Spittle.
We have just met with an instance of the use of spittle for the scaring of the disease demon or the Evil Eye. This is a very common form of charm for this purpose. In one of the Italian charms the performer is directed to spit behind himself thrice and not to look back. In another, “if your eyes pain you, you must take the saliva of a woman who has given birth only to boys, not girls. And she must have abstained from sexual union and stimulating food for three days. Then, if her saliva be bright and clear, anoint your eyes with it and they will be cured.”[52] At Innisboffin, in Ireland, when the old women meet a baby out with its nurse they spit on the ground all round it to keep fairies from it. In Wicklow they spit on a child for good luck the first day it is brought out after birth.[53] In several of the European folk-tales we find that spittle has the power of speech. The habit of spitting on the handsell or first money taken in the morning is common. It is done “either to render it tenacious that it may remain with them and not vanish away like a fairy gift, or else to render it propitious and lucky, that it may draw more money to it.”[54] Muhammad advised that when the demon Khanzab interrupted any one at his prayers, he was to spit over his left shoulder three times.
In India, spittle is regarded as impure. Hence a native cleans his teeth daily with a fresh twig of the Nîm tree, and regards the European’s use of the same tooth-brush day after day as one of the numerous extraordinary impurities which we permit. Hence, too, the practice of spitting when any one who is feared or detested passes by. When women see a falling star they spit three times to scare the demon. In Bombay, spittle, especially fasting spittle, is used to rub on wounds as a remedy. It cures inflammation of the eyes, an idea which was familiar to the Jews. It guards children against the Evil Eye. In the Konkan, when a person is affected by the Evil Eye, salt and mustard are waved round his head, thrown into the fire, and he is told to spit. In Gujarât, when an orthodox Shiah Musalmân travels with a Sunni, he spits, and among the Roman Catholics of Kanara, at baptism the priest wets his thumb with spittle and with it touches the child’s ears and nostrils.[55]