of this social activity. In the hustle and bustle of meeting many people we often forget to wash our hands.

In the Native world, shaking hands is a big part of the culture. Whenever or wherever we meet a friend, relative or acquaintance from our communities, we reach out to shake hands. I believe that this tradition came from the Europeans because it is very prominent in major Native social events like weddings, funerals and public gatherings. When there is a gathering in a remote northern community, just about everyone connects through handshaking at one point or another. Strangely enough, when we meet out on the land, I don’t remember old friends or relatives feeling the need to shake hands with one another. It always felt like it was just a privilege to share the same space in the wilderness with another person, that there was no need to shake hands. Just being together in the same time and space was enough of a greeting between two people.

I can understand the need to connect or show good will to another person when two people meet. However, I think that the handshake greeting has seen its day. Many cultures in this world simply bow to one another or smile and nod. That sounds fine to me.

When I visited Thailand and Japan I was surprised to see that the usual greeting was for the person to put their hands together and bow. This was a simple and quick method to show good will and it did not need the other person to participate intimately in any way. Actually I found this manner of greeting more respectful. Many Thai and Japanese people that I met, considered shaking hands a strange way to greet another person and they found it a more aggressive and invasive form of greeting.

These days when we are living through a global pandemic due to the spread of a new influenza virus, it is wise to take all the precautions we can to make sure we don’t pick up or spread disease. In a more modern way of thinking, I try to avoid shaking hands in most situations when I meet people. At first, people find it a bit strange that I don’t want to shake hands in greeting but I simply explain to them that I have adopted a new way to say hello with a smile and a nod of my head. I tell them I do this to help keep myself and others safe in a time of pandemic. It is time to give the handshake a rest.