Abstract
CULT ELEMENTS İN EVİL EYE BELİEF İN TURKS LİVİNG İN NORTH MACEDONİA
According to the census conducted in 2002, the number of Turks living in North Macedonia is around eighty thousand. In the historical process, there are scientists who argue that the first settlement of the Turkish people in the region was thanks to the Avars, Pechenegs and Cumans. Although Turks are found in every region of the country, Mavrova Rostusha and Jupa Regions are among the regions where Turks reside.
Evil eye is explained as the damaging effect of the negativity in the gaze of some people on living or non-living things. According to the beliefs in the traditional life of the Turks, people and places where there is no God’s holiness is exposed to evil eye. It is possible to see various cult elements in the practices carried out to bring this holines back to people or places where the God’s holiness is thought to have been lost or to preserve the existing holiness. In this study, it has been tried to reveal the nature cult elements, especially the cult of ancestors, in the emergence, detection, protection and treatment methods of the evil eye, through field research in Kocacık, Novak, Papradnik in the Jupa region of N. Macedonia and Mogorçe in the Rostusha region. The relations between the practices, methods and beliefs determined depending on traditional beliefs with ancestors, fire, water and tree cults, similarities in the Turkish world and their connections with Turkish narratives are shown.
Keywords
North Macedonia, evil eye, cults, beliefs, rituals.
