158 REV. G. E. WHITE^ ON SURVIVALS OF PRIMITIVE 



Whenever a person has erysipelas (the Turkish name for which 

 means " little serpent ") or a sore or wound that refuses to heal, 

 he may, it' he chooses, resort to Ghat. There he gives his name 

 to the dedes, with a few piastres, and they open the door of the 

 cave calling, " let the enemy of so-and-so come forth." When 

 the first serpent appears it is taken to impersonate that enemy, 

 and the victim of the disease attacks and kills it. He then 

 returns to his home trusting that a hostile charm is broken, and 

 that his cure will speedily follow. 



Along with the " bondage through fear " of evil spirits may 

 be mentioned the " bondage through fear " of the evil eye. 

 This doubtless is a remnant of devil worship, and it is practically 

 universal in Asia Minor. Indeed, the Yezidees of Eastern Asia 

 Minor are alleged to be devil worshippers. Tlieir theory is the 

 negative one of trying to get through life without laying one's 

 self liable to penalty or persecution. They are believed to hold 

 that God will do a man no harm, being benevolent in disposition, 

 and that if they can only " square " Satan and his coadjutors, if 

 they can only keep the powers of evil inactive, they will fare 

 well enough. 



People generally are not Yezidees, but they avow and believe 

 that if we say three-fourths of the dead in their graves are 

 there by reason of the evil eye we would not be at fault. A 

 person of short stature, light complexion and blue eye is some- 

 times made miserable by the apprehension which he rouses. 

 People come and cut slivers from the threshold of his house as 

 an antidote against his dreadful glance, and he may be compelled 

 to renew his whole threshold several times every year. 



To keep the evil eye from a child, blue beads are put upon 

 it ; to avert it from a fiekl, a skull of some animal is erected 

 upon a pole ; to counteract its influence on a mill, a great 

 placard, with the words " wonder of God," is nailed to the roof ; 

 to protect a dwelling, a bunch of garlic or a pair of deer's antlers 

 is fixed in a conspicuous place ; to prevent milk from souring, 

 bits of charcoal are laid upon it ; to protect a camel, its saddle 

 is made of a particular kind of wood ; and so Ibrward ad 

 infinitum. People's notions and fears of the evil eye vary with 

 their environment and the degree of their general intelligence, 

 but there is no marked difference traceable to religious 

 connection. 



I was once asked by a villager, whom I liad never seen before, 

 to tie a knot on a string he had wound around his wrist. It 

 seems he had malaria, attributed it to some evil infiuence, and 

 thought he might use me to bind the spell. His notion was 



