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A Belief in The Evil
Eye
A belief in the Evil Eye is practically universal : it exists on nearly
every (if not every) continent of the world. The belief's pervasiveness is
evident by the number of different names used to describe it. Author Tobin Siebers offers a few:
In Greek, the evil eye is called baskania, from which the Latin words for
the evil eye, fascinum and fascinatio, are said to derive. The Latin form
recurs in the English word, "fascination," which directly referred to the
evil eye until the seventeenth century. In the Spanish-speaking countries
of South America, the evil eye is called mal de ojo, mal ojo, or simply
ojo. In France, the term is mauvais oeil; in Haiti, mauvais jé, in
Holland, booz blick; in Germany, böse Blick; in Poland, zte oko, in
Corsica, innocchiatura; in Norway, skřrtunge; in Ireland, droch-shuil; in
Scotland, bad Ee, in Persian aghashi; in Arabic, 'ayn; in Hebrew,
ayin hara, in Tunisia, 'ayn harsha; in Armenian, achk,
gabuyt achk, pasternak; in China, ok ngan; and in Turkey, nazar. In Italy, the evil eye
possess many names. It is generally called malocchio, but in Tuscany and
southern Italy it may be referred to as affascinamento or jettatura.
Apotropaic amulet for the evil eye (aesthetically
speaking, of course) is the hand symbol common to Jewish and Muslim
belief. "Mashallah" which is translated as an
Arabic term meaning "may God preserve you from the evil eye". The symbol
is known as the hamsa hand or hand of Fatima in Arabic/Muslim culture, the
hamesh hand or hand of Miriam in Hebrew Jewish
culture. I take a certain wry hope from the fact that the two cultures
turn to the same source for protection from evil, as a trope of their many
underlying similarities.
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