Today’s musical selection: After I Say I’m Sorry performed byJoséphine Baker.
In August 1904, a pair of peculiar cases came to trial.
One case was a bricklayer named Merot, who lived in a village near Paris. Merot was before the court because he had killed his neighbor.
Merot admitted the deed but he had a perfectly rational explanation: his neighbor possessed the evil eye and had cast a spell over him. The dead man, he told the Court, was a sorcerer who constantly predicted misfortunes, which always played out exactly as he had foretold. Day after day, the neighbor seemed to summon bad luck, and bad luck unfailingly appeared.
On the day of the murder, the neighbor declared that Merot had two weeks more to live. This put Merot right over the edge. He said he “saw red” and killed his neighbor.
Look, we don’t condone murder on Old Spirituals. However, this neighbor does sound like a very trying character. I wouldn’t want to live next door to someone who was continually (and correctly) forecasting misery in my future. It might have been more prudent to just put up a privacy fence but who are we to judge?
Merot’s defense might not fly everywhere. But the French jury was understanding. They found that he had committed the murder while in a state in which he was not responsible for his acts. Merot was acquitted.
A Court at Nièvre took up a similar case on the same day. This case delved into a murder committed by a farmer named Daviot who murdered his cousin, Francis. Daviot had been plagued by misfortune. Several of his cows died suddenly and a horse had gone lame. Daviot was convinced these events were supernatural and consulted with the local sorcerer.
This spirit world intermediary advised Daviot that his cousin Francis had the evil eye. His prescription was to perform a series of mystical rituals. The young farmer complied but his bad luck continued unabated. Why Cousin Francis was persecuting him and killing his cows, Daviot didn’t know. But he was convinced he was going to have to kill Francis to make it stop, and one night he did just that.
The Court believed Daviot and sympathized with him. He received the mildest sentence possible: five years’ penal servitude.
The newspapers grouped these tales together because both murderers cited the Evil Eye but the stories have a key difference. Merot’s neighbor brought it on himself with all of his doomsday projections. Cousin Francis seemed to be a perfectly upstanding citizen who was just incompatible with farm animals.
But that’s just my opinion. I’m eager to hear yours!
old spirituals 
Every culture has superstitions. The rabbit’s foot comes to mind in American culture that is carried for good luck. There are traces of the evil eye superstition going back to Mesopotamia, over 5 thousand years ago.
In Italian culture, the most common superstition is Il Malocchio, meaning an evil eye. The superstition is based on a belief that if someone stares at you out of jealousy or envy it places a curse on you.
Southern Italians have a test, using olive oil and water, to determine if a Malocchio has been cast. The best cure is a specific prayer, but there are several other traditionally Italian ways to protect one’s self from a Malocchio curse. The most common is to wear an Italian horn charm (the curnuto) on a chain around the neck. Many also wear a hand gesture charm (mano facia), a hand that is formed into the shape of horns using the index and pinky fingers. In America, those that wear the curnuto or the mano facia do so to both ward-off a Malocchio and/or to identify as being Italian-Amerian.
In Southern Italian households, the traditional method to diagnose the Malocchio is to drop olive oil into a bowl of water. If the oil forms the shape of an eye, the presence of Malocchio is confirmed.
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That is fascinating! I love superstitions. It’s good there is some way to remove il malocchio. Dr. Maxwelll Maltz wrote about a case in the Caribbean islands where belief in curses is strong. This man believed he was cursed and quickly dropped a dangerous amount of weight. He was weak and nearly died before Dr. Maltz figured out what was happening. The doctor convinced this man he had the power to remove curses and gave him a “treatment” to remove the curse. The man believed he was cured and he was. The power of belief is an amazing thing.
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We have modern day court trials similar to this that have happened in the past year. Lori Vallow Daybell and her, I believe, fourth husband, Chad Daybell, a self proclaimed prophet, killed her two children because they were “zombies”. Several other people were murdered, also due to this cult. Lori and Chad were found guilty due to greed, power and lust instead of superstition. The Evil eye brings new meaning to a bad neighbor!
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That’s a really good example! Lori Daybell got life in prison, didn’t she? I bet the French court (or any court) would have been a lot harder on these fellows if they murdered a child. There are so few cases of mothers killing their children, the ones that do are reviled. Diana Downs comes to mind.
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Lori Daybell got life in prison in Idaho and is presently her own defense in AZ in a trial to start soon, for the murder of her previous husband, Charles Vallow. Chad Daybell got the death penalty in Idaho. He, along with Lori’s brother, killed Lori’s children and buried them on his property. Chad also killed his own wife. Lori’s brother also died. You just can’t make this stuff up!
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So ruthless and cruel. How did they live with themselves?
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Lori Vallow-Daybell is a name one expects to read in a Carl Hiaasen novel.
Moving on to a serious note, only a sociopath can relate to the crimes she and her husband, Chad Daybell, committed: child murder, spousal murder and filicide. She buried her daughter and son in Rexburg, Idaho. Geography is the only manner in which I can relate to the Daybell’s . . . . I visited Rexburg, Idaho in January many years ago. One bit of trivia concerning Rexburg is that one can expect freezing winters and warm, chilly nights in the summer, and frosts that have occurred in all months of the year. That one visit convinced me there was no need visit again.
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Idaho is one of the states I haven’t been to yet. I do want to visit every state in the union but I’m not up for freezing winters. I guess I’ll go there on some frosty summer day!
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