Title: Greek Evil Eye

General Information about Item:

• Customary Folklore: Greek Supersition – Bad Luck
• Language: English
• Country of Origin: Greece
• Informant: Andreas Louskos
• Date Collected: May 23, 2019

Informant Data:

• Andreas Louskos is a male Dartmouth student in the class of 2021.  He was born in Athens, Greece and went to an American high school there. At Dartmouth, Andreas is involved in Camp Kesem and the Quant Trading Club. Both Andreas’ parents and grandparents are Greek, and he was strongly influenced by Greek culture through his family.

Contextual Data:

• Cultural Context: The evil eye is a common superstition in Greek culture. The superstition relies on the belief that another person has cursed or ‘jinxed’ you, resulting in a physically or mentally negative effect on the jinxed subject. The focus on the eyes is culturally understood as the method by which individuals interact, so the gaze of one relates to the altered state of another.
• Social Context: The superstition was relayed through an in-person interview with the informant at Dartmouth College. The superstition is passed down through one’s family, usually to a woman, on a certain day of the year. The superstition requires a few lines of prayer to be recited in order to negate the evil eye’s effect. The prayer need not be performed in front of the person to whom the evil has been given.

Text and Texture

Mάτι

Ma-ti (Mah-tee)

Eye

Evil Eye (the word literally means eye but has significance beyond the literal word)

Item:

A person is jinxed by someone else through a conception of the evil eye. The person knows they have been jinxed when they feel ‘under the weather,’ relayed as physical effects such as persistent migraine or bodily fatigue. When the person feels this way, they tell the family member who has been told the prayer which wards off the evil. The person acknowledges the evil, and then he/she performs a prayer to reverse the evil.

Audio File:

Transcript:

A: Andreas Louskos

L: Alex Leibowitz

L: We’re started. Okay, what’s your what’s your like background. among the residues

A: I’m Andreas Louskos. I’m a ’21. I’m from Athens Greece, and I’m 19 years old. I’m involved in Camp Kesem and the Quant Trading Club, and I’ve lived in Greece all my life. I went to an American High School, but both my parents are Greek and my grandparents.

L: Right. And you said that you like had some Superstition. So you’re an international student obviously and you said, you know being at Dartmouth there was some like superstitions involved with kind of your international student group or whatnot.

A: Uh, yeah I have one superstition about jinxing in Greece. We call it, kind of relates to the evil eye that maybe somebody saw you and Jinx you, and sometimes I do call my grandma too if I’m feeling under the weather, and I think like somebody jinxed me so she can unjinx me and that’s like a very big superstition that always a woman in the family says these few lines that can only be passed down on a certain day of the year and with that hopefully she like frees your soul of like any jinxes and evil spirits.

L: And when like, when would you call her when you’re feeling under the weather like give a hypothetical example.

A: It’s you feeling under the weather but not exactly sick. You’re not feverish. You don’t have any like physical problems, but it’s almost like it’s similar to a migraine feeling or you just feeling weak and tired.

L: And what’s it called again?

A: It’s called… in Greek it directly translates to ‘eye’ in Greek, but it refers to like the evil eye like evil spirit.

L: And what does she do on the phone exactly, like when you talk to her?

A: She does nothing. I just tell her, she hangs up, and she just goes and just says the few lines of prayer by herself. There’s nothing like direct interaction between me and her apart from me telling her that.

L: And is this widely done in Greece?

A: Oh, yeah ,everybody. I know there’s always like a woman in the family and sometimes a man that like knows these few lines, and they’re the go-to person for like getting rid of the evil spirits.

L: Gotcha. Okay. Awesome. Thanks.

Informant’s Comments:

“Sometimes I do call my grandma, too, if I’m feeling under the weather, and I think, like, somebody jinxed me, so she can unjinx me and that’s like a very big superstition”

Collector’s Comments:

The evil eye superstition is a pervasive phenomenon that occurs in society and is gotten rid of through one’s family.

Collector’s Name: Alex Leibowitz

Tags/Keywords:

• Customary Folklore
• Greek Superstition
• Evil Eye