P E T E R H. S T E P H E N S O N

HUTTERITE

B E L I E F IN E V I L E Y E : B E Y O N D P A R A N O I A

AND TOWARDS

A GENERAL

THEORY

OF INVIDIA

ABSTRACT. Most studies of 'evil eye' link economic and political inequality to the fear of appropriation of property while tying envy (invidia) to paranoia. In both psychiatric and anthropological studies of evil eye, explanation of the phenomenon is problematic because the data are retroductive - involving a rationalization on the part of the patient or informant in terms of either delusions or worid-view respectivdy. In this paper the connection between invidia and paranoia is questioned by grounding the analysis of Hutterian beliefs in evil eye in social interaction rather than retroductive explanation. In the case of the Hutterites it is envy itself which is feared and linked to high anxiety levels and sometimes to anxiety attacks or even depression.

INTRODUCTION The belief that simply regarding a person, animal, or object with an intense gaze while holding an invidious attitude can be destructive to the entity at which the gaze is ftxed is very widespread/ This belief in the 'evil eye' is particularly strong in all circum-Mediterannean countries and also their former colonies notably among the latter: The Philippines (Flores-Meiser 1976); Guatemala (Cominsky 1976); Mexico (Kearney 1976); and among North American immigrant populations such as Italians (Swiderski 1976; Foulks et al. 1977), Slovaks (Stein 1976), and Mexicans (W. Madsen 1964; C. Madsen 1965; Kiev 1968; Rubel 1960). Roberts' (1976) cross-cultural survey suggests that evil eye beliefs were elaborated in the Middle East during or shortly after the neolithic, ultimately spreading across Europe and India, and also implies that social inequality is probably a precondition of its elaboration. Roberts, like Foster (1972), sees social inequality as the basis of envy and both authors therefore consider the ultimate explanation of evil-eye to rest on a theory of invidia. In summarizing these and other works on evil eye, Garrison and Arensberg (1976) have suggested that evil-eye is most salient in those countries which have strong patron-client political and economic relationships wherein feudal land tenure systems recently obtained. These authors also regard social inequality as a precondition of evil eye and further assert that the belief is not merely a 'survival' but rather reflects contemporary social structure as well. Garrison and Arensberg further hypothesize that both the fear of appropriation of property (including women and children) by a higher authority and appeal to a higher authority for protection (which as a threat to an interloper would be mere invocation of authority) characterized life for peasants in feudal redistributive economies. This situation

Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 3 (1979) 247-265. 0165-005X/79/0033-0247 $01.90. Copyright © 1979 by D. Reidel Publishing Co., Dordrecht, Holland, and Boston, U.S.A.

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is thought to be structurally consistant with evil-eye beliefs which emphasize (1) the fear of destruction by an outside power and (2) protection by invocation of a greater but external power as well. They suggest that evil eye is therefore a symbolic representation of the patron.client relationship in feudal institutions carried into the present day in the same context of landholding and power in places like Sicily, or in the context of immigration. As Spooner (1976) points out, entire episodes of evil eye are not described in the literature but rather, retroductive explanations of misfortune characterize the anthropological data on evil eye. It is therefore the appeal to an outside force and the talismans utilized to avoid evil eye, or the folk-medical practices utilized to diagnose it, which seem to typify anthropological explanations of the phenomenon. The anthropologist also tends to accept all statements on evil eye as factual data and works from the premise that informants cannot lie about their culture because even their fabrications are cultural artifacts. Psychiatric discussion of evil-eye often centers on the use of the set of beliefs which are attendant to evil eye as a rationale for psychosomatic complaints, fears and anxieties. Since evil eye is available as an indigenous explanation for everything from neonatal deaths to warts, its use by psychotics in well-developed delusional systems could be predicted easily. Indeed, in situations where cultural misunderstanding can readily occur (such as immigration)evil-eye may be utilized to rationalize even muder (Foulks et al. 1977). It is the task of the psychiatrist to decide whether an individual has acted on a normative basis given his or her culture of origin and is the victim of conflicting expectations, or is simply seriously ill. The psychiatrist in this context has a problem similar to that of the anthropologist: the behavior which supposedly initiates the sequence of events (the gaze) is not observed and the phenomenon is wholly retroductive. However, for forensic reasons the psychiatrist has to discern matters of truth which anthropologists all too often can conveniently ignore. Because the social situation which the emotion of fear entrains in evil eye beliefs is thought to be one of ambiguous but asymmetrical interpersonal relationships, there has been a general tendency to associate evil eye with paranoia and to characterize whole 'world-views' this way (Foster 1965, Kearney 1976, for example). In this paper I will examine Hutterian beliefs in the evil eye as a symbolic resolution of conflicting cultural and psychological variables. My discussion will be an attempt to go beyond invidia and paranoia as emotions linked through unequal distributions of wealth and power in ambiguous interpersonal contexts, because among the Hutterites, who live in communal economic circumstances, social inequality other than that based on sex and age is negligible. I will examine these issues by using several cases which include the original gaze as the stimulus

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to the evil-eye episode, thereby firmly planting the analysis in observed social interaction. This seems to me to be a crucial step towards establishing whether or not a necessary connection with paranoia through envy is warranted because the examination of evil-eye episodes in this paper is based on observations of complete cases and not solely on the retroductive rationalizations of others. THE HUTTERIAN BRETHREN The Hutterian Brethren (Hutterischen Briider) are the most long-lived communal society known to us and arose from the radical (Anabaptist) wing of the Reformation forces during the early 16th century. Calling themselves Taufer (baptizers), these groups believed in the baptismal rebirth of adults upon their professed belief in Christ as their only spiritual redeemer. After the execution of an early Timfer leader, Jacob Hutter, the group adopted his name as their own. With the exception of several brief lapses into collective apostasy incurred by severe persecution and depopulation due to the plague, famine, and life in war-torn areas, the Brethren have sustained communal life ('community of goods' or gutergemeinschaft)for nearly 500 years. During their first 400 years the Brethren migrated through eastern Europe seeking refuge from counterReformation and moderate Reformation forces alike. Ultimately, they came to settle in the Ukraine, principally at Vishenka, until the mid-eighteen hundreds. Again threatened with persecution, the Hutterites migrated to the United States in the 1860's to settle the Dakotas under Lincoln's Homestead Act and to Canada - chiefly Alberta and Manitoba - in 1918 to avoid persecution in the United States during World War I (Hostetler 1974; Stephenson, 1978; cf. Peter 1975). Contemporary Hutterites live in small settlements of 50 to 150 people called colonies (Kolonie or Bruderhof) spread across the Canadian prairie provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. They have moved back to old settlements in the United States where they have also spread into Montana and Washington. The Hutterian Brethren rarely practice birth-control and believe that persons who fail to fulfill humanity's biblical mandate to "be fruitful and multiply" are visited after death by the souls of their unborn children. Because of this, the Brethren have exceedingly large families (mean size of 10.4 at completion)and a very fast population doubling time (approximately every sixteen years). 2 As a function of this situation, Hutterite colonies undergo a process of fission every twelve to twenty years in which the population divides down through the agepyramid creating two small colonies. The older of these two is called the 'mother' (Mutter-Kolonie) and the younger the 'daughter' (Tochter-Kolonie). The Hutterites refer to this process as 'hiving', or more literally, 'swarming' (schwarmen) in an analogy with bees (which they keep). The practice of population fission

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emerged in North America but grew out of a long historical legacy of intermittent persecutions and migrations as well as earlier failures to solve underemployment created by the fast growth of localized populations which could not expand onto new lands. Thus, the Hutterites now practice a collective re-birth in the form of the Kolonie which they often call 'the ark ofgutergemeinschaft'. Today's Hutterites practice personal austerity (all wealth is communally held); raise their children communally after the age of 3; dine communally; and live in 'longhouses' of joined family apartments inhabited by parents and small children on the ground floor and by older children on the second floor. Marriage is monogamous, divorce is not allowed, and patronymy is practiced, as is patrilocal residence. The colony's economy is based on farming and the sale of grain, beef, pork, chickens, eggs, and dairy products are all commercially important. Men control the farming operations and vote on matters of colony policy. Women and unbaptized boys are not allowed to vote, nor may the unbaptized marry. Baptism is the watershed of the individual Hutterite's life for at baptism the individual accedes to a condition called gelassenheit (resignation or 'givingup-ness'), in which responsibility for one's acts is adopted and one officially announces the attempt to 'give up' the desire for material things. The desire for material things is thought to be a part of human nature and derives from Adam and Eve's 'original sin' (selfishness) in the 'Garden of Eden' (perfection). Hutterite socialization practices are designed to 'break' the 'self-will' of a child and lead him or her to the point where they are able to make moral decisions and adopt gelassenheit. The first manifestation of selfishness in a child is thought to be either its initial attempt to use a comb, or an attempt to hit back when it is struck. To establish this point in a child's development Hutterites often give children combs or brushes to play with and very gently slap at small children. Punishment of misbehavior is swift, arbitrary, and always corporal yet it is rarely severe. Exceptions are the occasional strappings of 'strong-willed' adolescents. HUTTERIAN COSMOLOGY: THE FORCES OF GOOD AND EVIL The Hutterites believe in the Christian Trinitarian God of three parts comprising a whole. God as spirit is represented by the wind and fire and is thought to be everywhere as 'the will of God'. God the Son, Christ, was the corporeal manifestation of God and is represented by blood. God the Father is represented by water and is the creator of life. The Hutterites conceive the only perfection to be the Trinity and they strive to approximate as best they can the harmony which the Trinity represents to them. For the Brethren this striving is both individually and collectively

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manifested. The Trinity is also regarded as historical as well as synchronic (timeless). The Hutterites think of the history of the world as divided into three epochs, or 'hours'. The first of these was the destruction of the world and its rebirth via the waters of the flood through 'Noah the believer';the second hour extends from 'the law' (Moses) until the coming of Christ; and 'the final (third) hour is approaching' when the Holy Spirit will do its work and the final judgment will be made at which only the Hutterites (the reborn children of God) shall be saved. The harmony of the Trinity is thought to be nowhere more apparent than in Christ's sacrifice, which is the focus of h u m a n existence - both historical and personal. The Hutterites realize that their striving after this harmony can never be fully accomplished because of the imperfection of mankind which is born into a state of original sin. This struggle after perfection is a travail which corains within it the core of an existential dilemma. The state of perfection which must be pursued can never be obtained because of original sin, yet the original sin is itself the belief that one has attained some sort of perfection. The paradox is that one must both strive for perfection but concomitantly recognize the impossibility of its attainment. The Brethren regard this struggle as constantly occurring within h u m a n beings and its temporal pervasiveness assumes logical consistency through the use of the number seven. The perfect world was created by God in seven days only to be spoiled b y man-the-pretender's desire for more. The Hutterites break up the week into the period of seven days as well and, like the Lord, they rest on the Sabbath, but to celebrate his perfection amidst their own imperfection. For the Hutterites the Trinity is encapsulated within Saturday evening and the Sabbath Day which culminates the sequence of seven. The unit of seven manifest in the origin of the world and the contemporary week may also be seen in the Old Testament as the pattern of existence of the Hebrews. Peter Walpot (1957: 25-26), an early Hutterite leader, wrote: Six years could Israel gather in their fruits, each man for himself, but the seventh year was a year a release, and it was proclaimed that the land should hold a solemn Sabbath unto the Lord, and they might not gather in, but what it bore in the seventh year was common to them, to the father of the household and his servant and to the cattle and beast of the land. And he who had been bought was released in this seventh year with all manner of gifts and presents. In the same year whosoever had lent his neighbor and brother ought, might not ask it back in the year of release, but had to let it g o . . . Which year of release is the acceptable year of the Lord, as the prophet himself doth interpret it, when those who their whole lives have been subject to the bondage and power of the devil are redeemed. Therefore we should have all goods which God hath given us in this time in common, through Christian love, and enjoy them with our neighbors, brothers and household, and not make the same our own. For it is now a much more glorious and festive proclamation of the year of release, yea, of the year of grace, than in the Old Testament. Men will observe a great Sabbath, yea, they will have one Sabbath after another and will

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lead the most peaceful life on earth where they have laid aside these two words - 'Mine' and 'Thine' which do not belong to the nature of things . . . . For he that seeketh much lacketh much, and he that desireth much needeth much. Now that is the greatest poverty and the most unpeaceful life on earth - which Christ desireth not in His house, among those who have entered upon the true Sabbath, Pentecost, and Easter Day. The Hutterites conceive of there being seven evil spirits (represented b y demons) which engage with at least seven good spirits (represented b y angels) which are in a constant state o f conflict within human beings. This struggle is between the domain o f 'the flesh' and that o f 'the Spirit,' it is the struggle o f 'the Christian' with 'the world', of the Prince o f Light with the Prince of Darkness. The struggle can only be won b y the forces of good in persons who have recognized the workings of the Holy Spirit (which is omnipresent) within them, and who comprehend that they have a free will - that choices are theirs to make every day o f every week o f every year throughout their lives. The battle with the seven evil spirits must be carried out in order that the faithful may live in communal h a r m o n y with one another. The demons who do the Devil's work are counterposed b y angels who perform God's work. The evil spirits play upon the natural base inclinations of mankind which can be subordinated b y certain qualities which the Hutterites believe are necessarily engendered by living communally. The qualities of the good spirits are drawn from Isaiah 11:2: And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the L o r d . . . Which continues: And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins. The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. (11: 5 - 6 ) A Hutterite obliterates polar opposites (wolf and lamb, etc.) in conflict with one another through faith. To the six qualities listed in Isaiah the Hutterites have added 'art', but not representational art, rather the abstract notion o f art as a synthesis of diverse intents manifest in 'the art o f living together': a description o f harmonious arrangement as a process. These good spirits are felt to drive out evil and to usher in goodness just as in Mark 16:9 the resurrected Christ is first seen by Mary Magdalene: "Now when Jesus was risen early the first day o f the week he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out o f whom he had cast seven devils." The qualities o f the seven evil spirits are: arrogance, greed, envy, anger, gluttony, impurity, and laziness. These seven evil spirits are named as demons in the Bible, throughout which the horrible, chaotic result o f giving-in to them is

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detailed. In the following list I shall c o u n t e r p o s e each o f the d e m o n s t o g e t h e r w i t h its principal quality against the angels together w i t h those qualities which belief in the messages t h e y bring f r o m G o d engenders. I will follow each o f these j u x t a p o s i t i o n s w i t h the n a m e o f a person w h o exemplifies the virtuous resolution o f the struggle b e t w e e n the t w o domains via faith in G o d as d e m o n s t r a t e d in a story f r o m t h e Bible. 1. Beelzebub (arrogance) is thwarted by wisdom as characterized by the guardian angel of humility which assisted Joseph the husband of Mary. Joseph found Mary to be with child before they were married and sought to avoid the marriage altogether but was visited by an angel in a dream who told him that the child was of the Holy Spirit, that it was to be named Jesus and suggested that he should have faith and marry the woman. Joseph, being a humble man, did all of these things; "And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name Jesus" (Matthew 1:25). 2. Mammon (greed) is thwarted by understanding charcterized by the guardian angel of composure which assisted Moses by helping him to leave the wealth and riches of court life and subsequently lead his people from Egypt (Exodus 23:20). 3. Leviathan (envy) is thwarted by counsel characterized by the guardian angel of love which assisted Abraham in his migrations into and out of Egypt (Genesis 11,12) and also helped Joseph to escape from his brothers who envied him for his coat of many colours (Genesis 37). 4. Abaddon (anger) is thwarted by art as characterized by the guardian angel of patience which assisted Job to overcome the temptations of Satan (Job 2) and protected David from Saul (Psalms 34:7, and throughout Chronicles I, II, and III). 5. Behemoth (gluttony) is thwarted by knowledge as characterized by the guardian angel of moderation which assisted Judith to refuse the meal ordered by Holophernes or her (Judith 12,12 in the Aprocrypha) and who also helped to protect Esther from defilement by Haman who wished to murder Mordecai and all other Jews (Esther 7). 6. Asmodi (impurity) is thwarted by might as characterized by the guardian angel of purity which assisted Joseph by keeping him safe from the approaches of a lewd woman married to the master of the house in which he was overseer (Genesis 39) and also protected Susanna from false witness given by the elders who lusted after her (Daniel and Susanna in the Apocrypha). 7. Belial (laziness) is thwarted by the fear of God as characterized by the guardian angel of vigilance in the parable of the five wise virgins who remembered to fill their lamps with oil and so could f'md their grooms (Matthew 25:1-13). The angel of vigilance also protected Tobias the son of Tobit on the road to Media (Tobit 5 in the Apocrypha). The first names o f c o n t e m p o r a r y Hutterites include the names o f all o f those persons assisted b y the guardian angels as evidenced in the Bible. In fact, these names c o n s t i t u t e d a b o u t h a l f o f the names in all o f the colonies in w h i c h I w o r k e d , o t h e r c o m m o n names (chiefly those o f the apostles) came f r o m the Bible as well. V e r y few non-Biblical names are used and those parents w h o n a m e their children by non-Biblical reference are usually skeptics w i t h regard to the dangers o f 'evil eye'. The struggle against the forces o f evil in w h i c h the individual H u t t e r i t e engages is conceived o f as a never-ending, daily affair w h i c h h a s n o t changed since Biblical times. The struggle is basically b e t w e e n the 'spirit' and the 'flesh' which are in

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immutable opposition to one another: "For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the o t h e r . . . " (Galatians 5:17) The flesh is an impermanent and imperfect universe of life, whereas the spirit is the infinite and perfect universe of heaven (himmel) which is thought to be a place of perfect communal living. Hutterites generally wish to avoid the appearance of self-importance and so they do not praise God via beauty which is an impermanent state of the flesh. For example, Hutterites do not sing in melodious voices. The socially-approved manner of singing is not aesthetic or pleasing to the ear for such sounds are 'aus Fleisches Lust' (from the lust of the flesh). Songs must be sung from the heart to please God (the Trinity), which is the only perfection - beautiful melodies are thought to make people pleased with themselves and accordingly do not please God for they are idolatrous. The Hutterites comprehend the nature of aesthetics as something to be avoided, so theirs is a world where the culturally acceptable does not coincide with aesthetic ideals. Beauty is comprehended and significant in its absence . . . . its presence is a threat. For example, Hutterites with bad eyesight are given plain, black plastic frame glasses. While many people need these, I was aware of two young women (both of them 'pretty' by North American standards) who wore these glasses although their eyesight was quite within the range of normal. Because the Hutterites have adopted personal austerity and collective moderation in terms of material wealth, there is a relative paucity of things which might effectively serve as symbols among them and a disinclination to use them for they are of the 'world' and not of the 'Spirit'. There are no feathered serpents in their rituals, there is no crucifix in their church - indeed, there is no church building! The Brethren regard arbitrary symbolization in most instances as constituting graven images. A frequently used quote comes from I John: 5 - 2 1 : "Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen." Similarly, English school teachers report that Hutterite school children do not respond to individual encouragement in their studies. Praising an individual child is dangerous to both the person making praise who mistakenly elevates a matter which should be of no consequence (a thing of the flesh) to an inappropriate level of importance (the domain of the 'Spirit'). Concomitantly, the person who has been singled out for praise is tempted to feel him- or herself to be overly important. Hutterites rarely praise one another but will often criticize each other. To the uninformed outsider this criticism can be too easily taken as dissension when it is no such thing at all. Hutterites feel that the open criticism of individual faults fosters learning, betterment, humility, and brings unity. They often say Aus andre fehler, kannst du nutzen ziehen, du siehst den Fehler ein und kannst ihn leichter fliehen (from the faults of others you can draw advantage . . . you

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recognize the fault and can avoid it more easily). Ein Fehler den man erkennt, der ist schon halb gebeszert .(a fault recognized as such is already half amended) is also a c o m m o n proverb.

PSHRIEN: THE 'EVIL EYE' The one visible and abstract symbol which I found the Hutterites to use has specific Biblical roots and involves the color red. Infants have red ribbons tied around their wrists to protect them from pshrien ('the evil eye'). The Hutterites believe that some people are more prone to have the evil eye than others but it is not defined in terms of individual people. Any person can be possessed of the evil eye, which is a specific manifestation of the existence of evil (as witchcraft) in the world as indicated by St. Paul in Galations 5:20. Pshrien does affect some persons more often than others, but anyone is a potential host for the devil personified. The result ofpshrien is the severe and abrupt onset o f a fever, which progresses quickly through thirst, weakness, and rolling eyes to a loss of consciousness which can ultimately and quickly lead to death. This suffering can be inflicted by a person possessed of pshrien upon anyone; but, most typically, it is said to affect infant human beings or young farm animals. It is said that the only way to cure a person or animal who has ~oeen 'pshried' is to quickly wipe the eyes and face of the victim with a red cloth. Infants are felt to be especially vulnerable and so they are made to wear a red ribbon around their wrists. The following are typical case histories of pshrien episodes:

Case #1. The field boss in a colony mentions to a visiting cattleman from another colony that his gemein ('group') has just acquired a young stallion. He describes it as 'a pretty animal' to the visitor. Later in the day the visiting cattleman goes to see the animal a l o n e . . , he quickly returns but mentions how much he would like to have such an animal at his own colony. About thirty minutes later the field boss goes into the barn to find the animal sweating profusely. It quickly sickens and dies. It is widely believed that the visitor killed the animal with pshrien.

Case #2. A woman (A) goes to see a newborn calf (described by the informant as 'a pretty animal') while the dairyman is out of the barn. She returns home and the calf sickens within an hour. The dairyman, perplexed by these events, attempts to save the calf but fails. Pshrien was suspected by one of the old women who later told the diaryman to ask (A) if she had gone to see the calf and had admired and thereby pshried it. (A) had been widely believed to be possessed of pshrien on other occasiolas. The answer to the dairyman's question

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was 'yes' o n b o t h accounts and the w o m a n was heavily criticized b y other c o l o n y members.

Case #3. S h o r t l y after a new b u l l o c k arrived at a c o l o n y a y o u n g c a t t l e w o r k e r (an older helper) spoke very highly o f its beauty. S o o n after this the bull b e c a m e feverish and an a t t e m p t was m a d e t o save it b y rubbing its eye.,; w i t h a red cloth. The bull eventually r e c o v e r e d b u t pshrien is widely suspected.

Case # 4 . A preacher visiting a nearby c o l o n y was asked to give the S u n d a y s e r m o n there. He did so b u t the following events, as described in his o w n words, ensued: At the very end of the service I suddenly felt hot, and I started to s w e a t . . , it just poured out of me. I also got thirsty. Well, you know I almost couldn't get out of the building I felt so bad. Right after I got outside my legs started to feel weak and then this woman that I knew as a b o y . . , we grew up t o g e t h e r . . , she came up to me. [Note: this action of accosting a preacher after a sermon is very unconventional . . . normally all would fide quietly into the kitchen for dinner, except the preacher who eats alone in his quarters.] She said, 'Sam it surely is good to see you and to hear you preach. I don't think I've ever heard such a fine sermon before . . . no, that was the best I've ever heard!' After that she must have noticed that I was pale and sweating because she slapped the side of her face and said, 'Oh Sam, I've pshried you! !' Well, they ran and got a piece of red cloth and rubbed it all over my face and wiped my eyes with it. And you know, all of a sudden I felt just time!. It just happened in a second, I was almost passed out, then I was time - felt like nothing had even happened. Now you know me, Peter, I have to be shown a thing first before I'd believe it. Before that I wasn't too sure about pshrien, I'd only heard what the people s a y . . , but it happened to me! E v e r y b o d y believes this is an e x a m p l e ofpshrien. These cases are typical b o t h o f the pshflen that I was t o l d o f by Hutterites or directly observed. In the great m a j o r i t y o f cases, y o u n g or newly-acquired farm animals are involved. The admirer o f the animal is often a visitor w h o shares the same status, or a highly related one, as the manager o f the o p e r a t i o n to which the affected animal belongs. The suggestion o f Mammon (envy) and Leviathan (greed) at w o r k is strongly apparent, as well as Beelzebub, for praise is understood to be de jure a f u n c t i o n o f arrogance. In m o s t instances the admirer gossiped about the animal after having visited it while an a t t e n d a n t was away. New animals are quarantined and access t o y o u n g farm animals is usually limited for disease p r e c a u t i o n reasons, as well as their susceptibility to pshrien - so the c o l o n y rules were also being secretively b r o k e n by the admirer in most cases. The animals affected are inevitably described by i n f o r m a n t s as ' p r e t t y ' . Red cloth is almost always used in the a t t e m p t to save the animal. There is no negative sanction, e x c e p t criticism and s o m e t i m e s ostracism, used against the person t h o u g h t to have pshried s o m e t h i n g or someone. Each case is characterized b y the

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admiration of another being as if it were a perfect entity, so pshrien is in effect a form of idolatry, which is extremely dangerous and involves three demons. As such, it is the Devil (Lucifer) personifed and deified as a Trinity. Pshrien is the epitome of the struggle of the spirit with the flesh and is original sin recapitulated. The Hutterites often told me that children could be killed by pshrien but gave me few examples (that is, they generally refused to name names). Instead they focused on a rather elaborate means utilized to avoid having children affected by pshrien. The color red is said to represent the 'blood of the innocent' and as such protects the helpless from evil and a final death. The blood of the lamb which protected the ancient Israelites from the 'angel of death' at Passover and the blood of Christ who suffered in humanity's stead are both common referents for the red cloth used in pshrien episodes. I have also heard mentioned one obscure reference to Moses protecting the Tabernacle with scarlet cloth. The red cloth is clearly an abstract symbol which most often refers to the blood shed by Christ and his followers and it serves to protect those afflicted from other persons possessed by a trinity of demons, e.g., the Devil. When asked why red protects the afflicted I was told 'because of Jesus, "In whom we have redemption through his blood for the forgiveness of sin" - Colossians, Chapter One, 14th verse.' This is rather different use of symbols from the classic use of icons, or relics, to protect their wearer. The Hutterites do not regard the cloth as empowered to protect - red is only a reminder to the afflicted, the perpetrator, and any witnesses of "the blood which was shed for you" - nothing more. The red cloth is only a mnemonic link with faith. The red ribbon worn by children is somewhat more complex with respect to its symbolic referents. The ribbon is usually worn until a child does one of two things: either attempts to comb its hair, or strikes back when struck. After a child has done one of these things it is said to be 'self-willed.' Once a child is labelled as 'self-willed', its prestige plummets to the very bottom of the Hutterite social hierarchy and as such it is no longer admired. Previous to this, however, it is very highly valued. Babies are much played with and are quite literally 'shown off' at every possible opportunity: they are admired, praised and the source of much attention. To protect children from pshrien, until by combing their hair or striking back they demonstrate those same qualities which inhere within it, a red ribbon is tied about their wrists. The Biblical reference for the ribbon comes from the story of Jacob and the daughters of Laban in Genesis 29-32. Briefly, Jacob was charged by his father Isaac to take a wife from among the daughters of Laban, his mother's brother. Eventually, Jacob agreed to serve Laban for seven years in return for which he would be given Rachel, Laban's

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"beautiful and well endowed" daughter whom he loved. However, after seven years had passed Laban tricked Jacob into marrying his oldest daughter, Leah, who was "tender-eyed" (but not beautiful). Laban explained away his trick by stating that it was not customary in his land for a younger daughter to marry prior to the eldest. Laban then forced Jacob to work for him an additional seven years to pay for Rachel, whom Laban eventually relinquished to him. Since God saw that Leah was "hated" and Rachel "loved" he rendered the latter barren and the former fertile. Jacob appears to have learned much about the nature of false beauty from these experiences; for, when it finally came time for him to depart from Laban with his wives, in order to provide for his large household they made a bargain in which Laban's arrogance, greed, and envy were overcome by Jacob's wisdom, composure and love of God. This struggle epitomizes pshrien . . . a battle between Lucifer as represented by three minions and God by three of his messengers (angels). The bargain struck by Laban with Jacob stated that Jacob would take only those "spotted, speckled, and ringstaked" among Laban's flocks and cattle, while Laban would keep all of the perfectly coloured animals. Jacob stripped away pieces of bark from the branches of green poplar, hazel and chestnut trees and mounted these over the troughs where the flocks watered so that when they conceived they would bear marked offspring. Jacob also placed similarly striped stakes in front of the eyes of only the strongest cattle when they mated and when the feeble mated he did nothing. As a result of these actions Laban's cattle were feeble and his flocks diminished while Jacob's were respectively strong and flourished. The ribbon around a Hutterite child's wrist is said to denote the bark strips torn from the branches used as stakes in front of which the flocks and cattle of Jacob conceived. The ribbon is said to be red to represent the sacrificial blood found throughout Leviticus. The burnt offerings of Leviticus are made whenever a man sins out of ignorance. By combining these two stories we can see something of the meaning behind the red ribbon symbolism and of the logic which links these matters together. CONCLUSION The red ribbon protects both the child and those adults who may admire it. The child can only sin out of ignorance for it is as yet not demonstrably 'self-willed'; it is, as an infant, passive with only a proclivity towards sin which has not yet been manifested. The adult Hutterite, by admiring the infant, cannot be admiring it for its perfection, because it has been marred like the speckled flocks of Jacob. This is a situation wherein the adult is trapped by a conflict between, on the

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one hand, a deeply-rooted cultural valuation and a mammalian biological inheritance which attracts him or her to children, and on the other hand, a core belief which establishes that the admiration of beauty is a form of idolatrous devil worship. 3 This conflict is resolved by the red ribbon because not only is the child flawed by the ribbon, but also all those who reproduce after having regarded it will produce children who are strong in their own recognition of their imperfection, not weak and enfeebled by being overly cognizant of their beauty. The red color is a reminder to all of 'the redemption' via the voluntary death and rebirth of Christ and the child-life-saving quality of the blood of the Passover lamb. Children are 'gifts of God' and the adult Hutterites are bearers of the 'seal', the 'reborn children of God', whose sins with respect to admiring children are committed out of ignorance (unconsciously). Many Hutterites believe that some infants who die of unspecified causes are 'pshried" and it is in those colonies where pshrien is suspected but where the paraphernalia used to avoid it has not been employed, that this is said to have occurred. Pshrien suspicions appear to be more common in poorly managed colonies where the birthrate has diminished due to the emigration of brides and the failure of young men to attract brides. Under these conditions babies are the potential objects of envy and herein is the basis for Hutterite belief in pshrien. The Hutterian Brethren originated in a feudal era and have been persecuted for centuries; consequently they have good reason to fear the politic~il and martial authority of the state. It would be facile, however, to relate the history of their persecution to pshrien in the manner of Garrison and Arensberg's (1976) explanation of the origin of evil eye as an ideological isomorphism with patronclient feudal economics. Linking their persecution to some generalized notion of widespread cultural paranoia as Kearney (1976)suggests for the Ixtepiji of Mexico, Hitson and Funkenstein (1959:190) and Spiro (1969) propose for the Burmese, or as Schwartz (1973:154) has claimed for virtually all of Melanesia, would also be superficial. It is not necessarily impossible for an entire group to become delusional and hostile by criteria found within their own culture (Savage, Leighton and Leighton 1965:47); but, in the case of the Hutterians, their fears of harrassment and violent persecution at the hands of 'worldly people' are hardly unwarranted (see Clausen 1973 ; Hostetler 1974: 255-283). Furthermore, in the Hutterian instance, neither the fear of appropriation of personal wealth nor a generalized paranoia generated by conditions of extreme poverty explain the phenomenon of evil-eye. The Hutterites do not even hold wealth individually and they are collectively wealthy. The predominant psychological malaise of their culture is called anfechtung ('temptation by the devil') which is basically a form of depression which has an etiology somewhat different from paranoia (Eaton and Weil 1953, 1955;Kaplan and Plaut 1956). Because the cases I have cited grow out of actual behavioral episodes in which

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both the initial gaze and the response were observed in situ (or confessed to as in Case #2), we are not dealing with delusions here. Once armed with the preceding discussion of Hutterian cosmology, it can be inferred that invidious behaviour is a form of deviance for Hutterites. It is envy itself which the brethren seek to expunge and which they regard as quintessentially evil. The Brethren may take this to what seem to us extreme proportions. For example, Susan MacKenzie (personal communication) who has lived in a Dariusleut Hutterite colony reports an instance in which a farmer visited a colony continually and admired and sought to buy a team of horses but was refused their sale. The team sickened and died and yet the Brethren castigated themselves for not selling the horses - not the farmer for desiring them - telling MacKenzie that they should have sold the man the horses. There was no implication that the horses would have died if the Brethren had sold them, simply that by not selling the horses the Brethren may have been guilty of desiring them more than the farmer did. Kanter (1972) has summarized the organizational problems of all communes as follows: 1) work must be performed without coercion; 2) decisions must be made to everyone's satisfaction; 3) interpersonal relationships must be close and fulfilling but not exclusive; 4) new members must be chosen and socialized; 5) some degree of autonomy, uniqueness, and even deviance must be provided for; and 6) shared perception of community functioning and values must be insured. The mechanisms utilized in communes to solve these basic problems are often rationalized by a 'repressive' ideology and involve the extreme suppression of individual impulses. Characteristically, self-identity is sacrificed in communes through abstention from sex, drugs, some foods, personal adornment (uniforms are worn, jewelry forbidden), music, dance, etc. Vows of poverty are taken and often contact with the non-communal world is renounced, as are the family and marriage either through celibacy or complex marriage. Among the Hutterites, children are thought to be inherently selfish and an attempt is made to 'break' their 'self-will'. Personal adornment is forbidden, as are dancing and certain types of music. The Brethren are socialized to suppress self-expression and as adults are asked to adopt gelassenheit (selflessness, resignation, literally, 'giving-up-ness'); and thus, as Bennett (1976:31) has pointed out, they reverse the popular notion of 'repression' as it exists in "the liberal, egalitarian psychology which considers any suppression of individual impulses to be a secular sin." Among the Hutterites, failure to suppress individual impulses is regarded as sinful. The frustration of individual desires in the name of the group characteristically converts either to aggression directed towards others or toward the self. In the Hutterian instance, where pacifism is prized, it is the self which suffers high levels of anxiety. Physical symptoms such as 'stomach trouble' and, occasionally, alcoholism are commonplace, but suicide is rare. The most common psychopathology for the Hutterites is severe depression; the least common is

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schizoid symptoms (see Eaton and Well 1955; Kaplan and Plant 1956). In the same way that self-expression is inversely valued in both Hutterite and the general North American societies among the former, who live under conditions of constant surveillance by others, the major psychopathology brings with it feelings of extreme loneliness, isolation, and rejection. Among the latter, where isolation is prized as individual freedom, the absorption of the socially unarticulated self with itself in fantasy more often takes place. Earlier fieldworkers interested in psychopathology among the Hutterites utilized a typological approach which consisted mainly of projective testing with some diagnostic work based on oral reports. This kind of research does not lend itself to the identification of brief episodes of high anxiety in the form of attacks. Similarly, retrospective studies of 'evil eye' miss the linkage between actual behavior and belief in 'evil eye'. In both cases actual behavior antecedent to the explanation by 'native' informants have gone unexamined and the belief system has been linked to a psychopathology: anfechtung to depression and evil eye to paranoia. Several Hutterites whom I know who had suffered from anfechtung indicated that, in its early stages, they had been pshried and had suffered 'spells' as a result. The notion that they were desired or admired by others had disgusted them and led to withdrawal and thus, ultimately, to an-

fechtung. The Brethren seek to control invidiousness by pointing out that it is dangerous to life, but their conception of invidia is not inherently related to paranoia. The incidences of pshrien cited above are not merely explanations of misfortune (although they are that too); they are part of social interaction and of social control. The psychological cost of communal life with its lack of privacy, rigid conformity, and moral regimentation, includes a rather high level of anxiety which sometimes takes the form of brief and intermittent, or even unique, anxiety attacks. These are characteristically brought on by unexpected events, such as in Case # 4 where the act of accosting a preacher after a sermon was a shocking breach of the normal practice of proceeding in silence to the dininghall. Social control dependent upon the force of individual conscience and group-criticism in the communal Hutterian context is a fertile breeding-ground for guilt, anxiety and even occasionally severe depression. For the Hutterities, invidia is a serious and universal human sickness born of their ideas of human frailty and human nature. As such, the belief in pshrien is a central feature of the fusion of Hutterian cosmology with actual social life for it mediates between good and evil, the domains of the spirit and the flesh, and even life and death. The significance of this discussion for a general theory of invidia is grounded in the observation that envy is not an emotion linked to schizoid behavior among the Hutterian Brethren. Thus, the hypothesized link between envy and paranoia can be seen as an artifact of the methodological failure to relate

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antecedent behaviors to beliefs by dealing mainly with the recollection o f events and not their observation. It is also clear that the Hutterian Brethren do not fear invidiousness because o f conditions of extreme poverty wherein advantage is held b y some at the expense of others. The Hutterians fear envy itself as an emotion which destroys life b y bringing into being those conditions whereby one gains advantage at the expense o f others. Thus, a general theory of invidia must confront the idea that envy m a y be a causal factor in human suffering and not merely an outcome of economic disenfranchisement. F r o m the vantage point o f the Hutterites within the North American consumer paradise brought on b y modern marketing ethics, the recognition o f envy as a relative factor which constantly breeds disappointment is also obvious. Invidia may be regarded as a disease and evil eye only one o f its potential venues for expression in various cultures. Among the Brethren the anxiety generated b y their communal life-style is a cost which can take the form of various psychosomatic complaints and is also linked to their belief in the evil eye which provides a ready explanation for misfortune as a derivative o f deviant behavior and 'wrong thinking'. As a form o f social control, the fear of evil eye and the precautions taken against it produce the very anxiety in the self they are meant to relieve in others. Such a positive feedback loop between behavior and beliefs is likely to continue in perpetuity. Thus, there exists a dynamic relationship between those organizational problems which the communal Hutterites face which generate anxiety through the suppression of individual impulses and the necessary provision for deviance which Kanter (1972) mentions. This dynamic is not only of a social and functional nature - it is concommitantly psychological and dysfunctional as well.

Department of.Anthropology McMaster University Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

NOTES 1. This paper is based on research conducted between June 1975 through July 1976 mainly among Dariusleut Hutterites in Alberta. I am grateful to the Hutterites among whom I worked, to the Canada Council for their financial support, and to John Hostetler, Susan MacKenzie, Carol McLaren and Jean-Marc Philibert for criticism and discussion. 2. See Eaton and Mayer (1953), Cook (1968), and Clark (1974) for further demographic information. 3. The generalization that mammals who bear their young alive and relatively helpless have a predisposition for care is widely accepted. For specific discussions see Richards and Bernal (1972), Blurton-Jones (1972), Dunn (1976). For other mammals, see especially Klopfer (1965) for ungulates and Hinde and Spencer-Booth (19~5) for Rhesus monkeys.

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Kanter, Rosabeth Moss 1972 Commitment and Community. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Kaplan, Bert and Thomas F. A. Plant 1956 Personality in a Communal Society. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press. Kearney, Michael 1976 A world-view explanation of the evil eye. In The Evil Eye. Clarence Maloney, ed. pp. 175-192. New York: Columbia University Press. Kiev, Ari 1968 Curanderismo: Mexican-American Folk Psychiatry. New York: The Free Press. Klopfer, Peter H. 1965 Mother love: what turns it on? In Readings in Animal Behaviour. Thomas E. McGiU, ed. pp. 258-264. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Madsen, Claudia 1965 A Study of Change in Mexican Folk Medicine. New Orleans: Middle American Research Institute, Tulane University. Madsen, William 1964 The Mexican-Americans of South Texas. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Peter, Karl 1975 The instability of the community of goods in the social history of the Hutterites. In Western Canada Past and Present. A. W. Rasporich, ed. Calgary: McClelland Stewart West Limited. Richards, M. P. M. and Judith F. Bernal 1972 An observational study of mother-infant interaction. In Ethological Studies of Child Behaviour. N. Blurton-Jones, ed. pp. 175-198. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Roberts, John M. 1976 Belief in evil eye in world perspective. In The Evil Eye. Clarence Maloney ed. pp. 223-278. New York: Columbia University Press. Rubel, Arthur J. 1960 Concepts of disease in a Mexican-American culture. American Anthropologist 62: 795-814. Savage, Charles, Alexander H. Leighton, and Dorothea C. Leighton 1965 The problem of cross-cultural identification of psychiatric disorders. In Approaches to Cross-Cultural Psychiatry. Jane M. Murphy and Alexander H. Leighton, eds. pp. 21-63. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Schwartz, Theodore 1973 Cult and context: the paranoid ethos in melanesia. Ethos I: 153-174. Spiro, Melford E. 1969 The psychological function of witchcraft belief: the Burmese case. In Mental Research in Asia and the Pacific. W. Candill and Tsung-Yi Lin, eds. pp. 245-256. Honolulu: East-West Center Press. Spooner, Brian 1976 Anthropology and the evil eye. In The Evil Eye. Clarence Maloney, ed. pp. 2 7 9 286. New York: Columbia University Press. Stein, Howard 1976 Envy and the evil eye: an essay in the psychological ontogeny of belief and ritual. In The Evil Eye. Clarence Maloney, ed. pp. 193-222. New York: Columbia University Press. Stephenson, Peter H. 1978 A dying of the old man and a putting-on of the new: the cybernetics of ritual metanoia in the life o f the Hutterian commune. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation; University of Toronto. (Microfilm: National Liberary of Canada, Ottawa). Swiderski, Richard

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1976 From folk to popular: plastic evil eye charms. In The Evil Eye. Clarence Maloney, ed. pp. 2 8 - 4 1 . New York: Columbia University Press. Walpot, Peter 1957 A notable Hutterite document concerning the true surrender and community of goods. The Mennonite Quarterly Review XXXI (January): 2 2 - 6 2 . (Received 21 October 1978 and in revised form 5 February 1979)