Sweetening the Bitterest Pill
Sandra Shulman Montague
In my previous excursions among the pages of the New West End magazine I have offered you traditional Jewish advice against the Evil Eye, and other malign influences credited with inflicting illness, infertility and assorted problems. This usually required amulets bearing holy names, prayers and quasi-religious rituals, everything which would harness pure and sacred power against the demons. You might think that only threats of divine vengeance and unpleasant measures would send these unwelcome visitors packing. But converse actions were also employed and present a possible clue as where the word ‘sweetener’ has its origins. Along the Eastern Mediterranean area and spreading into Europe many of our forebears used the magic cure ‘indulco’, possibly meaning ‘sweet’ or ‘sweetening’ - a ritual to appease demons inflicting the harm, by offering sweet things. Such practices clearly acknowledged the difference between the sacred and profane. Everything pertaining to religion, including amulets with holy names, had to be removed from the place where the ceremony was performed, and the patient was forbidden to utter prayers, names of the Almighty, blessings, or passages from the Bible, or attend synagogue during this ‘cure’ period.
Instead of surrounding the sufferer with a sanctified barrier which would impede the demons’ entry, or exorcising the evil ones with holy words, an attempt was made to appeal to their sympathy and pity...qualities not easily attributable to such entities. They were to be invited in, propitiated, cajoled and entreated to return whatever they had taken from the afflicted: soul, health, fertility, sanity. Their temporary sojourn was to be made as ‘sweet’ as possible. Similar practices of appeasing what is feared and can’t be controlled are found in all ancient traditions; the Furies - those vengeful deities of Greece and Rome - were termed ‘the Kindly Ones’ as if compliments would avert the fall-out from their enmity. English folk customs include putting out a bowl of milk for ‘hobgoblins’ to prevent their mischief and encourage them to do the housework. (As television programmes warn: don’t try this at home).
A detailed description of the indulco was described by Manasseh Matlub Sithonin in ‘Gathering for the Sake of Heaven’ which appeared in Jerusalem in the 14th century. In this volume the practice is referred to by the Hebrew word ‘matoq’ - 'sweet (or ‘mittuq’ - sweetening). The author explained the indulco custom existed among the Jews in all Muslim lands, as a remedy against sickness, barrenness, miscarriage, infantile death, eye diseases, idiocy, fright, epilepsy, and a host of painful diseases. Sweeteners were of two types: ‘great’ and ‘small’.
The great indulco was no easy task, and the instructions suggest it could only be performed for the well-to-do. The entire house was to be swept and cleaned, nobody was allowed to remain in any of its rooms, the courtyard, or in neighbouring houses... or even close by. All holy writings were to be taken away including the Mezuzoth from the doors, so that the demons could feel free to come in. Only then was the sufferer brought to the house, to be left there overnight in the sole charge of the woman administering the indulco. To ensure that the demons would enter, make contact with the sick person and appear in his or her dreams the patient was warned against reciting aloud or even whispering prayers, blessings, or anything remotely sacred.
The woman performing the indulco mixed a fistful of wheat or barley with honey, and sprinkled it around the sick bed, at the four corners of the house, and on the threshold. She repeated the ritual with water and salt or sugar and milk. Afterwards she prostrated herself and in prayerful incantation implored the demons, and hairy demons (I do not know if the former were bald) to have pity and forgive the sins of the sufferer, and return soul, strength and health, or in the case of a barren woman to ‘open her womb’.
Afterwards she cracked three or four eggs, emptying their contents on to the ground, intoning, (specific details depending on the patient’s gender and condition):
The ritual was performed three times, and repeated on three nights. Some recommended up to nine sessions, as well as one at noon on a Friday. A prescribed night for the ritual was Wednesday because that was said to be the time favoured by Lilith (the particular scourge of women in childbed) and other demons for going about their evil tasks.
It appears that some believers in indulco went to excessive lengths to charm the demons, preparing a banquet as well as the ‘great’ sweet. At this all sorts of sweetmeats were on offer together with costly spices and fragrant incense. Many wax candles would be lit and the patient wore white festive clothes. As many as fifty eggs might be broken; in some cities a black cock or a lamb was slaughtered as an offering. This extraordinary feast might even be laid out at Rosh Hashonah when the patient was forbidden to attend synagogue in case the sound of the shofar confused the demon.
If illness and desperation were not the driving forces for these extravagant ceremonies we might conclude that people were anxious to prove they were wealthier and choosier than their neighbours; indulco providers might vie with each other to advertise their de luxe specialities in what was the equivalent of the social and personal pages of the day. Shame upon a family that didn’t commission the best provider on the occasion of a relative’s illness. Therefore, it is easy to understand why there also existed the small indulco, a much pared down version, for ordinary folk who couldn’t afford to empty a house and courtyard of all other people, or because their neighbours were non Jews and liable neither to co-operate nor understand. The ritual for the less well-off necessitated going to ditches, tanners’ pits and latrines - insalubrious places (likely nesting boxes for evil spirits) - or into deserted houses, and there pour out water and salt for the demons. Similar mixtures could be sprinkled on the door of a failing businessman to encourage the powers spoiling trade to help him to greater success.
Small indulco was so simple that it is easy to see how scarcely a day went by without it being performed several times over.
Nobody must think these practices were sanctioned by religious leaders - the very opposite applied. Rabbis in all Sephardi and Ashkenazi communities sternly condemned indulco, great and small, as superstitious nonsense, containing elements of idolatry. It is tempting to think these irrational beliefs disappeared in the mists of time but apparently they were alive and kicking into the 20th century, even reaching as far as Seattle. Abraham Moshe Luncz (1854-1918), a member of the small Ashkenazi community in Jerusalem and a pioneer of Palestinian studies, wrote not only about ancient indulco rituals described by Sithon, but also of those he had witnessed first hand. He mentioned a variation on indulco: indulcado, offering an additional explanation to the words: that they originally applied to deserted houses, and then assigned to the ceremony, because this involved the sufferer’s home being vacated by all other residents.
And in our technological, materialistic age, will anyone still resort to indulco, or one of its many variations?
Easy to answer: of course not; but when all that is logical and tested fails, human beings - ancient and twenty-first century - frequently turn to the unorthodox and irrational. As Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet:
By desperate appliances are reliev’d,
Or not at all.’