Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 26, 1915.djvu/241

 Soi7ie Algerian Superstitions. 231

lucky for operations against the "evil eye"^) is worn in the head-dress by these nomads for the same purpose, as well as for a charm against fever ; a morsel of a puppy's ear is worn upon a child's necklet among the Shawia in order to frighten away the jinn that accompanies the admiring glance,*^ and a black bead with yellow and white stripes is thought among the Berber inhabitants of Aures to convey the impression of a wasp to this much dreaded demon, while the head of a chameleon is worn suspended round the neck by the children of the Ouled Ziane against the " evil eye," possibly in the hope that its unprepossess- ing appearance may strike terror into the jinn, though the head and the dried body of the chameleon are widely used in medical magic in North Africa, and may, therefore, be held to possess some virtue concerning which I have not yet been able to obtain any information from the natives.

The so-called Arabs of El Kantara on the south-western border of the Aures, as well as the Ouled Ziane, are in the habit of attaching a canine tooth of a dog (neb el kelb) to a child's head-dress as a charm against the " evil eye," the former people also regarding it as useful to preserve the child's health ; but I received a sheet of manuscript from a Shawi doctor in the Rassira valley which shows that there are several other reasons (described in the medical section of this paper) for wearing dog's teeth, which seems to show that they are useful as protectives against jenoun in general. I do not know anything of the origin of this manuscript,

^ E. Doutte, Magie et Religion Jatis T Afrique die Nord (Algiers, 190S), p. 327. " Enfin lejeudi, qui est le citiquihne ]onx de la semaine, est particuliere- ment favorable aux operations magiques qui ont pour objet de conibattre le mauvais ceil.''

" Doutte in Magie et Religion dans PAfriqice du Nord, p. 237, states : "Si I'on tient un morceau d'oreille de chien dans sa main, tous les chiens ont peur de vous," his authority being the Egyptian author Suyuti. My Shawi informants, however, stated that a piece of a puppy's ear is used as a charm against the "evil-eye" for the reason I have given above.