Tag Archives: evil eye

Huevo Limpia-Egg Cleanse: Mexican Cleansing Ritual

Text: 

Me: “Grandma, remember when you rubbed an egg on my brother when he was little? Was that some sort of ritual?

EG: “Oh yes, haha that is called huevo limpia. I learned it from my mom. My mom was very religious and I grew up seeing her use an egg in order to remove the Evil Eye, el Mal de Ojo. Typically, an egg is used to absorb any negative energy in order to cleanse the body and aura. The way I was taught was to rub an egg all over one’s body and to wish the bad luck or spirits away. Typically, I will say a prayer like the ‘Our Father’, in Spanish of course. But yes I do remember doing this when your brother was very young because he was very anxious and scared about something; when he told me I knew to simply open the fridge and grab an egg so I can quickly get rid of any negative spirits.”

Me: “But why an egg?” 

EG: “Supposedly my mom said that within Catholic spiritualism, it is common to use an egg because eggs have the power to energetically absorb any negative energy that one may have. You are supposed to take an egg, hold it close to your heart and say a prayer or any wishful affirmations before you start rubbing it around one’s body from head to toe. Once that process is finished, you can actually crack the egg and you can see the bad energy that was absorbed. If the egg is bubbly, foggy, or has strings from the yolk, that means the bad energy was extracted. When you crack the egg, you can see your results and notice if the cleansing has worked or not.”

Context (informant’s relationship to the piece, where they heard it, how they interpret it):

-EG’s relationship with this piece stems from her Mexican and Catholic culture and overall spiritualism within her own beliefs and those of her mother’s. EG would hear of this ritual practice from her mother given that she grew up in a Catholic household where she was accustomed to witness these ritual performances taking place within her living room whenever someone came to her house for a cleansing. EG interprets this ritual as an act of purified meditation. Given that this performance allows for bad energy to be removed and cleansed from one’s aura, EG intercepts this egg ritual to be an organic act that allows someone to feel protected and start a “new beginning”. 

Analysis(what kind of personal, cultural, or historical values might be expressed) YOUR interpretation:

– The overall cultural value within this ritual stems from a typical Catholic and Mexican household where these acts are often seen being linked to the concept of “brujería” or “witchcraft”. Despite the negative connotation that witchcraft receives, many Mexican-Catholic communities tend to believe that the act of huevo limpia takes on a more religious approach due to the prayers and religious affirmations that are said during the process; this can be seen as an ethical approach to the lifestyles of many Mexican Catholics. The personal values that can be seen within this ritual is the strong spiritual beliefs that an individual inherits within themselves as they truly need to believe that such an organic household item, like an egg, can be used as a spiritual tool in order to heal something that is not visible to the human eye. I see this ritual as an overall act that enables a sense of clarity and tranquility within one’s mindset. Considering that I experienced this ritual being done to my brother, I remember the reassurance and satisfaction that was washed over my brother after EG inspected the results of the egg. From being exposed to the process from start to finish, I am able to see this ritual as a natural symbol of comfort and protection as the religious aspect embedded within the performance can lead one to feel “clean” and protected from any bad energies; this was evident within my brother’s reaction. Considering eggs represent new life, the earth, and God within mythological beliefs, it is with no curiosity that an egg is the main emphasis within this religious practice. A similar ritual that has similar notions to huevo limpia is the spiritual ritual within sage/Palo Santo cleansing. As a matter of fact, the process of burning sage/Palo Santo as you walk around your home, letting the smoke coat the atmosphere, is similar to this egg ritual because they both are performed with the intention of getting rid of evil and or bad energies/spirits. These concepts within the egg ritual and the sage/Palo Santo ritual are acts of contagious “magic” given that these performances carry out an action with the emphasis of touching and or being connected to the designated target within a magical act. 

Superstition: Knock on Wood

Text

“Oh yeah, I always knock on wood whenever someone says they’ve never had something bad happen to them. It’s just a little precaution, you know? Like, I don’t want to jinx anything by tempting fate. Plus, it’s a habit that I’ve had for so long that it’s just become second nature at this point.”

Context

My informant, who is white and from San Francisco, picked this superstition up from his parents as a child, and is a reluctant believer in it today. He interprets it as a method of negating the potential bad luck that could come with a jinx. 

Analysis

My informant’s superstition is an example of conversion superstition, as he takes action to negate a curse. Essentially, the jinx, for example something like “I have never broken a bone” curses an individual to break a bone, but knocking on wood can negate that outcome. The curse aspect of this superstition shares some similarities with the Evil Eye, where direct compliments actually function as curses, similar to how my informant’s statements of positive wellbeing can doom one to negative outcomes. This belief could be a derivative of historical pagan beliefs in the sacredness of trees and forests, where knocking on wood provided a method through which people could communicate with deities. 

My informant’s reluctance in believing this superstition suggests his desire to depart from his commitment to the belief, perhaps a symptom of his maturing process. This in turn suggests that he views this superstition as a child’s belief. However, one might add that this superstition provides a method by which one can keep his or her self-positive thoughts in check and avoid resting on laurels or boasting. 

Rubbing the Evil Eye Away

Background: The informant is a 26 year old female who lives in a suburb of Chicago. She was born and raised around the city with her grandparents, mother, and younger brother. Her grandparents, immigrants from Mexico, imparted most of their knowledge to the informant.

Context: The context was in a phone call, and the informant was asked if she knew any traditions surrounding Mexican folklore. She barely took a moment to think before she was recounting a very common experience happening to her as a child.

Text:

VA: When I was younger, the most common thing I can think of, is getting rubbed down by an egg would soak up the evil eye.

Me: Any specific type of egg?

VA: Not that I know of. We always just used chicken eggs.

Me: So, it would basically just be your family would rub the egg on you? Who would be the egg-rubber?

VA: Someone wise would usually do it. I’m not sure what qualities someone has to be the, uh, egg-rubber. I remember that my grandfather did it for us [informant and her brother].

Me: Is there anything else you would do?

VA: Yeah, after you rub it down on someone and soak up the evil eye… Afterwards, you crack the egg into a glass of water. So, the bad stuff can’t get out. It’s called oomancy.

Analysis:

Informant: The egg and the evil eye are a staple from her childhood. They still believe in the concept and it ties her back to her grandfather, who would always rub her with the egg.

Mine: I’ve never heard about the tradition with the egg, but it is apparently prevalent in Latin American cultures. It ties back into the elder being the wisest and the carrier of most of the traditions of a particular group. In the case of the informant, her grandfather would always be the one to perform the tradition, and in the process, he was imparting the knowledge he knew onto her and her younger sibling. I would suspect an egg is used to seep out the evil eye because an egg is commonly associated with purity, and by touching a dark thing with a pure thing, it will cancel each other out. Also, the egg has a hard shell and, as such, if the evil is taken within, the hard shell functions as a prison, and keeps the spirit within, until it is able to be cracked in the cup. I would think the wate functions similar to holy water and burns out the evil spirit.

Evil Eye

Main Piece. 

Informant: Yeah so in Turkey the evil eye, which is called I’m blanking on the name, it’ll come back to me. But it’s like yeah, it’s a form of protection. It protects you from you know, the evil but like more specific cases like if someone is like bad-mouthing you like talking behind your back that people in Turkey believe that if you have like an evil eye in your house or in your car or anything like it’ll protect you from-from things like that. You know it comes in different colors. It’s it’s-it’s supposed to be hung. Yeah, like in your car. People have bracelets rings they get tattoos of it. But in your home a lot of like Turkish like bazaars like the markets. They will hang it so they make like they put them in like birdhouses to like they put the evil eye design in like different like domestic objects, so that you can hang it it always has to be hanging that’s that’s something I mean, I guess like via tattoo then. I don’t know how that counts. But but in terms of like the jewelry or like the object itself, it has to be hanging because it like hangs like over you. So you want to hang it like above a door or like the entrance to your home like you walk in and it’s right there. 

Informants Relationship to the Piece. 

My informant was taught this by her parents and recalled a story of the time her mother had given her an evil eye for her car. 

Informant: When I first got my license, I was going to drive for the first time by myself in a car. She had me hang an evil eye chain on the front mirror as like protection and then when I got in a car accident, she actually was like ‘It’s because that was in your car and it protected you’, because I didn’t have any injuries. And it’s really crazy how people believe it. But my mom believes in it very much so and because of that, it’s like yeah, it’s really been passed on to me where I have one hanging right there (she points to her wall where she has a small evil eye chain-hung”

Context: 

The informant is one of my friends, a 20-year-old Turkish-American theatre major at the University of Southern California. I was told this as we were hanging out in her room after I asked her about some superstitions she believes in. 

Analysis:

I definitely grew up seeing a lot of my friends wear an evil eye and seeing vendors who sold jewelry that contained the symbol, but I never really knew what it meant, other than being a pretty symbol. I think it’s interesting how the main purpose of the evil eye is to protect you from people bad-mouthing you behind your back, but for my informants’ family it’s become a catch-all symbol for protection, especially for their children as they begin to leave the house and become more independent, the evil eye becomes a way for the parents to keep an “eye” on their children.

One Eyed Willy of Chollas Lake

Context: H is a  23 year old American, born in California and lived there until moving to Denver Colorado for College. After spending nearly five years in Denver he moved to New Mexico where he currently lives and has lived for the past two years. This entry was collected over a Zoom call. 

Intv: “Do you remember any of the tales that came out of the summer camp we went to?”

H: “There was that one, of like One Eyed Willy… I wish I could remember the story better, you might actually be able to help me out a little.” 

Intv: “Hmm wasn’t there like a kid who was fishing or something?”

H: “I thought it had to do with a fish that took the eye of a fisherman? Oh, didn’t it go like The fisherman hooked the fish in the eye, and when the fish started to pull, he wouldn’t let go and got dragged down into the lake? Cause I remember there was that structure out in the lake and we all used to say that’s where the fisherman remained, and we were always told to look out for a fish with one eye when we would fish.” 

Analysis: I can’t say for certain, but I wonder if One Eyed Willy got his name from The Goonies. However, for a kid without any prior knowledge of The Goonies, it so easily became a piece of folklore that many children, myself included, believed. Outside of being a fun ghost story however, it also serves the purpose of informing young campers how to be safe while fishing. To be careful so that One Eyed Willy wouldn’t get you.