The evil eye. An account of this ancient and wide spread superstition

XI ETHIOPIC CHARM 391
appear in two places, peeping out at the beginning
and at the middle of the writing.
Translation
1. Be asma ave, wa weld, wa manfars kedoos,
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy
Ghost,
2. Ahade Amlack. Salot.
One God. Prayer.
3. Benter hamamer barya wa ayenet.
For (against) the sickness of the slave (epilepsy) and the
(evil) eye.
4. Awlo-mela-el : Metowe-mela-el : Corooking.'^^^
5. Be illoo asmat
By these names
6. Adi hinna imhemamer barya wa ayenet,
Deliver her from the sickness of the slave (epilepsy) and
the (evil) eye,
7. Ayene sella wa ayene Zar,
The shadow of the eye and the eye of the Zar,^^-
leather cases like the one here produced (Fig. 186). There is also a learned
chapter on "Inscriptions," by Dr. David Heinrich Miiller of Vienna, but none
of the charms are described or translated. In fact it is confidently believed
that at present there is no European now in Europe who can read them, or
the one here lithographed.
^11 Mr. Weakley's Notes. Secret names of God.
^12 Zar. The following paragraph is copied from Isenberg's Amharic
Dictionary, C.M.S. London, 1841—a very scarce book— under the word
" Zar," p. 156 : " Name of a sort of demons or genii, to whose influence the
people of Shoa and the Gallas ascribe many changes in man's bodily constitu-
tion and general welfare ; such as health and disease, pregnancy, birth, death,
change of weather, success or disappointment in several undertakings, etc.
They believe that these invisible beings are eighty-eight in number, and
divided into two equal parties ; forty-four of them being united under one
chief, called Warrar, and the other forty-four under another chief whose
name is Mama. In Shoa these Zars are worshipped, we were told, by those
who are in the habit of smoking tobacco, except foreigners ; and we persuaded
ourselves that that very custom is, by those Shoa people who followed
it, observed in honour of those imaginary beings. After having witnessed an
extraordinary instance of Zarolatry in our own house, where we saw an
otherwise intelligent and respectable woman alternately smoking and praying
to the Zars with great vehemence until she was mad, and then killing a
hen whose brain she ate and became quiet again ; after this, I say, we
inquired into several instances where we met with smokers, and found that
they all were worshippers of the Zars. In the state of phrensy, into which
they work themselves by vehemently smoking, praying, and shaking of the
head, their language alters so as to call everything by names which are
known only to the Zar worshippers."