In this article published over 100 years ago, belief in the evil eye was labeled a “quaint custom” of the “world’s queer people.” Of course, back then, “queer” had a different meaning and there was still a very strong belief in the evil eye.
Quaint Customs of World’s Queer People
The belief that some persons have the power to injure other persons simply by looking at them is still widely accepted among most of the “queer peoples” of our globe.
Especially is it true in Asia Minor, Syria and Palestine, where Jesus Christ gave the world its great lesson on the omnipotent power of the Divine Being.
The eye is as potent to ignorant people, whose minds are full of fanciful interpretations of natural laws, as superstition may conceive; the error arises from a lack of understanding of its operation, rather than a recognition of its power. The person who felt himself under the spell of a lustrous eye, with a penetrating gaze, would be too agitated to calmly consider the cause of his terror, and attribute to another the results for which he himself was mainly responsible.
The uncommon color of an Eastern eye might enhance this feeling and cause the victim to regard it as the means of conveying a malevolent influence. Hence the fact that blue eyes amongst the inhabitants of Palestine and the surrounding countries have always been responsible for consequences disastrous to those who have been subject to their gaze. It is really the man who is smitten with terror that gives to the eye of the other its baneful power, and he fears less the force of character behind it than the fancies with which his own timidity has invested it.
The safest and best cure for the “evil eye” is supposed to be a bit of clothing from the man or woman through whom the pernicious element had passed, and to burn it below the victim. The fumes will immediately remove the ill effect. Another method adopted is to take a piece of tamarisk wood, a pinch of salt or alum, and place it in a pan on the fire. The person afflicted must walk around it seven times, and as soon as a crackling sound is heard the spell is broken.
To praise anything, particularly a child or a horse, will cause at once some misfortune, and even if sickness should follow some time after, it will be attributed to the words of favor.
That the evil eye may be visited upon their children is the especial fear of Palestine mothers of today and many “charms” are hung upon the little ones to ward it off. The more of these amulets a child has, the better mother it is considered to have.
Source: The day book. (Chicago, Ill.), 26 Jan. 1914.
