Evil Eye Traditions Around the World

Every culture that has ever envied a neighbour's good fortune seems to have invented a way to ward it off. Here's how the belief in the evil eye shows up far beyond India's own drishti and nazar.

Greece & Cyprus — the mati

The Greek evil eye, mati (μάτι), is warded off with a blue-and-white glass eye charm hung in homes, cars, and on baby cribs. When someone is thought to have been struck by it, an older relative performs xematiasma — a whispered prayer while dropping olive oil into a bowl of water; if the oil disperses instead of floating as a single drop, the eye was real.

Turkey — the nazar boncuğu

Turkey's cobalt-blue glass bead, the nazar boncuğu, is one of the most recognisable evil-eye charms worldwide — sold everywhere from airport gift shops to jewellery stores, worn on bracelets, hung by doorways, even pinned to a newborn's clothing. Tradition says that when a bead cracks, it has done its job and absorbed a curse aimed at its wearer.

Italy — malocchio and the cornicello

Southern Italy's malocchio ("bad eye") is countered with the cornicello, a twisted red horn charm, or the mano cornuta hand gesture (index and little finger extended). A folk test involves dropping olive oil into holy water — swirling, scattering drops are read as confirmation of the curse.

Middle East & North Africa — the Hamsa

The open right-hand palm known as the Hamsa (or Khamsa, "five") appears across Jewish, Islamic and broader Middle Eastern traditions as protection against the evil eye, often with an eye symbol set in its palm. In many Arabic-speaking cultures, saying mashallah ("what God has willed") after a compliment is meant to acknowledge good fortune without inviting envy — very close in spirit to why an Indian elder mutters a blessing before praising a child.

Latin America — mal de ojo

Across Mexico and much of Latin America, mal de ojo is believed to strike children and infants especially. The classic protection is an azabache — a black jet or obsidian bracelet or pendant, often shaped like a tiny fist — placed on a baby soon after birth, echoing the black thread tied on wrists in South Asia.

Eastern Europe & the Balkans

Slavic and Balkan folk belief holds that praise itself can curse — a beautiful baby or a bountiful harvest invites envy from an admirer's unintentional "evil eye." Red thread tied to a wrist, a pinch of salt thrown, or a small deliberate insult after a compliment ("what an ugly baby!") are all traditional ways to cancel the effect before it takes hold.

Brazil — the figa

The figa, a clenched fist with the thumb tucked between the index and middle fingers, arrived in Brazil via Portuguese and West African traditions and is still worn as jewellery or carved into wood and displayed at home, specifically to block invidia — envious ill will.

What ties it all together

Strip away the specific objects — salt, chillies, blue glass, red horns, black thread — and nearly every one of these traditions shares the same core belief: envy has real power, and it travels through a look. The remedies differ by region, but the logic is almost identical everywhere: absorb it, reflect it back, or make yourself a less appealing target for it in the first place.

Whichever tradition you grew up with, the impulse is universal: someone looked at your good fortune a little too hard, and you want it gone. That's exactly what Put Drishti does on screen — grandma's hand, three rounds, evil eye off.