# The fig hand

**Mano fica*; *higa**

**Known today as.** A hand with the thumb thrust between the first two fingers, made as a gesture or carved as a charm.

Kind: Amulet

## What was it used for?

Worn and made against the evil eye, whose gaze the obscene sign was meant to catch and turn away.

## What does modern science say?

Still sold in jet at Santiago de Compostela, renamed the “figa de Compostela.”

## What lore surrounds it?

The Romans knew the gesture, as Elworthy shows, and bronze charms of the hand in this position are found in Italy; in his day a silver one was the regular christening gift hung on a Roman child’s neck. In Spain the *higa* was carved in jet; sixteenth-century guild records at Santiago de Compostela name jet figures that join the apostle and the *higa* against the evil eye, and a little jet fist, the *azabache*, is still put on Hispanic babies against the evil eye.

## What did the older authorities say?

**The Catholic Encyclopedia.** The Catholic Encyclopedia states that “the power of the evil eye (fascinatio) has been believed in for a long time, and is still dreaded in many countries,” and lists among superstitions “the evil eye, spells, incantations, ordeals.” Pliny asks in the Natural History why, “to counteract fascinations, do we Romans observe a peculiar form of adoration, in invoking the Nemesis of the Greeks; whose statue, for this reason, has been placed in the Capitol at Rome,” and says of spittle that “in a similar manner, too, we repel fascinations, and the evil presages attendant upon meeting a person who is lame in the right leg.”

## Sources

- Elworthy, F. T. (1895). *The Evil Eye*. London: John Murray.
- *The Catholic Encyclopedia* (New York, 1907–1914), “Superstition.” newadvent.org/cathen/14339a.htm
- Pliny the Elder, *Natural History* 28.5, trans. J. Bostock & H. T. Riley (1855), Perseus Digital Library.
- Pliny the Elder, *Natural History* 28.7, trans. J. Bostock & H. T. Riley (1855), Perseus Digital Library.
- Menéndez Menéndez, A. (2026). Azabache en tr nsito en el Camino de Santiago. *Eik n Imago* 15: e104319.
- Tabor, E. (2023). A Hispanic amulet against disease in infants. *Hektoen International*.

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*The fig hand.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-10-03. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/mano-fico

Historical description, not medical advice.