Folk Belief

Folk beliefs are often cautionary tales that locate misfortune, accidents, and unexpected events in human causes, and people who seem different from others appear most frequently as these causes. Fairy tales and folklore recount the adventures of human beings with creatures who seem less or more than human: witches, nature spirits, fools, trolls, dead ancestors, speaking and singing animals, shape-shifters, zombies, ogres, giants, and dwarfs. Superstition holds that people with the evil eye harm with a glance, that hunchbacks bring good luck, and that diseased or deformed children are changelings substituted for a human child. Some figures of folk belief, of course, are neither less nor more than human. They are simply human beings who present some form of mental or physical disability. The creatures of folk belief include the seeing and hearing impaired; twins; people with achondroplasia, epilepsy, birthmarks, or birth defects; and those simply deemed more ugly than others by social convention.

Folk belief represents disability as a curse or punishment, a symbol of sin and disgrace in the family, or a sign of impending disaster, and people with disabilities are said to have malignant influence over other people or to possess magical powers. The world of folk belief is a world of human difference often explained to the detriment of disabled people.

The reliance of folk belief on disability is at once obvious and little discussed. Gods, cultural heroes, magical beings, and their adversaries bear marks of bodily and mental impairment that echo or exaggerate common disabilities. Divinities are routinely portrayed in folklore as possessing a surplus or deficit of organs. In Hindu folklore, gods have six faces; in China, three faces; in Jewish lore, five faces. Hindu and Chinese legends tell of gods with many eyes, while Tonga folk belief describes a god with eight mouths. In India, Tahiti, Hawaii, and Russia, divinities possess many heads, but they are legless or armless in Borneo. Irish and Greek legends describe one-legged and lame gods. A cultural hero of the Maori has different-colored eyes, while Irish legend pictures a hero with seven pupils in each eye. Oedipus has a clubfoot in Greek myth, and Balor of Ireland possesses an evil third eye. When gods or cultural heroes do not have a disability, they may pretend to have one for the purpose of humble disguise. In England and Ireland, fairies have unusually long ears or hair, or they might possess hairy bodies, a long tail, half a thumb, or red eyes. Changelings are recognized by large teeth, a thick neck or skull, and congenital disorders. Ogres are blind in Iceland and one-eyed in Ireland, while other minor villains of folklore present a broad variety of disabilities and bodily differences, including being one-eyed in Jewish, Irish, and Chinese superstition; toothless in India; and left-handed among the Inuit.

The most common superstitions attribute to ordinary people exceptional powers based on unusual characteristics. The evil eye, for example, is a folk superstition evident in nearly every world culture, both archaic and modern. It expresses the belief that certain people may pass illness, do harm, or cause accidents with a look. Those accused of possessing the evil eye are often disabled or distinguished physically or mentally in obvious ways. Eye disabilities such as lesions, corneal scars, and strabismus increase the chance of being accused of possessing the evil eye, as do squinting or red eyes. Eye color may also affect the possibility of being accused. In regions where an eye color is rare—for example, green eyes in the Middle East—that color is inevitably associated with the evil eye. The idea that an evil or envious eye that disapproves of wealth or beauty causes accidents, injuries, and disabilities is seen as the products of malignant wishes or curses. Moreover, the evil eye superstition explains that certain illnesses and deformities may be passed from person to person through the medium of the eyes. The cleft palate takes its common name, harelip, not only from its resemblance to the lips of the hare but also from the belief that a pregnant mother may pass the feature to her child if she sees the animal. Folk belief explains common birth [Page 737]defects as impressions passed to child from mother when she looks too intensely at her surroundings.

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