THE BELIEF IN AN EVIL EYE.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 453, 12 March 1890, Page 6

THE BELIEF IN AN EVIL EYE.

The prevalent craze concerning various phases of hypnotism' and mesmerism had their predecessor iri the widespread notion, far from extinct, concerning the ‘ evil ey6.’ These have had an existrnce everywhere, and a name for such a manifestation of ocular powers exists in every tongue. We derive some of our harmless words from these names. The Greek ‘ baskains’ gives us the verb ‘to bask,’ as well as the noun ‘ basi"isk,’ the name of the famous animal whose glance would destroy. No ill meaning attaches to the modem verb ‘to fascinate,’ although its root, the Latin ‘fasenare,’ meant ‘to bewitch.’ We are not wont to associate any especial evil, as do the Russians, witli a ‘ black eye,’ and our most ominous word to denote this dangerous power is that used in Ireland, ‘to eye bite.’ Our forefathers believed firmly enough in the thing itself, however. As tar back as we are able to pierce through the obscurity of antiquity, we find abundant evidences of this strange belief. ' Chaldean conjurations against the power of the evil eyo are still in existence. In France this wild superstition existed from the earliest times. The inhabitants of certain districts, as Bearn and Landers, were particularly regarded askance as possessing the fatal evil glance. A Bearnese sorcerer was stoned to death in 1618 because he made two young girls ill by his malign looks. Some suppose it a compact with Satan, while others regard the possession of this power as a natural result of evil and corrupt tendencies in the heart of the sorcerer Few of the writers of the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries were bold enough to deny the thing altogether. Some attribute its effects entirely to the imagination ; others think there is present an actual fluid passing from eye to eye. Sometimes it is declarird that the will of the operator was not concerned at all, and that, these evil emanations even proceed from the body of the unfortunate sorcerer without his consent. Old women, as usual in these matters during the dadv ages, had to bear the principal burden of accu-ation. Whenever anyone died suddenly or was taken seriously ill of a malady unknown to the physician, sorcery was at once inferred, and many innocent persons sullered from the imputation as to the supposed effects of their evil glances. Borne noted cases are interesting, and may be cited as occurring during the present enlightened century. A NOTABLE CASE.

In 1825, near a town called Dax, in the department of Landes, a young wife fell ill of some unknown malady, and a ‘ wise man on being called attributed • her illness to the effects of evil glances of a certain young woman, her most intimate friend. The husband and brother of the invalid concluded to t?sb the matter, and decoying the suspected woman into the house under the pretence of wanting a nurse, they charged her with having caused her friend’s illness, and demanded that she should at once undo her work. In spite of her denials. they kindled a lire and roasted tier over it in a horrible manner until she finally acknowledged her agency in causing the disease, and promised to remedy it. She was then at two o’clock in the morning led into a dense forest aud turned adrift. Some peasants found her, and her inhuman persecutors were afterward brought to trial, but the witnesses called all declared their belief in the guilt of the accused, and swore that the invalid began to mend from the moment of bho exacted confession. AFTER TIIE EXPERIENCE OF MESMEK this belief in the fatal power of certain persons increased, and a scene similar to that just related occurred in the upper Pyrenees, where a coup e tormented an old woman by burning to force her to confess to having ‘ bewitched ’ the wife. This time the victim died of her injuries, bub the Court inllctcd a light punishment, finding ‘extenuating circumstances.’ In Italy the belief in the ‘jettatura’ at the present day is almost universal. A charm is frequently worn consistingof acoralhand, having the two middle fingers and the thumb closed. The last King of Naples was in great terror of the evil eye, and habitually carried his hand with only the index and last finger open There is a very common proverb in use in Tuscany—* For pity’s sake, don’t harm him with the evil eye.’ In Naples a good eye and a pale skin indicate the sorcerer. In Spain most of the writers on tbissubject, following the teachings of Avicenna, avowafirm belief in thedisastrous effects oftheevil eye. Many physicians acknowledged it,alleging that it proceeded from a vapour for , deleterious humour stored in the head, and passing out through the eyes. They cited as a corroborative instance the cures of infection from sore eyes.