That is the Little Magic Stone that protects one from the *Evil Eye*
This is a typical item, a specialty of this region you should take home as a souvenir, it’s called the Boncuk, the Little Magic Stone that protects one from the *Evil Eye* (pronounced ‘bon-dschuk’), you will see this blue glass piece everywhere here on the Aegean Coast.

But what is behind this superstition? In a shortened version we will try to explain. Once upon a time (yes, it starts like in a fairy tale) there was a rock by the sea which, even with the force of a hundred men and a lot of dynamite, couldn’t be moved or cracked. And there was also a man in this town by the sea, who was known to carry the evil eye (Nazar).

After much effort and endeavor, the town people brought the man to the rock, and the man, upon looking at the rock said, “My! What a big rock this is.” The instant he said this, there was a rip and roar and crack and instantly the immense and impossible rock was found to be cracked in two.

The force of the evil eye (or Nazar) is a widely accepted and feared random element in Turkish daily life. The word *Nazar* denotes seeing or looking and is often used in literally translated phrases such as “Nazar touched her”, in reference to a young woman, for example, who mysteriously goes blind.

Another typical scenario. A woman gives birth to a healthy child with pink cheeks, all the neighbors come and see the baby. They shower the baby with compliments, commentating especially on how healthy and chubby the baby is. After getting so much attention weeks later the baby is found dead in his crib. No explanation can be found for the death. It is ascribed to Nazar. Compliments made to a specific body part can result in Nazar.

That’s why nearly every Turkish mother fixes with a safety pin a small Boncuk on the child’s clothes. Once a Boncuk is found cracked, it means it has done his job and immediately a new one has to replace it.

Traditional popular practices such as fortune telling and fortune tellers, the reasons why people go to fortune tellers, different kinds of fortune telling such as using coffee, tea, tarot cards, playing cards etc., materials used in fortune telling, interpretation of events, interpretation of dreams, “istihare” (making a wish before sleeping) and its different varieties, practices carried out before “istihare,” making contact with supernatural beings, necromancy, mediums, reading others’ thoughts, influencing another’s faith, destiny and luck, and making wishes.

The spell can briefly be defined as the belief that nature may be affected by using supernatural powers. The first human communities took their conceptions of supernatural power from nature itself. Man possessed little infornmed knowledge of nature, even as regards the simplest subjects, and considered nature a terrifying power, which people could experience in every field of life. Eventually that power became isolated from the concept of nature itself and took on an entirely different identity. The first human beings believed that protection from this power and all its manifestations was necessary, and began conceiving of these matters as taboos.

It was believed that if a person broke a taboo, the only way he could survive was be employing a magical spell. In the first examples of spells, we find ourselves dealing with the concept of using supernatural forces to get rid of other supernatural forces. In this framework of thinking, the parts all add up to a whole, and things done to the whole also affect the component parts. This understanding is the source of the analogical spell. That is why people believe if they cast a spell on an object that belongs to someone else, that person will also be affected by the spell, or they believe that if they pour water on the ground, it will rain.

Some people believe that if an effigy is made of the person whose death is desired is made and that effigy is tortured, that will affect the person it represents in exactly the same way. This idea eventually leads to the individual being identified with the symbol. That is why the ancient Turks never referred to the wolf by its proper name, “kurt,” but used other names such as “bocu”, “boru”, “canavar”. Similar to this belief, in some parts of Anatolia people still draw circles around the places they live and accompany this with prayers, in the belief that the circle will act as a wall to protect them from wild animals.

There are different kinds of spell, which are generally divided into black and white. While white spells aim to produce beneficial results, black spells are used for evil purposes. In Turkey, spells are generally used to make a man more attached to his family or to moderate his behaviour in some way, to make someone love, to find an object which has been lost, to defeat the enemy, to create better fortune or to create a misunderstanding between two people. For instance, in order to cast a love spell, three peppers are taken, the sura Tebbet of the Koran is read out for the each seed of the peppers, although these are kept separate from one another.

After the readings have been made, the seeds are put back inside the peppers and buried in ashes. The person casting the spell hits the right wall of the house and says: Although many spells involve reading extracts from the Koran, magic is actually definitively prohibited in Islam. Spells generally frighten people, no matter whether used good or bad purposes. For this reason there are a number of means by which one can protect oneself from spells cast by someone else. These include performing ritual ablutions with water from a mill, jumping over rivers, or casting a counter-spell.

If you are traveling independently, check which dates that the museums are open to visits. Most of the museums are closed to visits at least one day a week. can be visited everyday from 9 AM to 5 PM ( this may change from summer to winter ). More on Closed days of museums

Oral tradition continues with proverbs. Considering daily life, proverbs embody the deepest feelings and beliefs of the Turkish people. They reveal a nation’s character in its finest details.

Below are some typical Turkish proverbs

– Stretch your legs to the length of your blanket. (Know your limits)
– Water priority to the youngsters, talking priority to the elders.
– Who handles honey has the chance to lick his fingers.
– When a bald man dies, everybody remembers “what golden hair he had”; when a blind man dies, they say “what beautiful eyes he had”.
– Two tightrope walkers cannot perform on the same tightrope.
– A vinegar seller with a smiling face makes more money than a honey seller with a sour face.
– The hunter may be hunted.
– You reap whatever you sow.
– A tree is bent while yet it is young.
– If God wants to make a poor man happy he first makes him lose his donkey and then allows him to find it again.
– There is nothing more expensive than what is bought cheaply and there is nothing cheaper than what is bought expensively