Note 90 — Chapter I · THE EVIL EYE AND THE SCARING OF GHOSTS.

There are certain persons who are naturally protected from the Evil Eye and demoniacal agency, or who have control over evil spirits. Such is a man born by the foot presentation, who can cure rheumatism and various other diseases by merely rubbing the part affected. Men with double thumbs are considered safe against the Evil Eye, and so is a bald man, apparently because no one thinks it worth his while to envy such people. According to English belief, children born after midnight have power all through their lives of seeing the spirits of the departed. In India, people who are born within the period of the Salono festival in August are not only protected from, but possess the power of casting, the Evil Eye. The same is the case of those who have accidentally eaten ordure in childhood. We have already noticed the mystic power of cowdung. Dung generally is offensive to spirits. It was believed in Europe that horsedung placed before the house or behind the door brought good luck.90 Women who eat dung possess, as we shall see, the power of witchcraft.