Native of Mexico, state flower of Indiana.
Fifteenth century Spaniards who came to take the Americas for their king and queen thought zinnias were ugly, so they called them mal de ojos (evil eyes). How's that for the pot calling the kettle black?
Interesting tidbit: When I Googled mal de ojos I found a downloadable font called mal de ojo, which is type scanned from old letterpressed Mexican religious pamphlets. Fascinating. Oh! By the way, back in Roman times a charm to ward off the evil eye '. . . was called fascinum in Latin, from the verb fascinare (the origin of the English word "to fascinate"), "to cast a spell", such as that of the evil eye' (from the site linked in 'Here,' below).
I realized when we lived in İstanbul that I could be considered to have the evil eye because my eyes are green. Here is a very thorough account of the history of the evil eye.
Post a Comment