When do you learn how to remove the malocchio?

7. Is Malocchio also popular in other countries?

While the Malocchio is a distinctively Italian belief, the larger belief in the Evil Eye spans across modern-day countries, cultures, and religions.

Starting in Egypt, the belief in the Evil Eye Meaning also lives with the people of Greece as Mati or the Greek Evil Eye.

With the people of Spain, the Caribbean, and Latin America as Mal de Ojo.

As well as with the people of Turkey as Kem Goz or the Turkish Evil Eye, and with the people of India and the Middle East as Nazar.

Red doors. Red horns. Garlic in bras.. Holy water. Salt in corners.

These were some ways our immigrant ancestors protected from the malocchio.

Through research and lived experience I can confidently say the most prevalent of Italian/Italian-American folk healing is the belief in the spiritual attachment calledthe evil eye, il Malocchio.

The evil eye is a centralised belief system deep in the cultural body. It’s foundational and connected to many practices and rituals of protection that ‘cure’ an evil or jealous attachment from an individual. The taproot belief is this:

A person can be physically, spiritually and emotionally harmed through someone else looking at them in specific (intentional and unintentional) ways.

The evil eye belief system is not just Italian, or Mediterranean, it’s known all over the world in its own unique form, including the form it took post-immigration, which is my own cultural lens as a Sicilian-American.

Malocchio comes from someone with a jealous eye and is directed at the person of whom they are envious. The spiritual attachment is rooted in wanting and extracting from others. The evil eye possession then causes harm and illness to their system.

The Malocchio our immigrant Nonne protected us from could have come directly from the conditions our ancestors endured throughout history. Most likely the way we experience this phenomenon comes from a post- Christian history, rooted in Folk Catholicism.

The contadini or peasant class of Southern Italy especially, lived under harsh conditions. Their land was taken from them during the process of Risorgimento (19th century) and many became indentured on their own land. This created a deep deep hunger within them, both the kind that lived in the bellies and the kind that lived, and was passed on, in their cells, in their spirit and psyche.

Much was lost for these ‘terroni’ (a derogatory term for land working people) during the unification of the north and south; property, language, agency. Many lives were also lost. These hardships deeply embodied in them and became the narrative for their world. A world where their access to what they needed was very limited, that anything ‘good’ and nourishing was scarce and withheld from them by others. Things such as food, prosperity were all seen as scarcities — something that others had taken from them.

When there is not enough, people get jealous. So the malocchio was something to protect yourself from.

But, the evil eye is not always used as a malicious intent to harm. Sometimes the evil eye can be given by accident. If someone admires something about someone: A beautiful and fertile woman, an adorable, chubby baby, riches, land and crops, you can pass the Eye to them.

According to this system, it’s really important to be aware of how one looks at another, to avoid passing on the malocchio. One of the in-the-moment protection rituals (if you looked at someone too admiringly) was to spit in the other direction three times without saliva. Or to touch the person and utter Che Dio Benedica.

If you were to get Malocchio you could suffer from varied illnesses such as headaches, digestive issues, fatigue, anxiety, addiction, infertility… and even death. To remove the ‘eye’ from your body, a specific ritual was done. And as the old tale goes, the family ritual is passed on female to male, male to female, generation after generation. The passing happens on Christmas Eve— and must be kept only in the family. Of course, there are variations to these ‘rules’ as we can’t know every nuance within the diaspora. But the ritual involves olive oil, water, salt, sometimes scissors and always a specific prayer. The testing is often considered the cure, as well.

To protect yourself from the Malocchio make sure you have the amulets: the cornuto, the mano fica, Madonna and St. Michael medals, a cimaruta charm, garlic at your door or around your neck. Wear red. Learn to throw horns with your hands.

The malocchio is a foundational practice of our ancestors — and looking at it through a macrolens, it was their way to pass us wisdom on how to protect ourselves, and our loved ones, especially in trying and tumultuous times.

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Many of our Italian relatives believe in superstitions. One of the more popular superstitions is the Malocchio (mal=bad occhio=eye) or the evil eye.

It’s the look that one person gives to another if they are jealous or envious.

According to Italian folklore, those giving the malocchio can cause harm to someone else.

Legend says it’s just another way of putting a curse on others that can cause physical pain such as head or stomach aches or even cause misfortune.

If the child manifests a sudden grogginess, if he is struck by an inexplicable fever accompanied by gags of vomiting and frequent and insistent yawns, if the little one’s eyes are shiny, there are no doubts: some envious and malicious look has fascinated the child.

It is necessary, therefore, to call immediately a woman – or even three if the fascination is strong – to make ‘a spascina, to remove, that is, the evil eye.

With the arrival of the initiated woman, and therefore able to “exorcise”, the ritual of the sfascino begins.

She makes three signs of the cross on the forehead and two on the head or on the eyes of the fascinated child and mentally recites three times the first part of the ritual formula without stopping yawning for a single instant (if the yawns are intense and prolonged it is a good sign: ‘a spàscina has an effect).

Fora maluocchji! Fora maluocchji!
Ggioja ‘i ru cori, t’ana affascinata!
China has fascinated you
and your heart has ‘lligrated;
and your heart with your mind
fuja fascina c’è nnenda.
For such a stone on your head
so many pitrèti you want to pull.

At this point the woman brings a basin of water in which she puts, with her left hand, an odd number of pinches of salt (3, 5, 7) and while she is doing this, always in silence, she recites the second part of the formula.

Mminàjiti mmaliritta Go to the sea You have a heart full of life
and you don’t keep who will do it.

Pour some vinegar into the water so that the vinegar falls and describes three crosses.
With this water the woman washes the child’s face with her left hand, always in the same direction – from the bottom to the top – and recites the third part of the formula three times.

A nnumi ‘i ru Petri,
a nnumi ‘i ru Figghji,
a nnumi ‘i ru Spiriti… Saints,
c’a ‘ffascina ‘i Vicinzulla
nu’ gghjissa cchjù avanti.

This water is thrown in the middle of the road, possibly at a crossroads.

Immediately afterwards, the child’s mother stands behind the half-closed door waiting for the person who will be the first to pass by the place where the water has been thrown, in order to ascertain whether it was a man or a woman who fascinated her child.

There are, however, many other versions that women are inclined to teach only on December 24 at midnight and this to avoid losing ‘a spascina”.

evil eyeitalian malocchiomalocchioremove malocchio

Gentle reader, before you attempt the remedies described below, please be sure that you have completed the correct diagnostic procedure referenced in the prior post. Once again, the description of this process comes from Italian-American Folklore by Frances M. Malpezzi and William M. Clements:

“Italian Americans have utilized a wide variety of cures, most said to have been discovered by Saint Lucy. They have generally held that a healer must be a woman and she can only learn the procedures for curing on Christmas Eve from a family member. She must also accept no money for performing these procedures. Perhaps the most common cure is an extension of the oil and water diagnostic test. After confirming that malocchio is present, the curer disposes of the water where no one is likely to walk over it. Then she prepares another dish of water. The simplest procedure requires that she recite a prayer or charm while making the sign of the cross over the victim. Her words may be a familiar religious invocation such as the Hail Mary or the Our Father, or she may recite special often esoteric healing formulas.”

[formulas omitted]

“Then the olive oil drop test is repeated. If the drop still disperses, the curer goes through the procedure again, repeating it up to a dozen times or until the drops retain their shape. Variations on this ritual suggest that the oil will form ‘eyes’ when poured into the water. These should be cut with scissors. Others believe that the saucer filled with oil and water must be held over the victim’s head while the charms are recited, that the oil and water should be poured onto the victim’s head, or that the curing procedure must always involve three iron tools (usually scissors, screwdriver and knife)….”

“Other ways of curing malocchio involve cutting through the oil slick on the surface of the diagnostic water with a knife or key three times. The knife or key may also be used to make the sign of the cross over the victim and to drop the olive oil into the water, or one can fashion a cross by inserting a needle through the eye of another needle. Then that should be floated in a saucer of water.”

“Another set of beliefs recognizes gradations of severity in the illness caused by overlooking. For easy cases, the curer would simply dip her thumb in olive oil and make the sign of the cross on the victim’s forehead; more serious cases require that the victim’s entire body be anointed with olive oil; the most extreme cases call for the application of a mustard plaster to the afflicted person’s chest. Or evil eye sickness may be combatted by dropping a pair of scissors near the victim, hanging a packet of garlic around his or her neck, and then touching olive oil to his or her forehead. A related practice recommends rubbing olive oil on the victim’s head to drive malocchio from the mind and on his or her chest to banish it from the soul. One may burn or boil the victim’s pillow, pray over the victim’s clothes, or fry a beef heart while continually pricking it with a fork.”