amuletsFigafiga

said FEE-gah

also: higa · cigua · fig hand · mano fica · manus fica · fig sign amulet

amuletIberiaBrazilRome and ItalyGreece and the AegeanPortugal Brazil Spain Italy Greece

A closed fist with the thumb pushed up between the index and middle fingers, carved small and drilled for a cord. In Asturias it is cut from jet; elsewhere from coral, silver, gold, bone or moulded resin. Worn at the neck or wrist, or pinned on a small child.

cited

Latin ficus, 'fig' — Italian far le fiche, 'to make the fig'; Spanish higa, Galician and Portuguese figa, Asturleonese cigua
Early Christians called the gesture the manus obscena, the obscene hand. Ancient Greek sykophantes, 'one who shows figs', is the root of English sycophant; the cited source gives the connection to the gesture as one explanation among several, not a settled one. cited

When

at least from the Roman period to now still carried cited

Period	Roman and Greek antiquity to the present
How the date is known	textual — a dated text describes it
Note	The cited source says the gesture has been used 'at least since the Roman Age' and separately that ancient Greeks wore amulets of it, without dating the Greek ones. -99 is a conservative marker for 'no later than the Roman period', not a first attestation.

Years are stored astronomically — 1 CE is 1, 1 BCE is 0, 500 BCE is −499 — and printed the way a reader says them. How these dates are made.

The thing itself

Form	Pendant
Made of	Jet · Red coral · Silver · Gold · Bone and ivory
Goes	At the neck · On the wrist · On a cradle
Made by	jet and coral cutters; the amulet is given, usually to a child
Colour	black · red
Retired	no — it is kept
Note	Jet in Asturias is what the cited source names; the other materials are the trade's usual range and are not individually cited there.

What its carriers say it stops

Reported, attributed, not tested here. Each row below is somebody's claim, with their name on it.

The evil eye — harm carried by a look, often an admiring one citedsaid by the ancient Greeks, who wore amulets of the gesture at the neck, and present-day wearers in Portugal, Brazil, Galicia and Asturias
Ghosts and hungry spirits citedsaid by the Roman pater familias, who made the sign during the Lemuriaagainst the spirits of the dead, specifically
Harm to a child — harm to an infant or a small child; common across the atlas, though not the largest class in it — see /story/most-of-them-are-for-children/ citedsaid by Asturian families, who give jet ones to small children
Bad luck, unspecified citedsaid by wearers in Portugal, Brazil and parts of Spain, where the sign means good luck

The story

The gesture came first and it was rude. In ancient Rome the manus fica was made by the pater familias during the Lemuria, the festival of the restless dead, to drive the dead spirits off. The ancient Greeks wore amulets of the same gesture around the neck against the evil eye and used it in their artwork: what they took to be an overtly sexual gesture was expected to distract an evil spirit from doing harm. Early Christians called it the manus obscena.

In Italy it stayed rude. Fica in mano, far le fiche, comparable to the finger; Dante puts it in Inferno, Canto XXV; medieval painters give it to the tormentors in a Man of Sorrows. The gesture there has long since fallen out of use.

What survived, and where, is the point. In Portugal, Brazil, and parts of Spain — Galicia and Asturias especially — the fig is a gesture of good luck and a ward against the evil eye, and an amulet of a hand making it is worn for exactly that. In Asturias the amulets are jet, and it is usual to give one to a young child. The same hand shape, in Britain, Ireland, France, Germany, Argentina, Uruguay and the United States, carries no charge at all and is the joke where an adult steals a child's nose.

Inference — one hand shape, running simultaneously as an obscenity in Turkey, a refusal in Poland, a sexual invitation in Denmark and a child's amulet in Asturias, is the clearest case this atlas has of a sign whose meaning is entirely local while its form is continent-wide. The eye travels with its reading attached. The fist does not.

cited

How it is made and carried

Carved from jet, coral, precious metal or bone, pierced at the wrist end, strung on a cord — red, where the tradition uses red. Given to a child rather than bought by one. No consecration is described in the source read here.

cited

Now

Sold in Portugal, Brazil, Galicia and Asturias as jewellery and as a child's charm, and made in every grade from cut jet to moulded resin. Whether the resin one does the same job as the jet one is an argument with people on both sides of it, and this atlas reports it without joining.

inference