Olho grego

The evil eye is an old belief that an envious glance can bring harm. The blue eye bead, called nazar in Turkey and mati in Greece, is the charm made to meet that glance and turn it back. It is kept from Greece and Turkey to the Middle East and South Asia, hung by doors and worn on the wrist.

Belief: an envious glance can bring harm
Name in Turkey: nazar, from the Arabic for sight
Hung traditionally: by the front door, facing out

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What it means

The belief is about envy. Praise given with a jealous heart, people say, can bring bad luck to a child, a home or a new venture. The eye charm looks straight back: it is meant to catch that glance before it lands.

Where it comes from

Belief in the evil eye is very old and very wide. It was known in ancient Greece and Rome and runs through Jewish, Islamic, Hindu and Buddhist folk tradition. The blue glass bead belongs above all to the eastern Mediterranean: in Turkey glassmakers still make the nazar boncuğu by hand, and in Greece it is simply the mati, the eye.

In Greece, when someone is thought to have caught the eye, an older relative may say a quiet prayer over them, a custom called xematiasma. In southern Italy the same fear of envy is the malocchio, and grandmothers still read it in drops of oil on water.

How people use it

A nazar is hung by the front door or in the car, hung above a baby's cot, given to someone opening a shop, or worn on a bracelet. Tradition says that when a bead cracks it has done its work, and it is replaced with a new one.

In Turkey a bead is pinned to a newborn's clothes or set into the wall of a new house, and in Greece guests at a christening are often given small pins carrying the mati.

Choosing one

Glass beads are the classic form; bracelets and pendants carry the same eye at a smaller size. A small eye on a key ring goes everywhere with you without being noticed. Keep glass away from hard floors, and wipe it with a dry cloth.