Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 December 1894 — Abyssinian Superstition. [ARTICLE]

Abyssinian Superstition.

The Abyssinian has a singular superstition about eating in the open. To him a fit of indigestion from overfeeding would mean theei il eye. He would feel assured that some one had seen him in the act of appeasing his appetite. In walking along a highway in Abyssinia a traveler came across what appeared to be a large bundle of washing near the road. He investigated the matter, and thus describes the result i< the Century: On approaching it, a movement going on within was plainly discernible. Covered up in their shemas, or cloths, were three men eating their midday me al. So much in fear of the evil eye are the people, that they carry amulets containing prayers, and rolls of parchment several yards long, and pictures illustrative of the triumphs of the good spirit over that ocular absurdity are kept in their houses for protection. If an Abyssinian sells you anything, and is well inclined, he will caution you.to heep it indoors or covered up, for if an evil eve should fall upon your purchase it may. spoil or disappear, which latter contingency is much the more probable in Abyssinia. I had some experience of the kind of evil eye that caused goods and chattels to disappear. 11 gleamed for an in* stant in the head of an Ethiopian whom I caught walking off with some dollars from a pile in our paymaster’s tent. The corner of the evil eye smiled when detected, but the smile faded away under the influence of the paymaster’s boot. There is a tax on grave-stones in England, and the man who wishes to inclose a grave by means of a fence or wall is compelled to pay dearly for the privilege. A reformer is often a man whose neighbors wish he would begin on himself. A long face h not a passport to heavea.