Deochi is a superstition of the Romanian people according to which if you admire someone too much, you can curse them, or, in a magical way, hurt them. Through a very admiring look, or on the contrary, through a look full of envy, the person looked at can be “hurt” and start to feel bad because of the “insistent” look. The curse is manifested by headaches, nausea, continuous yawning, fever in humans or unstoppable crying, which does not go away no matter what you do, in babies. What is specific to Deochi is the fact that this evil begins suddenly, without any explanation, and is quite strong – and as suddenly as it begins, it ends as suddenly once it is disenchanted. Starting a Deochi can be involuntary or intentional, but the effects are identical and proportional to the strength of envy or admiration. It is said that some people are affected by the Deochi more easily, such as babies, children and lauses. It is also said that some people have the gift of causing the Deochi more easily, with or without intention: for example, people with green or blue eyes, or people that are gifted.
To protect yourself from the Deochi, there is the custom of wearing a red string on your hand, a ribbon or a red clothing item – this red element attracts the looks, which switches the attention there, so the person escapes from Deochi . For this reason, even nowadays, many parents put a red string on their babies hand or foot (today it can also take the form of a bracelet) – so that the child is not dazzled by the admiring glances of those who see them.
Also to prevent the Deochi, when someone admires someone else a lot and is afraid that he will curse him, he can tell him “Ptiu, don’t be cursed”, “May you not be cursed” or “I’ll spit on you so you won’t be cursed” – spitting is considered to remove curses of Deochi.
If someone has been cursed, he will be told a charm of healing. There are many charms, different depending on the area and character of the man who says the charm. A very important element regarding the Deochi charm, preserved until now, is that no one can teach you the lyrics of this charm.
To work, you have to “steal” it – that is, catch the lyrics yourself when you hear someone singing. What makes this very difficult – and the reason why few people know how to tell it – is the fact that these lines are not spoken out loud by those who already know them, but are whispered, murmured quickly in the beard, making it extremely difficult to ever hear these lyrics, so that you can “steal” them and thus learn to sing. For those who do not know these verses with healing powers, the magic is to say the Our Father prayer 3 times in a row, in a whisper (the most common prayer in Christian Orthodox church). In the end, both the cursed person and the one who told them the healing charm must move from their place, leave the negative energies where they were.
An interesting element related to this spell is the yawning. There are several versions: some say that if the person who says the charm starts to yawn while telling the charm, it means that the person was truly cursed. Another version says that if the one who casts a charm begins to yawn, and the yawn is also transmitted to the one that has been cursed, it means that the charm reaches the one with Deochi and will make him well. Then, the two (or just the one who disenchanted) continue to yawn for a while, until the effect of the bewitchment passes, and therefore the bad state of the bewitched one.
In some areas, there are much more complex rituals to disenchant someone, such as putting ashes on the forehead of the cursed person, in the shape of a cross, or preparing all kinds of “potions” or mixtures, from as many different ingredients as possible and unusual ones (such as horse or cow dung, or different plants, which in some areas even the cursed must collect) to touch the respective forehead.