176 Folklore of the Alge^'ian Hills and Desej-t.
unseen followers shall not only allow the wearer of the amulet to go his way unharmed, but shall assist him until he proves successful in his undertaking or overcomes the difficulties which beset him. Thus we find that the wearing of a written charm is capable of turning otherwise male- volent and aggressive Jenun into useful helpers of man- kind.
The charms themselves, which are infinite in their variety and appear to originate from the magical works of such authors as Suyuti, El Haj Tlemsani and Mohammed ben el Haj el Kebir rather than from the Koran, are naturally considered by the scribes who write them, for a fee, to be the only useful safeguard against Jenun with which man can provide himself. They are put to various uses. The majority, their characters written on paper (which it is important in some cases should not be " lined "), are worn enclosed in neat leather cases suspended from the necks of men and boys or in cases of silver, locally made, hung upon the breasts of women. But, as a cure for sore eyes, mystic words are written by a scribe upon a piece of eggshell, which is then enclosed in black rag (black being a colour distasteful to Jenun) and suspended over the affected eye from the headdress, to which it is attached by means of a penannular brooch universally worn by Algerian women, which brooch must have belonged to a deceased cousin or aunt of the sufferer and not to his or her mother or sister.
As I have pointed out in my previous paper, ^ words are written on paper in the smoke of which, when burning, a patient is fumigated as a cure for fever among the Shawiya. I learned in 1920 of a variant of this treatment from the Arabs of an oasis for the cure of influenza and sore throat.
The patient goes by night to a cemetery and opens a very old grave. This must be done with the greatest secrecy, for the desecration of a grave is regarded as a
1 Folk-Lore, xxvi. p. 250.
