The Evil Eye

Franklin Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 139, 28 November 1938, Page 7

The Evil Eye

Miss Peggy Cox, who has lived I'or illo past eleven years on her uncle’s sugar estate in Barbados, fold the West India Royal Commission in Condon recently about the “evil eye’’ and “black magic” as practised in the West Indies (says Ihe Manehesler Gunrdian). “I do not think,” she said, "any servants of mine questioned directly would admit (hat they believed in it, because if is a thing no one will confess. If is a thing they are ashamed of, but it is extremely prevalent. One of my own household servants died suddenly after a short and inexplicable illness. Her children believed that another woman who hated her had put the evil eye on her and caused her death.” Natives, she said, paid

money to the witch doctor as an insurance against harm coining lo them from people who possessed the evil eye. Dame Rachel Crowdy a member of the Commission): Does this affect tl'.eir health?- —Cndnubledly il does, because if a man seriously believes that Ihe evil eye is put on him lie gets worse -in health. Miss Cox suggested lojhe Commission—who are going oul to investigate the social and economic conditions in some of Ihe West India islands —I hat. Ihe Government should at once guarantee Ihe interest of a loan for the development of land settlement and agriculture in the W'esl Indies. She also urged the establishment of a Caribbean marketing board and a training college for instructors in agriculture.