The Devil - The Evil Eye - The Curse of Envy - Evil Air - Witches

The Devil

The devil is a feared being in the life of the isolated villages of the Barroso in northern Portugal. He is imagined as an animal figure, with a long tail, goat’s or ram’s horns, goat’s hooves, and cat’s claws. In the statues he is represented in the form of a serpent, a dragon, a deformed angel, with horns on his head.

He is the causer of all the evil and misfortune of men. He appears to them in many forms, being able to transform himself into whatever he wants. He always appears at night, to tempt people, making them go crazy. He has appeared to people in the form of a cat, mole, wolf, dog, sheep, goat, horse, donkey, or tall and dark fairies.

The Devil is the terror of many people who use several rites to defend themselves against him and his dangers. Some use figas on their chest. These are amulets with a closed fist. Others make the figa with their right hand, placing their little finger between the index finger and the middle finger. A horseshoe is placed behind the entrance door of every house, even those that are not lived in. For the same purpose, people use blessed water, the blessing of the house, and exorcisms read by a priest or any person of virtue. But it is said that the Devil possesses whoever drives him out. For that reason many priests used to refuse to do exorcisms. There are even people who wear two steel keys on the chest, which were placed under the main altar, in the form of a cross, on a folded linen towel.

When one is afraid, or when one is about to die and it is necessary to frighten away the Devil, one should say 12 “said and returned” words. During the recitation there cannot be a mistake, because then it won’t work and the soul could become lost and return to haunt the one who made the mistake. The 12 said and returned words are:

“Tell me the 12 “said and returned” words, tell me the first.”

“One is for the house of Jerusalem, where Christ died for us, amen.”

(You ask again.)

“Tell me the second.”

Two is for the 2 tablets of Moses, where Christ put his feet.

Three is for the 3 persons of the Holy Trinity.

Four is for the 4 Evangelists.

Five is for the 5 wounds of Christ.

Six is for the 5 blessed candles.

Seven is for the 7 sacraments.

Eight is for the 8 choruses of angels.

Nine is for the 9 months that Our Lady carried her son in her sacred womb.

Ten is for the 10 Commandments.

Eleven is for the 11,000 virgins.

Twelve is for the 12 apostles.

At the end you have to repeat everything going back to the beginning; that is why they are called “returned.” At the end you say: three rays has the sun/three rays has the moon. Get out of here devil/this soul is not yours.

According to Padre Fontes, this prayer, in several different versions with small differences, comes from Iran, or Persia, and was part of the doctrine of Zarathustra.

Some sayings and proverbs related to the Devil are:

The Devil does not tear down crosses. He is in the fonts of holy water in the church to distract us.

It is necessary to light a candle to God and another to the Devil.

God is good, but the Devil is not bad.

The Devil always lets us see his tail.

When you open your mouth to yawn you should make the sign of the cross with the right thumb from one side of your mouth to the other and say the Creed. If you don’t, then the Devil will come into you.

Let God come in here and the Devil in the priests’ houses.

The most interesting legend concerning the Devil is about the building of the Misarela Bridge, located in the district of Braga, in the concelho of Vieira do Minho.

The Evil Eye

In addition, there is a common belief in the evil eye. This attacks everything: objects, people, and animals. It breaks bottles, needles, sewing machines, everything. There are people who have the evil eye and all the villagers know them. If you wear a blessed object or garlic, salt, a good luck charm called a figa, a half moon, or a little bag with the names of the four gospels, the evil eye cannot enter your body. But the greatest protection is a leaf of arruda (rue). Whoever cuts the leaf of the arruda should leave an object in the place of the leaf. This is called a penhora, the object you leave when you pawn something. This can be a piece of cloth, a button, or a piece of thread so that the tree does not dry up. When someone with the evil eye walks by you should put the tail of your shirt outside your trousers. If you are with your cattle you should place your cap over your testicles and then pass it over the head of the cows.

The Curse of Envy—"O mal de inveja"

Besides the evil eye there is the curse of envy, which can cause enormous harm to those it is cast upon. There are safe moments to cast these curses. It is during mass, between the raising of the chalice and the offering of the host. When someone has a chronic illness or a serious physical defect people say: it was a curse that they put upon him. Curses include asking for death, illness, or broken bones. The people say, “May you have what you wish for me. May the medicine be your poison; may whatever you desire be lacking; may wolves eat you; may death sweep you away; may a thousand lightning bolts strike you.

The owner of a café in Chaves was suffering from an illness that the doctors couldn’t diagnose. He began to lose weight and “dry up” as his wife put it. Taken to a famous “brujo” in the south of the country, he was diagnosed as suffering from the curse of envy put upon him by his own sister through his drinking of a fruit juice at her house containing menstruation blood. He was told to drink a special potion, which he did, vomiting up a hairy ball. This he had to throw into the river at midnight. Whether true or not, the man’s health did improve. He and his sister have never spoken again.

Evil Air

There are also evil airs. There is the air of the menstruating woman ("mulher com o mês") that if it hits a cake will keep it from rising; if it hits a wound this will never heal; and it if goes into the place where wine is being made this will become sour and turn to vinegar. There is also the air of the pregnant woman, the air of the excommunicated, the air of the corpse, and the air of the cemetery. When a child has an incurable illness it is often because it was exposed to the air of the cemetery ("apanhou ar de cemeterio").

Another family from Chaves had a granddaughter with an allergy to food. She began to lose weight. The “brujo” diagnosed the problem as being caused by the child having been exposed to a combination of the air of the corpse and the air of the cemetery. It came out that the child had been taken to a cemetery while her parents attended a burial. There a curse of envy had been put on the child and she must have eaten some of the dirt from the burial ground. After drinking the specially prescribed liquid her allergy went away.

Witches

A doll of a Meiga or witch in Galicia

Similar to neighboring Galicia, there is a strong belief in witches in the north of the district. According to Padre Fontes, it is not well defined what the people understand for witch. In each village they have different attributes. They are often confused with sorceresses, wise women, healers, and anyone who deals with cures that are not orthodox.

It is believed that the witches work together. They can ride a broom at night without hitting the trees or bushes, having to say this when they go out: “over brambles and under oak trees.” It is said that some men fly with them either voluntarily or involuntarily. These witches come together in places, usually near fountains. They make fun of the men, hit them, take their trousers off, and make them fly with them. The liquid or “cream” which appears on old branches is called “witches’ cream”. The tannin produced by green wood when it burns is called “witches’ milk”. If someone has dark bruises on his body, people say that the witches caused these. Likewise, people believe that a witch suckled a child who is not afraid, or who has rough hair.

Manuel Viegas Guerreiro, in his book Pitões das Júnias, tells this story about witches:

Once they told a young man that his girlfriend was a witch. He hid himself and looked out of the window at the hour when they came together, but they saw him. In these situations you should say, “Hello cousins!”, to make them feel good. But the young man said: “Hello, you big whores!” A comb from a spinning wheel was hurled from a great distance and it hit the window, which he just had time to close. His girlfriend told him later: “Why did you say that? If I hadn’t been there, you would be dead. I defended you. “ “You defended me? If I hadn’t closed that window, who would have defended me?” “The one who gave you strength to close it was me.”

The people have several methods to discover a witch. If the priest, at the end of the mass, leaves the missal open, on the page of the Saints, where there is a cross of Christ, then the witch cannot leave the church until the missal is closed again. Also, if you put nine beans in the font of holy water, or a white coin, with the head facing up, the witch must stay in the church. If you put a needle on a path, and a passerby pricks herself and turns back, then she is a witch.

In more recent times, the traditional village witches or healers have been replaced by more sophisticated mediums and spiritual healers who have taken up residence in the larger towns. Many of these charlatans are Brazilian and have knowledge of the Afro-Brazilian cults such as Macumba, Candomblé, or Umbanda. Unlike the old-fashioned healers these women are fast talkers and display a pseudo-scientific knowledge that easily fools the illiterate people who seek them out. Vast amounts of money are handed over to these spiritual healers, who often leave town quickly when the promised cures are never realized. One famous woman, called Vovó (Grandmother), started out as a poor shop assistant in Vila Real, and now has amassed a sizable fortune. Taxis bring villagers in from isolated villages and they participate in sessions that can only be done at midnight. Sadly, the village witch--really a healer--has given way to these criminal elements who get richer and richer at the expense of the ignorance of the people and the failure of the medical system.

At the time of writing this article (May 4th, 2000), the "witch" of Pico Island in the Azores was sentenced to ten years in prison for applying a green cream containing a lethal pesticide to wounds on people's bodies in order to extract the cancer the patients supposedly had. Four people died and several were seriously injured. This sordid case is a far cry from the traditional "witches" of the mountain villages of the Barroso and neighboring Galicia.

A "witch" in Galicia

The Legend of the Misarela Bridge,