The Evil Eye and Protective Cattle Horns in Malta

Abstract

the evil-eye. Country people in general, and farmers and fishermen in particular, are usually the most uneducated section of the whole community. They are persons in whom suggestibility is irresistible, rendering them easy prey to the folk-ways and customs of their ancestors. In them old customs and beliefs die hard; such people become therefore, historically, the reservoir of tradition. Owing to their persistent contact with nature and natural phenomena, they have developed a keen power of observation, but as in them superstition and education run in inverse proportion, they tend to explain and interpret all natural phenomena either by the intervention of saints if the effect is good, or by some magico-supernatural power, such as the evil-eye, if the results are harmful. One of their means of protecting both themselves and their animals from the detrimental effects of the evil-eye is a pair of cattle-horns. Their folkloristic interpretations of natural events, though shedding much light on their ancestors' beliefs and way of thinking, are generally quite inconsistent with modern scientific thought. Thus, many of them still believe that fossil sharks' teeth (known locally as 'Ilsien San Pawl') represent the image of St Paul's