Salt

should be spread about, and conspicuous objects put in view, to attract the unlucky gaze, such as beads, bra objects, hair, and tiger’s claws; or garlic, cloves, and shells. These must be arranged so as to divert the Drishta from the face, or from the vital organs, of man or beast. Thus Neapolitans use a piece of horn, or an image of the Madonna: or propitiate St Antony (patron of animals) by tying a small bag of sea sand and flour, with flowers, to the manes of horses, to defeat the evil eye. In Brand’s Antiquities we read of Kelts in the Western Islands who wore nuts or beans, to ward off the eye; as the Indian peasant wears his Drishta-mani, the Irish his “ scapular,” or the Fellah his similar leather case, with a written charm sewn up inside. In the Engadine a mother recently clad her only son in girl’s clothes, to deceive the evil-eyed one (see Panjab Notes and Queries, i, p. 135). Indian parents do the same, and tie old shoes, horns, skulls, black threads, and necklaces that KF? have been consecrated by holy men, on trees which overlook their fields or houses, and on cattle, to divert the eye. 107