Tag Archives: Morocco

Moroccan Evil Eye

Informant Details

  • Gender: Female
  • Occupation: Student
  • Nationality: Moroccan-American

Folklore Genre: Folk Beliefs/Superstitions (magic)

1. Text

The informant explained a common curse in her culture (the evil eye) and the talisman used to prevent this curse. The evil eye gaze is when someone looks at you with jealousy, and it causes bad fortune. To protect herself from the evil eye gaze, the informant wears jewelry that is decorated with charms that look like eyes. (pictured below) The informant calls this type of jewelry “evil eyes” because they are talismans used to ward off the evil eye gaze. A superstition surrounding this practice is that when the evil eye talisman breaks and falls off, it has done its job protecting you. In addition to the evil eye talisman, the informant’s mother burns sage around her and recites surahs and bismillahs from the Quran. These rituals are also meant to ask Allah for protection against the evil eye.

Image: an evil eye talisman attached to a hamsa hand given to the informant by a friend

2. Context

The informant learned of the evil eye gaze and the evil eye talisman from her mother, who is from Morocco. She has received many evil eye talismans from older family members as well. These practices are performed often, especially when you have good fortune or someone compliments you in an envious tone.

3. Analysis

The evil eye talisman is an example of sympathetic magic because the jewelry is made to look like an eye, which represents the evil eye glance. In International Folkloristics, Dundes says “With homeopathic magic, we have ‘like produces like,’ such that one can enact through mimetic imitation the desired event or outcome.” (222) Since the talisman resembles the eye, this form of magic uses the principle of homeopathic magic. The evil eye belief suggests the cultural idea that jealousy is malevolent and causes misfortune. In this culture, being the subject of envy is seen as a bad thing. It also suggests the cultural belief that fortune can be fickle and blessings may be taken away as quickly as they are given.

Moroccan: Tino Moths and Rebirth

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/9/19
Primary Language: English

Informant (AH) Is a 22 Year old USC Narrative Studies student interested in user research for games, we traded stories over a podcast we record together.
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Interviewer(MW): You said you had folklore from your grandmother?
AH: Yeah, so my grandma is from morocco, there’s a lot of folklore culturey stuff and I didn’t realize it was like that until I moved away from her and was like “oh you guys don’t do that here?”
AH: But like one thing in particular is you know Tino Moths
MW: Like the plant? (Interviewer thinks AH has said Tino Moss)
AH: No the bug
MW: OHhhh Moths
AH: yeah, some people when they get into their house you think “Oh I gotta kill it or take it out of the house” but at my grandma’s house you don’t touch the moth you just admire it…because in her culture moths are kind of like ghosts when one of your family members dies they come back to you as a moth, so that was yeah.
MW: We don’t have that in my religion, but that rules
AH: Yeah, it’s sort of comforting you know, to think that the people you love are still around and stuff
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Analysis
Insect rebirth symbolism allows the departed agency and a fleeting return to the lives of their loved ones, this is reflected in the chance, almost random nature by which the moth ends up in your home. This belief offers a comfort in the wake of loss and serves to temporarily sate the low-level pain that comes with the loss of a loved one, that stays for the rest of your life. Likewise the respect for the moth constitutes a respect for the dead, because those two beings are intertwined. Likewise this piece of folklore serves to connect AH to his grandmother, so that every time he sees a moth he sees her, allowing her to transcend death and remain with him, a part of his life, as her loved ones did when the story lived with her.Thus here, the moth becomes a symbol for death, it’s ephemeral nature makes contact with it fleeting and therefore more valuable, as it carries the soul of the departed onward to wherever it goes next.