Turkish Evil Eye and Envy (Bertan Gulsen)
Title: Turkish Evil Eye and Bad Luck
General Information about Item:
- Customary Lore, Evil Eye
- Language: English
- Country of Origin: Turkey
- Informant: Bertan Gulsen
- Date Collected: May 21, 2019
Informant Data:
- Bertan Gulsen is a male Dartmouth student in the class of 2021. He was born in Istanbul, Turkey and came to the United States for college. He attends Dartmouth College and plans to major in Engineering modified with Economics. Bertan has been strongly influenced by his Turkish upbringing, and he continues to uphold the superstitions he has learned by bringing them to his friends at Dartmouth.
Contextual Data:
- Cultural Context: Turkey has a culture focused on respect and family. Because of its location, Turkey has been influenced by the cultures and superstitions of the surrounding Mediterranean countries. One important impact of this is the influence of Arab culture on evil eye superstitions, where the ‘nazar’ is known. Additionally, the importance of respect also relates evil to the envy of others as seen in Omani culture. Turkish culture is also heavily family-oriented, where families are expected to live together when location permits. Given this, instances of folklore often pertain to maintaining good relations with one another.
- Social Context: The item was collected through an in-person interview at Dartmouth College. Bertan learned the superstitions from his family, which he remains strongly connected with. While Bertan does not necessarily believe in all aspects of the folklore presented, he continues to honor the superstitions out of respect for his heritage.
Item:
- Evil Eye
Bad luck can be given by someone envying another person. A ‘nazar’ is worn to protect against envy. Additionally, if someone gives you a compliment, a person will say “Mashallah” to protect against envy.
- Knife Superstition
When exchanging sharp objects, the sharp object (such as a knife or scissors) must not be handed directly to the person. Instead, the object is placed on a nearby surface and then picked up by the other person. If there is not a nearby surface, then the person receiving the object will spit on the blade and continue to use it.
Audio Recordings:
Bertan Gulsen 1 – Evil Eye and Knife Superstitions
Bertan Gulsen 2 – Knife Superstition Continued
Transcript:
Interview 1:
Evil Eye
B: Bertan
S: Saif
S: And so do you guys have any do you have any superstitions from Turkey?
B: So like, there are like common superstitions for sure. One that I can think of right away is ‘nazar’ which is like, like kind of someone giving you a bad luck because of envying you and it’s like what you would like…it’s it’s part of like Turkish culture. And I’m pretty sure it’s like prominent in many other Islamic cultures, too, but it’s basically like you… your basically protected by this bad luck of someone, that someone, some others… like some other envious person by this evil eye bead, which many people know. I said that’s like probably the biggest, the biggest superstition and like usually my mom would like tell me like whenever like when like someone like gives you a compliment or something or like she was always like come up to me and she was like telling me like, “Mashallah Mashallah” to like kind of get that bad luck away, you know calling upon Allah as if like, it may be like thinking that it would help so I was like that’s like the one of the biggest superstitions in Turkey.
Knife Superstition
B: Oh, one other thing is one that in my family that I can think of is just the something that I see from my maternal family just like whenever I like when they asked me to pass them an knife for like or scissors. They never take it right away from hand because they think that what if they do it’s gonna like it’s going to like hurt our relationship. So they’d be like, yeah, just leave it on the table and I’d take it from there. So yeah, there’s that kind of thing like any sharp object with kind would basically just hurt the relationship between the two person are passing the like the sharp thing to from one another so it’s just like you don’t want to like pass it from hand to hand basically. So yeah, I would say those are like the top two that I could like think of right away.
S: Yeah. All right. Awesome. Thank you for telling me, Bertan.
Interview 2:
Knife Superstition, Continued.
S: All right. This is with Bertan again. He’s going to elaborate a little bit more on the last knife superstition.
B: Yeah, so like what would happen is just like usually I mean you’re obviously that you would obviously prefer to give the knife, passed a knife to the other person by like, you know, putting it on a flat surface, but if there isn’t one it nearby and you just like don’t want to leave the knife on the floor just like and you just pass it to the person. My grandma for example, whatever like we have to do that kind of a thing where she takes the knife. She just like spits on it and she like makes like such like with it, like starts chopping onions and like shopping like carrots and stuff. So it’s kind of funny like even though like there’s a kind of superstition. She’s like not that into it, but she’s also like very into it. So yeah, there’s that as well.
S: Is there a name for this belief or the superstition?
B: It’s just like no, but it’s just like common, like known. Like you don’t want to like pass like the knife or like… like it’s just like it’s like it would hurt our relationship. Like if you say that everybody would like get This just like commonly known
S: Like symbolic?
B: Yes, like really symbolic, but I don’t think there’s like any like saying for that Superstition. It’s just like how it’s like… look like any other like I don’t know like the what was it like the four leaf thing, the plant that the four leaves like
S: A four-leaf clover. front of clover.
B: Yeah, four-leaf clover, like it’s just it’s just like any sharp object basically kind of.
S: All right. Thank you.
Informant’s Comments:
- Evil Eye
“…nazar’ which is like, like kind of someone giving you a bad luck because of envying you and it’s like what you would like…it’s it’s part of like Turkish culture.”
- Knife Superstition
“…you don’t want to like pass, like, the knife or like… like it’s just, like, it’s like it would hurt our relationship.”
Collector’s Comments:
- Evil Eye
The use of ‘nazar’ demonstrates the Islamic influence of superstitions on Turkish culture. While Turkish, not Arabic, is the official language, Turks still identify the evil eye and use ‘nazar’ to ward it off.
- Knife Superstition
The importance of family explains why the knife superstition is widely held. The knife could ‘sever’ the relationship between family members, an instance of the law of similarity as the knife cuts through something which is originally whole. Additionally, it shows the law of contact in that the object cannot be physically passed, since handing the knife over requires on person to be on the sharp side of the object. If an object must be passed, a person can spit on the knife, thereby getting rid of any evil embodied in the knife by reasserting power over it.
Collector’s Name: Saif Malley
Tags/Keywords:
- Customary Lore
- Material Lore
- Evil Eye
- Knife Superstition