Black Tassels or Cloth Hanging From Mirrors and Bumpers of Semi Trucks/Trailers

I have been seeing these black tassels hanging off the mirrors of trucks, mostly trucks out of the Fresno/Bakersfield area of California. Produce trucks for the most part, dry vans as well. The trucks are driven by folks with a Middle East background.

It was bugging me to the point I had to find out what it is and why it is there. Turns out, they are there because they are believed to protect the drivers from the evil-eye and ward of bad luck while on the road.

I found this a bit interesting, and then went on to pursue why they have decorations inside their trucks. Not sure this is exactly the reason, but it appears that in the Middle East, truckers aren't much different than old school truckers here in the United States. Over there, these guys stay for up to 10 months per year and they decorate their trucks far more there than what you see here. They would probably like to do the same here, but keep it modest to prevent being ridiculed.

The tassels I am talking about look like this:



They really go all out with their trucks as I found on another website:



You can see more images from the above linked website.

It was interesting to me, and I thought I would share.

 

[Electric Chicken]

I'm gonna start looking for tassels every time I see an Amazon van flipped over.

 

[Duck]

In places with lots of bugs, they hang tassles in doorways, windows, on their hats, etc because when they sway in the wind, they scare away bugs.

Also before modern medicine, a lot of people thought disease was caused by evil spirits.

Bugs transmit disease.

I wonder if at some point they noticed the connection between the tassels and a reduction in malaria and assumed the tassles were warding away evil spirits.

 

[Sinister]

I like the one picture that says, "No girlfriend, no tention."

Tension.

Close enough.

Dudes totally correct.