A lady who had lost a beautiful and valuable ring that had attracted the attention of an envious acquaintance, when relating to me the circumstance with great pathos, attributed her loss solely to the evil eye cast upon it by her friend.
I knew a lady at Broussa whose eye was so dreaded as to induce her friends to fumigate their houses after she had paid them a visit. She happened to call upon my mother one evening when we were sitting under a splendid weeping willow-tree in the garden. She looked up and observed that she had never seen a finer tree of its kind. My old nurse standing by heard her observation, and no sooner had our visitor departed than she suggested that some garlic should at once be hung upon it or it would surely come to grief. We all naturally ridiculed the idea, but, as chance would have it, that very night a storm uprooted the willow. After this catastrophe the old woman took to hanging garlic everywhere, and would have ornamented me with it had I not rebelled.
At Uskup the finest horse in the town was my Arab, which was said to excite the admiration and envy of the Albanians, whose love for fine horses is well known. Often after having been out he was pronounced Nazarlu by our faithful kavass and the groom, and was at once taken to a sheikh of great repute in the town, who read prayers over it, pulled its ears, and after breaking an egg on its forehead, sent it back with every assurance that it was Savmash (cured). Finding that my pet was none the worse for this strange treatment (for which I was never allowed to pay by my excellent friend the old sheikh), and seeing that it afforded gratification to my people, I allowed them to take it as often as they liked.
Visiting one day the nursery of a friend, we found the baby, six months old, divested of its clothing and stretched on a square of red cloth, while the old Greek nurse, much concerned about the ailing condition of her charge, which she attributed to the effects of the evil eye, was presiding over the following operation performed by an old hag of the same nation in order to free the infant from the supposed influence. Little heaps of hemp, occupying the four corners of the cloth, were smoking like miniature altars; their fumes, mingling with the breathings and incantations of the old enchantress, offered a strange contrast to the repeated signs of the cross made by her on the baby’s body, ending in a series of gymnastic contortions of its limbs. The child soon recovered his wonted liveliness, and seemed to enjoy the process, crowing and smiling all the time.
Should you happen to fix your gaze on a person or object in the presence of ill-disposed Turks, you are liable to receive rude remarks from them under the idea that you are casting the evil eye. Some months ago two Turkish boys, belonging to one of the principal families of the town of R⸺, attracted the attention of some Christian children who stood by, and who were forthwith violently assaulted by the servants of the little boys, who called out, “You little giaours! how dare you look in this manner at our young masters and give them the evil eye?” The cries of the children brought some shopkeepers to the spot, who with some difficulty rescued them from this unprovoked attack.
The preservatives employed against the power of this evil are as numerous as the means used to dissipate its effects. The principal preventives and antidotes are garlic, cheriot, wild thyme, boar’s tusks, hares’ heads, terebinth, alum, blue glass, turquoise, pearls, the bloodstone, carnelian, eggs (principally those of the ostrich), a gland extracted from the neck of the ass, written amulets, and a thousand other objects. The upper classes of the Christians try to avert its effect by sprinkling the afflicted persons with holy water, fumigating them with the burning branches of the palms used on Palm Sunday, and by hanging amulets round their necks: as preservatives, coral, blue glass ornaments, and crosses are worn. The common people of all denominations resort to other means in addition to these. The Bulgarians, for instance, take six grains of salt, place them on each eye of the afflicted person, and then cast them into the fire with a malediction against the person supposed to have caused the evil. They also take three pieces of burning charcoal, place them in a green dish, and making the sign of the cross pour water over them. Part of this liquid is drunk by the victim, who also washes his face and hands in it and then throws the remainder on the ground outside the house.
On the last day of February (old style), they take the heads of forty small fish, and string and hang them up to dry. When a child is found ailing from the supposed effects of the evil eye, the heads are soaked in water, and the horrible liquid given to it to drink. It is considered a good test of the presence of the evil eye to place cloves on burning coals and carry them round the room. Should many of these explode, some malicious person is supposed to have left the mischievous effects of the Nazar behind him.
Blue or gray eyes are more dreaded than dark ones, and red-haired persons are particularly suspected. Great circumspection is observed in expressing approbation, admiration or praise, of anything or anybody, as all Orientals live in a continual state of dread of the effects of the fena guz.
Besides the belief in spirits, magic, and other supernatural powers, public credulity in the East is apt to accept as facts a variety of matters not less absurd and often more injurious. In spring, for instance, a popular idea prevails that blood in some manner or other must be drawn from the body in order to cool the system and render it healthy for the summer. Part of the population will appeal to the barber, part to professed phlebotomists, others to the application of leeches. Superstition requires that vipers should be medicinally used in spring; the gypsies undertake to collect these and sell them alive to the inhabitants of towns. I remember seeing one of these reptile-hunters carry a bagful of them on his back against a sheepskin-coat. A passer-by being attracted by their movements, visible through the bag, took hold of it, but no sooner had he done so than he paid dearly for his curiosity by being severely bitten by one of them. Freshly killed animals, such as frogs, birds, etc., are often applied to suffering members of the body.
Croup is cured by amulets procured from the Hodjas and hung round the neck of the child. Turkish women have often assured me that this remedy is never known to fail, and consequently they resort to no other. Square pieces of paper, bearing written inscriptions, are given for a few piastres by learned Hodjas to persons whose dwellings are infested with vermin. These are nailed on the four walls of an apartment, and are believed to have the power of clearing it of its obnoxious tenants. Going into the room of one of my servants one day at Adrianople, I found a cucumber-boat occupying each corner. On inquiring why they were placed there, an old servant answered that, being inconvenienced by the too plentiful visitation of vermin, she had appealed to a person at Kyik, whose magical influence, conveyed in cucumbers, was stated to be infallible in driving the creatures away. I tried to analyze the contents of these receptacles, but finding them a mess composed of charcoal, bones, bits of written paper, hair, etc., I soon desisted, hoping that it would prove more efficacious than it promised.