Have you ever heard of “Mal de Ojo”, or The Evil Eye? Well, if you haven’t, now you will and you will be amazed at the energy that a person can generate. This is how Mal de Ojo worked 25 years ago.
Some people just naturally have a strong and harmful eye, you know, like the young man who winks at a young lady. One wink might be a genuine sign of appreciation, while another might be a lustful and penetrating wink that tells a girl, “I want to possess you.”
Well, some men just have to look at a baby as if to say, “how cute”, and that is enough to hurt the baby with this thing called Mal de Ojo. A few drunkards also had this evil effect, but only when they were drinking. Now what are the effects?
The baby’s head would immediately become heavy and weak. Soon the baby would have a strong fever later to be complicated by severe diarrhea and vomiting. Hey, if this is not treated (doctors could not), your baby would die. Several babies died 25 years ago because of ignorance to the problem.
The Treatment: You had to take the baby to another curandera or herb healer. She took a fresh egg, one recently laid by a hen, and she proceeded to rub the egg over the baby’s body from head to toe to extract the evil at the feet. There were other herbs used by the curanderas, but that was their mystical secret. She also used holy water and the ruda plant. When she broke the egg, it was unbelievably hard like a pouched egg. This was the sign that the baby was indeed under the influence of Mal de Ojo and that he was now healed.
The Prevention: Moms were not supposed to take their babies out on the streets too much to avoid these evil eyes. Once a man with the strong eye saw a baby, he was supposed to ask the mother to allow him to kiss the baby and this prevented the Mal de Ojo. Or the mother could ask the man, without any offence, to kiss her child. Unbelievable, right? Such were the sicknesses of twenty five years ago. But 25 years ago there was no AIDS, nor cancer, nor anorexia, nor bulimia which are certainly strange too.
– by Angel Nuñez, Columnist
