El Ojo

by Gaby Morales, posted on 2009-06-11 17:49:52

 

 

So, if your tia’s and abuela are anything like mine, there are many superstitions you’ve heard when it comes to almost everything: the broom, and how it’s bad luck for it to brush over the singles ladies feet, the egg being rubbed all over the baby’s body then broken and put into a cup under the crib to cure it, various ways of having a limpia, in order to be “free” or cured once you’ve been cursed with some sort of spell, etc.

Some of them seem so silly and some are really hard to believe, (well, at least for me). Although I had heard of a lot of these things, I remember an experience a couple years ago and left me so confused that I went home to ask my parents what exactly those senoras meant when they were talking to me about giving a baby ojo?. I was with a friend, at her house with her mom, sisters and other ladies, one which had a baby a couple months old. As I walked by and greeted I mentioned how tiny and cute that baby was, and my que bonito bebe, turned into something I had never experienced. One of the ladies told me to hurry and touch the baby or I might give it ojo, and the mother of the baby agreed and said she didn’t want her baby to get sick. I was really confused but I walked over and touched the baby. I was kinda freaked out and thought, how can I make it sick? Give it ojo? Harm it? I’m not a bad person!! But I went home and asked my mom what that meant and she exlained that the whole “le hiceron ojo” is a very old Mexican superstition. People believe that looking at a baby, or a young or fragile soul for too long, might cause is to become weak and get sick. She even told me that when I was a baby and was too tiny and constantly sick, people would tell her it was because I had been given the eye.

To prevent or keep away the stronger spirits that have potential to be harmful, the baby is supposed to wear a red bracelet, but it is also been said that a red yard, or just a string with wool, can be tied to the crib, car seat or stroller. These beliefs can seem a little crazy, (ok, a lot crazy to people of another culture or maybe even the same religion), but the Mexican superstitions and the whole ojo thing is a lot more of a culture thing, not a Catholic or religious one, because we all know that the tias that believe in this are practicing Catholics, that pray for us with their veladoras and rosarios y nos persinan when saying good bye.

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Comments from members 1 comment
Great post! I think it's really a very latin american thing, not just mexican. Mi abuela tambien always warns me about the mal de ojo, and I have a tia who knows how to cure it (once in Buenos Aires I kept yawning for several days until mi tía cured it). The same in the Dominican Republic
- Jennifer Larancuent