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The original version consisted of hitting the trunk of a tree and its most likely origin may lie in the fact that lightning often falls on trees. Ancient peoples – from the Egyptians to the Indians of the American continent – would have interpreted this fact as a sign that such plants were the terrestrial abodes of the gods. So, every time they felt guilty about something, they would hit the trunk with their knuckles to call the deities and ask for forgiveness. “Trees are sacred in all cultures and religions: a universal symbol of the connecting element between heaven and earth,” says Maria Ângela de Almeida, a theologian at the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC-SP).
The Celts were also adept at this custom: their priests, the druids, knocked wood to drive away evil spirits, believing that trees consumed demons and sent them back to earth. Already in Ancient Rome, the wood of the table, a piece of furniture also considered sacred, was beaten to invoke the protective deities of the home and family.