Folklore is full of superstitions, and Italian American folklore is no exception. The evil eye, or “malocchio” as the curse was originally called, is an old and widespread Mediterranean folk idea dating back thousands of years. The evil eye superstition is based on a complex belief system. Those who invoke the evil eye curse and the power that comes with it are not necessarily seen as having malicious intent. Victims’ symptoms of exposure to the evil eye can also be unpredictable. According to believers, a look, glance, or just being in the presence of one who has the power of the evil eye may inflict anything from a severe headache to death.
A variety of measures can be taken to both protect oneself from the evil eye, as well as to treat those who are stricken by it. These practices include the use of charms, prayers, and other rituals. Some Italians and Italian Americans maintain a belief in the phenomenon to this day and continue to be wary of its influence.
The belief in the evil eye is ancient, as are the various preventive measures and treatments for having fallen under its spell. The evil eye concept is common across many cultures, and it makes appearances in ancient texts, including the Bible, which suggests the belief is at least 5,000 years old. Italy in particular has a well-developed history of the belief in the evil eye. There it is known also as the overlook or malocchio. Over the course of time, Italians and Italian Americans (as well as many other cultures that hold the belief) have developed their own set of superstitions, preventions, and cures. This created a complex and elastic system that interrelates with other cultures.
The evil eye “complex,” as it may be referred to, is vast, subtle, and has a variety of preventions and cures. However, a few universal elements provide some clarity. A common understanding is that there are two roles: the role of the possessors of the evil eye power and the role of the victims. In the eyes of the Italians, the possessor of the evil eye can be born with it (called an ittaturi), or people can develop the power as a result of a diabolical pact. Often possessors may not even be aware that they have the power to cast the evil eye, particularly if they are people born with the ability. There are certain groups of people that believers in the evil eye deem to be more likely to have the power. For example, it is said that people with heavy unibrows are particularly threatening. Older, single women are also often highly suspected to be possessors of the power.
An important theme in the evil eye superstition is the concept of “invidia,” or envy. Envy is considered to be sinful, and compliments are sometimes seen to be an expression of envy. Compliments that come as the result of envy could be the cause of the evil eye. In this manner, something as seemingly innocent as a compliment may often trigger a reaction of fear of having just been overlooked, or stricken with the curse of the evil eye. A gettatore is one who unknowingly possesses the power of the evil eye but may be an otherwise kind person. Any kind of compliment from such a person is considered to be a dangerous occurrence for people, animals, and even machinery. Italian oral tradition is full of stories about cows ceasing their milk production or cars breaking down on the side of the road shortly after the owners receive compliments from gettatores. Babies are also considered one of the groups that are most susceptible to the curse of the evil eye inflicted through compliments.
A variety of preventive measures and treatment options for the evil eye are thought to exist. Some of these behaviors are common in other superstitions as well. These may include using charms, incantations, hand gestures, and even garlic and herbs. Behaviors could involve hanging items like garlic or a horseshoe over the doorway of a home. Garlic may also be placed directly into the babies’ cribs for protection. There are also immediate actions that can be taken in response to being overlooked. Spitting on or wiping saliva across the victim’s face is an immediate cure. This plays into the notion that certain general phenomena are protective. This random assortment includes wetness because wetness signifies life. Other preventive and healing options are the colors blue and red. The color blue is considered a protective entity, but blue-eyed people are considered potentially dangerous. This interpretation of blue eye color represents one of the ways in which a blending of Mediterranean cultures has taken place when it comes to the development of evil eye beliefs and superstitions. The speculation is that many Islamic nations through the ages regarded blue-eyed people as suspected sorcerers due to their rarity in such places, and variations of this theme have been found in other cultures. Red, however, is considered to be the favored protective color among Italians.
The evil eye belief system also includes protective measures in the way of ornaments, symbols, and verbal charms. One of the most prominent practices found among both Italians and Italian Americans is the use of charms and beads of red coral or plastic. Red beads are a common type of protection worn by everybody from babies to livestock. Often, protective items are of a sexual nature. One of the most prominent and most favored of protections is the corno, or horn. The corno can take the form of a plastic charm shaped like a bull’s horn, or it can be an actual hand gesture in which a person holds up a hand with only the pinky and index finger extended. For maximum protection, the corno is often paired with red plastic or red coral. Mano in fica or the “fig sign” is another symbol that is often displayed in a hand gesture. In this case, a person makes a fist with the thumb inserted between the index finger and middle finger. The gesture is also considered to be sexual, and its use as a means to ward off evil dates back to ancient Rome. The notion behind such gestures as deterrents to evil is that because of their sexual nature, they serve as distractions to the potential evil eye power, which turns the power away from the target.
Treatments and cures for being overlooked also vary. First, one must usually be tested for the presence of the evil eye if one is suspected of having been overlooked. The most common diagnostic practice is the dripping of olive oil into a small dish of water in the presence of the suspected victim. Typically, if the oil disperses, that means that the evil eye curse is present. Variations of this procedure may specify the number of drops of oil required as well as the placement of the water vessel on the victim. Upon confirming the presence of evil eye, the healing process can begin. These healing procedures are usually meant to be performed by a well-respected woman and may include prayers, incantations, and even the boiling of the clothes worn by the person. Other practices include various combinations of ritualistic behavior that often involve the touching of olive oil to the person’s forehead and the wearing of garlic. Some also believe in gradations of the severity of evil eye–caused illnesses, and this may dictate the type or extent of the treatment that is given.
William N. Schultz Jr.
See also Demonic Possession; Folk Medicine; Good Luck Charms; Nazar; Superstitions
Further Reading
Berger, Allan S. 2012. “The Evil Eye—An Ancient Superstition.” Journal of Religion and Health 51: 1098–1103.
Berry, Veronica. 1968. “Neapolitan Charms Against the Evil Eye.” Folklore 79 (4): 250–256.
Dundes, Alan. 1992. The Evil Eye: A Casebook. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Galt, Anthony H. 1982. “The Evil Eye as Synthetic Image and Its Meanings on the Island of Pantelleria, Italy.” American Ethnologist 9 (4): 664–681.
Malpezzi, Frances M., and William M. Clements. 1992. Italian-American Folklore. Little Rock, AR: August House.
Evil Eye—Primary Document
Warding Off the Evil Eye (1912)
Immigrants from Ireland, Italy, Eastern and Southeastern Europe, Russia, the Middle East, and elsewhere brought their folk traditions with them when they arrived in North America in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In these two selections from a memoir of a Jewish immigrant woman from Russia, author Mary Antin reflects on the importance of family and community in acculturating young children to Old World ideas about spiritual warfare and its effects on health and the body; she then comments on the possibilities of change in the new American environment.
Marriage was a sacrament with us Jews in the Pale. To rear a family of children was to serve God. Every Jewish man and woman had a part in the fulfilment of the ancient promise given to Jacob that his seed should be abundantly scattered over the earth. Parenthood, therefore, was the great career. But while men, in addition to begetting, might busy themselves with the study of the Law, woman’s only work was motherhood. To be left an old maid became, accordingly, the greatest misfortune that could threaten a girl; and to ward off that calamity the girl and her family, to the most distant relatives, would strain every nerve, whether by contributing to her dowry, or hiding her defects from the marriage broker, or praying and fasting that God might send her a husband.
Not only must all the children of a family be mated, but they must marry in the order of their ages. A younger daughter must on no account marry before an elder. A houseful of daughters might be held up because the eldest failed to find favor in the eyes of prospective mothers-in-law; not one of the others could marry till the eldest was disposed of.
A cousin of mine was guilty of the disloyalty of wishing to marry before her elder sister, who was unfortunate enough to be rejected by one mother-in-law after another. My uncle feared that the younger daughter, who was of a firm and masterful nature, might carry out her plans, thereby disgracing her unhappy sister. Accordingly he hastened to conclude an alliance with a family far beneath him, and the girl was hastily married to a boy of whom little was known beyond the fact that he was inclined to consumption.
The consumptive tendency was no such horror, in an age when superstition was more in vogue than science. For one patient that went to a physician in Polotzk, there were ten who called in unlicensed practitioners and miracle workers. If my mother had an obstinate toothache that honored household remedies failed to relieve, she went to Dvoshe, the pious woman, who cured by means of a flint and steel, and a secret prayer pronounced as the sparks flew up. During an epidemic of scarlet fever, we protected ourselves by wearing a piece of red woolen tape around the neck. Pepper and salt tied in a corner of the pocket was effective in warding off the evil eye. There were lucky signs, lucky dreams, spirits, and hobgoblins, a grisly collection, gathered by our wandering ancestors from the demonologies of Asia and Europe.
Antiquated as our popular follies was the organization of our small society. It was a caste system with social levels sharply marked off, and families united by clannish ties. The rich looked down on the poor, the merchants looked down on the artisans, and within the ranks of the artisans higher and lower grades were distinguished. A shoemaker’s daughter could not hope to marry the son of a shopkeeper, unless she brought an extra large dowry; and she had to make up her mind to be snubbed by the sisters-in-law and cousins-in-law all her life.
One qualification only could raise a man above his social level, and that was scholarship. A boy born in the gutter need not despair of entering the houses of the rich, if he had a good mind and a great appetite for sacred learning. A poor scholar would be preferred in the marriage market to a rich ignoramus. In the phrase of our grandmothers, a boy stuffed with learning was worth more than a girl stuffed with bank notes. …
Father himself conducted us to school. He would not have delegated that mission to the President of the United States. He had awaited the day with impatience equal to mine, and the visions he saw as he hurried us over the sun-flecked pavements transcended all my dreams. Almost his first act on landing on American soil, three years before, had been his application for naturalization. He had taken the remaining steps in the process with eager promptness, and at the earliest moment allowed by the law, he became a citizen of the United States. It is true that he had left home in search of bread for his hungry family, but he went blessing the necessity that drove him to America. The boasted freedom of the New World meant to him far more than the right to reside, travel, and work wherever he pleased; it meant the freedom to speak his thoughts, to throw off the shackles of superstition, to test his own fate, unhindered by political or religious tyranny. He was only a young man when he landed—thirty-two; and most of his life he had been held in leading-strings. He was hungry for his untasted manhood.
Three years passed in sordid struggle and disappointment. He was not prepared to make a living even in America, where the day laborer eats wheat instead of rye. Apparently the American flag could not protect him against the pursuing Nemesis of his limitations; he must expiate the sins of his fathers who slept across the seas. He had been endowed at birth with a poor constitution, a nervous, restless temperament, and an abundance of hindering prejudices. In his boyhood his body was starved, that his mind might be stuffed with useless learning. In his youth this dearly gotten learning was sold, and the price was the bread and salt which he had not been trained to earn for himself. Under the wedding canopy he was bound for life to a girl whose features were still strange to him; and he was bidden to multiply himself, that sacred learning might be perpetuated in his sons, to the glory of the God of his fathers. All this while he had been led about as a creature without a will, a chattel, an instrument. In his maturity he awoke, and found himself poor in health, poor in purse, poor in useful knowledge, and hampered on all sides. At the first nod of opportunity he broke away from his prison, and strove to atone for his wasted youth by a life of useful labor; while at the same time he sought to lighten the gloom of his narrow scholarship by freely partaking of modern ideas.
Source: Antin, Mary. The Promised Land. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1912, pp. 35–36, 202–203.