ARAB SUPERSTITIONS.—THE EVIL EYE.
Many an amulet and charm
That would do neither good nor harm.—HUDIBRAS.
The traveller in Egypt, who observes what is before him, and feels an
interest in conversing with the natives, will have many opportunities
for learning something about their superstitious or religious
ideas—for, of course, much that with them is religion with us would
be superstition—such as their belief in charms and amulets, and in
the beneficial, or remedial efficacy of utterly irrelevant acts and
prescriptions. This is a large—indeed, almost an inexhaustible—subject,
because it pervades their whole lives, influencing almost everything
they do, and every thought that passes through their minds. Whenever an
Arab wishes to attain to, or to escape from, anything, his method of
proceeding is not to use the means—or if he does, not to be content with
them—which, in the nature of things, would lead to the desired result,
but to depend either entirely, or, at all events, as a collateral means,
on something else which can have no possible bearing on his object, but
which, in consequence of the presence in his mind of certain ideas, and
the absence of certain others, he thinks will have, or ought to have,
some impossible effects.
Among Egyptians—it is so with all Orientals, there is an universal belief
in the potency of the Evil Eye. If any one has looked upon an object with
envious and covetous feelings, evil will ensue; not, however—and this
is the heart and the peculiarity of the superstition—to the covetous
or envious man, but to the coveted or envied object. I will attempt
presently to explain this inversion of moral ideas. A mother in easy
circumstances will keep her child in shabby clothes, and begrimed with
dirt, in order that those who see it may not think it beautiful, and
so cast an envious or covetous eye upon it. Some kenspeckle object is
placed among the caparisons of a handsome horse or camel, that the eye of
the passer-by may be attracted to it, and so withdrawn from the animal
itself. The entire dress of a Nubian young lady consists of a fringe
of shredded leather, two or three inches deep, worn round the loins.
On the upper edge of this fringe two or three bunches of small white
cowrie shells are fastened. The traveller might, at first,—and, probably,
generally does,—suppose that this is merely a piece of coquetry,
inspired by the desire to attract attention. The truth is the reverse.
The white shells against the ebon skin are, it is true, intended to
attract attention—not at all, however, in the way of coquetry, but from
the opposite wish that the eye of the passer-by may be attracted to the
shells, and thus that the wearer may herself escape the effects of the
coveting, Evil Eye.
There is the same motive in the adoption by women of gold coins as
ornaments for the head. Let the eye be attracted to that coveted and
precious object, and diverted from the face. So, also, with the use of
the veil; and so with many other preventive devices.
But as the source of the mischief is in the heart of the beholder,
prevention may go further, and may dry up, if the effort be wisely made,
the source of the evil at the fountain-head. This is to be done by so
disciplining men’s minds, as that they shall habitually refrain from
looking on anything with envious, or covetous thoughts. The method they
have adopted for effecting this desirable change in the heart is to make
it a point of religion, and of good manners, that a man shall so word
his admiration as, at the same time, to express renunciation of any wish
to possess the beautiful, or desirable object before him that belongs to
another. He must not express his admiration of it simply. It would be
reprehensible for him to say of a beautiful child, or dress, or jewel, or
garden, or anything that was another’s, ‘How charming!—how beautiful!’
He must associate his admiration with the idea of God, and with the
acknowledgment, that he submits to the behest of God that has given it
to another. This he does by saying, ‘God’s will be done (Mashallah),’
or by some similar expression. If he should so far forget propriety as
to express himself otherwise, the bystanders would recall him to good
manners, and a proper sense of religion in the matter, by reproving him.
But supposing all these preventive measures of strategy, religion, and
politeness have failed, and the Evil Eye, notwithstanding, must needs
alight on some object, what is to be done then? The only resource is in
the recognized counter-agents. These are of two kinds—those which have
a prophylactic, and those which have a remedial efficacy. To the first
belong some selected texts of the Koran, or the whole of the sacred
volume, which must be enclosed in a suitable receptacle, and hung about
the neck of the person to be protected. A little piece of alum has the
same effect. Some have recourse to the ninety-nine titles of the Deity;
others prefer the titles, equal in number, of the Prophet. These may be
kept in the house, as well as about the person. Lane has an interesting
chapter on Arab superstitions, from which we may gather that the names of
the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, and of their dog, and the names of the few
paltry articles of furniture left by the Prophet, have great potency.
But supposing these, and other such prophylactics have failed, as must
sometimes happen, in averting the Evil Eye, nothing remains then but the
use of antidotes. One that commends itself to general adoption is, to
prick a piece of paper with a pin, to represent the eye of the envious
man, and then to burn it. Another that is equally efficacious is, to burn
a compound of several pinches of salt stained with different colours, and
mixed with storax, wormwood, and other matters. But I need not pursue
this part of a single subject any farther: what has been said will be
enough to show what are their ideas as to the ways in which the Evil Eye
is to be combated.
And now for the explanation I would venture to offer of what is to us
the strangest part of the matter, that such a belief as this of the
Evil Eye should have had any existence at all, because it involves the
immoral idea that all the suffering falls on the innocent victim, and
that there is no retribution for the guilty cause of the mischief. This I
am disposed to think has been brought about by the facts and experience
of life in the East. There the Evil Eye has always had a very real, and
fearful significance; and people have done very wisely in endeavouring to
guard against it. It never would have done in that part of the world,
nor would it do at this day in Cairo, or anywhere else, even down to the
most secluded village, for one to flaunt before the world what others
might covet, or envy him the possession of. The simple plan there has
ever been, that those should take who have the power, and that those
only should keep who are not known to possess. A man who had a beautiful
wife, or child, or costly jewel, or a showy horse, or camel, or anything
good, if it were observed, and known, would at any time, in the East,
have been pretty sure to lose it, and perhaps with it his own life into
the bargain. This of course has been a master-fact in forming the manners
and customs of the people. Hence their ideas about the Evil Eye. What
befel Uriah and Naboth, has befallen many everywhere. Hence the wisdom of
keeping good things out of sight, and of diverting attention from them.
Hence the belief that the evil is for the innocent possessor, and not
for the wicked envier, or coveter. The methods adopted for obviating its
effects are, of course, merely the offspring of fear acting on ignorance.
I need not give any further illustrations of this condition of the Arab
mind. A general statement will now be sufficient. Every evil that flesh
is heir to, every ailment, every as yet unsatisfied yearning, every
loss, every suffering, has its appropriate treatment, all being of the
same character as that which prescribes, for some moral obliquity in A’s
mind, that B should burn a piece of alum, or of storax, purchased on a
particular day. Some of these practices are laughable, some disgusting.
Some that are of the latter class recall Herodotus’s story of the means
to which King Phero, in the days of old Egypt, had recourse for the
recovery of his sight.
It is cheap to laugh at these ideas and practices, but we have ourselves
passed, in this matter, through the same stage. We had our day of
such remedies, when we attempted to cure diseases, and to dispel evil
influences with charms and amulets; and to ensure success by having
recourse to the luck that was supposed to be in days, and things, and
names, and places. The memory of all this has not, even yet, completely
vanished from amongst us. The echo of it may still at times be heard.
The history of all people shows that these things contain the germ
of the empirical art of medicine. The first step in real progress is
the abandonment of the idea that disease is the irreversible decree
of heaven, or of fate. The second stage, that in which the Orientals
now are, is the metaphysical treatment of disease—that which assumes
that each disease is to be met by something which, from some fancied
analogy, or fitness, or antagonism, it is supposed ought to counteract
it. This is futile in itself, but not in its ulterior consequences, for
it issues eventually in the discovery of the true remedies. In time, if
circumstances favour, the subject comes to be treated scientifically.
Every ailment is then deliberately examined, with the view of discovering
in what it actually consists; and remedies are applied which, in
accordance with the known laws and properties of things, it is reasonably
hoped will check its growth or remove it.
It is curious to observe, while we are on this subject, that homœopathy
is only a reversion to old ways of thinking. Its foundation is a
metaphysical dictum that like cures like. And its practice that these, or
some other, globules will in each case produce artificially the desired
disease, is as contrary to the evidence of the senses, and the known
properties of the globules, as anything to be found in Arab therapeutics.