Retention of a Folk-Healing Practice (Matiasma) among Four Generations of Urban Greek Immigrants

Abstract

This article reports a field investigation (N = 328) of a folk-healing practice (matiasma) among a population of urban Greek immigrants in Ohio. While orthodox Western health care is used by this community, the Greek population has also retained ethnomedical beliefs and practices that differ dramatically from those of scientific health care. This study delineates specific facets of matiasma, the configuration surrounding the evil eye. By tracing the retention of knowledge and use of this configuration over a four-generation period, this paper demonstrates the importance of generation depth as a variable in transcultural nursing research.