Caribbean Folklore

Many cultures hold that a look, often the evil eye, can cause bad luck, sickness, injury, or even death, and there can also be impact to plants, animals or objects.  The need for malevolence as motivation on the part of the looker can vary; so can the severity of the impact of the evil eye, and also what protective or curative measures are needed.

In the Caribbean, mentions of bad eye or maljo (and spelling variants) express this theme, and with country and sub-regional specific twists and variations.

As I know it, children are especially susceptible to bad eye, especially well-dressed, attractive children, as are the beautiful generally, although it seems more women often are thought to be afflicted; and plain envy seems more a cause than actual malevolence. And if you get bad eye put on you, you can get sick and waste away:

“You see how sick that child get. Y’all send her out like that and without any gold or anything. And not even a piece of red something in her hair or clothes to cut bad eye. Is how you all doing things so . . . .”

• Add New Search
• Comments

Write comment

Your Contact Details:

Name:

Email: do not notifynotify

Comment:

Title:

Message:

Security

Please input the anti-spam code that you can read in the image.

Powered by !JoomlaComment 4.0alpha3

!joomlacomment 4.0 Copyright (C) 2009 Compojoom.com . All rights reserved."