Mythology of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Kudretfenjeri


It is believed that these are the ghosts of dead Muslim soldiers who usually appear in the form of mysterious lights at abandoned cemeteries, ruins of old houses or military fortresses and even sometimes forests. It is believed that these soldiers were buried in Christian cemeteries and now they are wondering in search of a Muslim cemetery.

Three suns and a dragon


According to folk belief of the Bosnian people when the Earth was created there were three suns until one day a giant dragon swallowed up two and the third one was saved by a swallow. But, the dragon is immortal and he lives in the large sea in the east. Every morning when the sun appears the dragon opens his mouth and flies towards it, however he is prevented by an angel that strikes the dragon in the mouth with a thunder bolt and the dragon returns back into the sea. As soon as the dragon recovers he flies out of the sea and blows in the direction of the sun and then a wind is created form the mist and is dispersed all around the world.

Sick demons


Tvora: An evil spirit of diseases which attacks the patient and burdens his psyche with various nightmares and horrible appearances.

Činilica: An evil spirit that caused a lot of anxiety and fear in the patient's soul, so that the patient thought that all the evil of the spiritual world has entered him.

Otrovnica: An evil spirit that would poison the patient's blood until he would finally die exhausted.


Krvopilica: An evil spirit that would drink the patient's blood all night until it would completely drain the patient of his power.

Mraza: An evil spirit of hatred and disputes, he took away love and unity from people, and he made them fight one another.

Prikaze: Are evil spirits that appear to people only at night in various forms, mostly as cats, rabbits, goats, dogs. It is believed that whoever sees a Prikaza he will get seriously ill or die in a short time.

Bosniak women - the women that gave birth to dragons


One of the most mysterious Bosnian traditions is the one about the birth of snijet. Tabooed and of a holly status, this tradition existed in Bosnia for centuries, until today where it only exists in stories and sayings of older women. Some of them claim that they themselves gave birth to snijet or dragons.

The beginning of this tradition should be sought in the forefathers of the Bosnians, the ancient Illyrians who saw the snake i.e. dragon as a central animal of their national and also religious cult. In favour of this the ethnological records can be found among the Bosnians living in Montenegro and Albanians on Kosovo and Albania, lands that once made up the vast Illyrian empire. We also need to mention another tradition which is specifically connected to the Bosnian people and that is the one that mentions snakes entering and living inside humans who happened to fall asleep outside, in the field or under a tree. This clearly points to the ancient belief that snakes or dragons are directly connected to people and that physical permeations and mergers are possible.


Mola hydatidosa or infanticide


The legend about dragons and their descendants which is called among the Bosnian folk snijet are an inalienable part of the fascinating world of mythology of this country which sometimes seems so real and tangible as in this sense. A long time before the twentieth century, when the ethnologists started gathering ethnological data around Bosnia and Herzegovina, among the Bosnian folk one could hear, through an oral tradition, a story that a woman gave birth to a snijet, a mysterious creature which was considered to be a baby dragon. Since the ethnologists never saw a birth of a snijet they concluded that this is a phenomenon which is called hydatidosa in medicine, a disease of the placenta where there are degenerative and proliferative process's in the placenta, specifically in the part that stems from the fetus.

However the medical explanation doesn't mention the possibility of mola hydatidosa and the child being born together or the possibility that the embryo develops into a fetus inside the diseased placenta. The same way, when we look at the pictures of mola hydatidosa from a layman's perspective, we quickly ascertain that the appearance and description of that disease have nothing in common with the claims made by the ethnologists during their field work. The only similarities to the medical claims are the accompanying symptoms of profuse bleeding after birth of the snijet, yet that phenomenon is common for most normal births, especially those in the past. Namely, up until the last few decades of the past century, most childbirths were done at home, individually or in the company of an experienced woman which is called a midwife, far from the hospital and the doctor.

In such completely unprofessional conditions the tradition about the snijet was misused and women and girls used it to hide abortions or the birth of deformed, retarded or extramarital children which they would kills right after birth. Since the snijet has been tabooed from its beginnings each infanticide went unpunished. If someone showed some interest for the childbirth the midwife would claim that "she had a snijet!" and that would stop any further discussion.


But, such criminal behaviour and attitude recorded in isolated cases is not a justified reason to cease the investigation about the snijet. Especially since the author of this text had the opportunity to meet an old lady who vividly described her experience of giving birth to a snijet, which leaves little room for doubt.



God's punishment or blessing?


The ethnologists equated the word snijet to Ustilago maydis, because of the appearance, white colour and shaped like a corn parasite. However, in some places there is a different opinion based on the white colour of the placenta which uncommonly resembles an egg shell. The women usually described snijeti jaje i.e. carry down an egg. With this interpretation we are getting close to the mythological theory of the birth of a dragon, for which many legends claim that he actually came from a large egg.

There are a few versions of how a snijet is brought to this world. According to one of them if the woman has intercourse during her menstrual cycle, and a child is conceived, God will punish her for that blasphemy and she will give birth to a monstrous creation known as snijet. In the second version the woman is impregnated by a dragon, when he sees her resting somewhere in the field after work or when he visits her while she is sleeping. In a few ethnological publications we come across a few contradictions when it comes to the birth of snijet, namely, while some parts of BIH experience snijet as God's punishment, others don't see anything bad in it and claim that each Bosnian woman has given birth to snijet at least once in her life.

A woman can be pregnant with both a child and a snijet, which has catastrophic consequences for the fetus. There were cases that a woman gives birth to a child with a dead snijet on its head, after which the child would also die soon after. In the same way, if both are born alive, the folk belief is, that the child will die when the snijet is killed or when it dies.

The dread that a woman will give birth to a snijet appeared if the birth process took longer than usual. According to folk belief, snijet is delivered much harder than a normal child, the woman bleeds profusely and recovers slowly. Influencing the woman's psychological state depended on the climate, especially if she gave birth to a dead child. If the woman who gave birth to a snijet belonged to the part of the country that thought it was punishment from God, she would go into deep depression and psychological crisis, spending most of her days in bed. However if her surrounding saw snijet as a good thing (sevap) then her recovery would be much faster and her psychological state stable.

Snijet can be born along a child or by itself. If that happens in most cases the baby would be born dead or would die soon after birth. There were cases when the child survived but that happened only if the snijet didn't come to life inside the woman's womb. When the snijet is alive inside the womb, it then attacks the child and eats it, that's why the child is born with a deformity or disease. Apparently, the snijet bites and eats the child's head, arm, leg or bites it on its back "and eats its entire lungs while it is still in the mother's womb".

According to the confessions of women that gave birth to a snijet or that witnessed such an event, the child leaves the woman's body first followed by a snijet. Each woman, no matter the geographical location inside Bosnia, describe the snijet identically: "Snijet resembles a mole, it's the same colour and size, except it doesn't have any hair" or "Snijet mostly resembles a mole, it's black, has no hair on it, but everything else resembles a mole, the nose, body and legs". This description is also interesting: "it looks like a black piece of liver that has skin".

Escape from the mother


As mentioned earlier, snijet can be born by itself, or with a child, in a white placenta. If the pregnant woman is only carrying snijet in her womb, then her pregnancy doesn't last for nine months, but three to four. But, nevertheless, all through that short pregnancy she feels standard accompanying symptoms which are similar during normal pregnancy.

In most cases snijet was born alive and as soon as it came out of the woman, it showed strength and a developed instinct for survival, because according to the testimony of numerous women, "the moment it comes out it runs away from people, you can't catch it, it runs like a mouse and climbs walls". If the pregnant woman would give birth by herself, without anyone's help, which was frequent in the past, then the snijet escaped without much problems and later it transformed into a dragon.

According to the statement of an old lady from Žepa, who gave birth to two snijet besides her eleven children, sevap (good thing) is when someone gives birth to a snijet "it's as if the woman gave birth to two healthy children". The same lady said the following: "a woman who gives birth to a snijet three times, has all of her sins forgiven and after death she will go straight to heaven, that proves how happy God is when a snijet is born!"

Even though the birth of a snijet was tabooed for fear of judgement or ridicule of the environment, it was treated with respect, besides the fact it was killed, which can be seen in the fact that it was forbidden to throw a dead snijet into the garbage can, one needed to bury it wrapped in a cloth together with the placenta, under a young tree or farmyard manure. Behind such a rule one can see the human fear of a dragon retaliation because of the death of its cubs, therefore the wrapping inside a cloth and burying needed to hide such a deed.

How plague looks like

Plague, as people across Bosnia say, tall and skinny woman. She is dressed in a long white dress, which was loosely encircled with a rope. But not all plague is in white, it is different according to which religion it belongs. Muslim plague is clad in green, Christian in white, Jewish in yellow and Gypsy in gray, but no matter whose she is she carries a broom in her hands and if she waves it in front of someone’s house, that person will soon die. She usually travels at night, when the wind blows softly. And where she enters a house, then she cleans the hearth with the broom which is a sign that all inhabitants will fall ill. She likes to peak through the window, when the family is having dinner, she laughs and goes somewhere else, but she never pillages, unless god tells her to.

Four holly books


In folk stories about four Indžil, holly books, it was claimed that they came from the sky. In all of those books Allah wrote the first prayer, and God’s messengers continued. One of Indžil, the first one was written by Adam, and they say that it is as old as Earth itself. It is the oldest of them all. As the story further claims, Adam when he could no longer write due to his old age, an angle held his hand so he could continue. Half of this Indžil was carried away by angels, “and it was very big, so big that not all people from earth could move it”. Adam restlessly continued writing, without taking a break, and as the story claims, he wrote it his entire life. The second holly book is from Moses. It is not as old nor as big as the one from Adam. Third book was written by Jesus. Fourth by Muhammad and he said that holly books will no longer be written, since in his book everything is contained, since the creation of the world and until judgment day.

How nature and herbs came to be


On one opportunity when Muhammad travelled, he was covered in sweat from the long journey, and from him his sweat dropped onto the earth. Where ever a drop from his forehead touched the earth a flower would grow. Sweat from other body parts that fell onto the ground became herbs that cured various illnesses. Bosnian people claim that among the first herbs to grow were dwarf elder, rue, alecost, basil and others. From the sweat which fell from his neck and hands small and large trees would grow. From the sweat from his the body of his horse made the hills, rocks and mountains grow.

How the snake saved all life


From the old days among the Bosnian people the snake was considered to be a saviour of mankind, which is proven by this short story. During distressful times, when general floods raged and everything hid in Noah’s ark, days and nights passed in fear for the future. Even the wild beasts were so frightened that they didn’t even think about hurting one another, their cruelty disappeared and all souls thought alike – hope in salvation. But, only one animal among all didn’t feel fear nor hope, it was ruled by evil and selfishness. It was a mouse. Being led solely by his own desires and needs the mouse started nibbling the bottom of the ark, not thinking that he is endangering everyone on it. Luckily, the snake saw him at the last moment, realising what disaster may strike the snake leaped, swallowed the mouse and curled at the place where he nibbled the wood, in order to stop the water from breaking in. Since then, in Velika Kladuša it is believed that it is not a sin to kill a mouse even from a prayer mat, while praying to god.

Snake-girl


There is an interesting legend among people from Velika Kladuša about a buried treasure in the settlement of Rudnik, which is allegedly guarded for centuries by an immortal giant snake. This legend begins like this: during the time of the Roman occupation of the Illyricum in the area of today’s Velika Kladuša a Japodean family lived there – a father with seven sons and a daughter. Their lives were full of everyday chores and work until one day out of wrath and boredom the brothers placed a piece of bread on a large stone and they competed who will be the first to hit it with a spear. Horrified by this sacrilege the father tried to reason with them not to do it, but young and willing to prove themselves, the son’s didn’t listen to him, until the moment something happened which scared them – blood started to flow from the bread. Seeing this, the father wept in a desperate voice, holding his head and gazing towards the sky:

-You spilled blood! The Gods will curse you and punish for your craziness, the scared, poor man repeated.

Not long after that incident the weeping father died and the son’s one by one left the home without a trace. The only one that was in the deserted house was the daughter, since she couldn’t find the strength to leave the graves of her parents. In her sorrow and loneliness the wrath of gods hit her though she was innocent, and she was turned into a giant snake. In that form she was given a task to guard their gold and precious stones in a deep hole in the ground, until the moment someone strong and brave appears and stands in front of her and allows her to kiss him in the forehead, between the eyes.

A lot of time has passed since then, a lot of centuries, but the memory of the curse of the Illyrian gods and the large snake-girl, guardian of the unseen treasure, stayed in the legend which the old people from Kladuša transferred from one generation to the next to the young, warning them to respect the bread which feeds them. The legend in long winter nights woke up a desire among the young to be brave enough to stand in front of the giant snake, so that she may kiss them, which means that they would be immensely rich and that they would get a loving wife Every spring around the Mijene (May 6th) the giant snake-girl would exit at dawn from the depths of the earth and she would wallow in a sad voice.

-Oh, help! Are there any males, Muslim or Christian, to come to me, to allow me to kiss him between the eyes so that I may be a wife or sister. I will give him all the gold!

Everyone knew about her lament but rare were those which dared to head towards her, they were never brave enough, and so through centuries the girl-snake had less and less hope that she will ever be free of the horrible curse.

Persuaded by a stravarka a poor lad decided to head to the snake, around a hundred years ago. He waited patiently for the phase and one night, before dawn, he headed towards Rudnik, threading carefully through the forest. During the road he consoled himself that poor as he is he has nothing to lose even if the plan goes wrong. Suddenly in the darkness he heard a sorrowful female voice how it pleadingly called for a brave human heart to come and save her. He carefully came to the place where he heard the voice and suddenly a silence befell him, he stood, scared waiting to see what would happen. Suddenly in the darkness two eyes shined and the head and entire body of the giant snake appeared, such that the human eye has never seen. Frozen out of fear the young man watched the giant snake approach him looking into his eyes. At the moment when the snake was close to his head his bravery gave up on him completely, he pushed her away and started running as far as his legs could take him. The snake looked at him sadly and uttered:

-May you suffer as I do, may you die when I cannot!

Uttering that curse she disappeared in the darkness, receding into its lair. Soon the boy died and no one knew of what. From that time no one heard that sad cry of the snake-girl.

People and angels


Fascination produced by the emergence of a new life always inspired human imagination and created in such a way imposing legends and stories. Among the Bosnian folk we come across a whole spectre of traditional beliefs which were first of all based on mythology and which in a sense reveal divine origin of humans.

To a woman giving birth, according to legends, all bones in her body separate except the ones in the jaw, because without them the child wouldn't be able to exit her. Because of such a state she needs to rest for a full 40 days after birth, in order for her body to completely cleanse and regenerate. Besides, a young mother is then "weak as a bird on a branch" and is exposed as her child, to demon attacks which resist creation of new life.

Even in traditional belief about dangers which prey on a young mother, and especially her child, we glimpse divine status of a pregnant woman, which is creating new life in her womb, as well as the supernatural origin of life. Invisible beings and apparitions such as demons, faeries, witches, spellbound eyes, which represent threats, can be easily brought to the same level as the child which decided to join the world of humans from their world of darkness, concealed from human eyes. This procedure probably creates a feeling of anger and revolt and that's why they are trying to hurt it.

Before a child exits, angels promise to hand over senet to him, i.e. written confirmation that he will never die, he will remain immortal, since without it he wouldn't leave his mother's womb. But, during the moments the child is exiting angels suddenly strip him of senet and that's why the child is crying, since it became aware that it is no longer immortal.

A woman which dies during childbirth goes, according to belief, straight to heaven while if the child dies, without tasting her mother's milk, it will become a winged angel. Deceased children in mythology of Bosnia and Herzegovina are turned into mysterious night birds which are called Plačo or Meknjača. Actually, we could conclude that all the pain the mother feels is transformed into the concept of the bird, symbol of the soul, which sorrowfully calls to its mother. Sometimes, the pain of the deceased child is so great that it attracts death, therefore it is believed among the folk that once a Meknjača is heard that someone in the vicinity of it will die.

It is claimed that the children are like angels until they open their mouth to speak. They lose that lovely characteristic as soon as they can talk since then they can utter both the bad with the good words. But, as the legend from Bosnian mythology claims angels never leave a humans side. Namely, every human has two angels; one is sitting on his right shoulder and the other on his left one. The one on the right shoulder is writing down his good deeds, and the one on his left his bad deeds. Similarly, angels take care of the human and protect him from evil. Folk song narrates that a father threw down the tower his wrongfully accused daughter, three times, to see if she did wrong, but every time she was saved by her angels and nothing bad happened to her:

He took Tidža by her white hand,

and threw her down the tall tower,

Hatidža was saved by angels

She didn't break her hands nor legs.

Legends say that in the ancient history children, just like animal cubs, could walk as soon as they were born. The same thing would be taking place today, the legend claims, if it wasn't for one instance where a scared mother wept and complained when she saw that her child had fallen to the ground. From that day on, God decreed that children won't be able to walk as soon as they are born but that they will have to learn how to walk.

Illyrian legends


Mythological involvement of the snake in the cult of fertility is evident through ancient Illyrian legends, with whose analysis we can discern in greater detail the connection of the snake with other elements of this cult, especially wheat. In the book "Ancient pledged monuments on the locality of BiH" (1977), author Enver Imamović mentions an interesting piece of information about the connection of wheat and a female deity: "For example, in Herodotus we find data about a female deity among Paionians which are identified with the Greek Artemisia. Illyrian women sacrifice wheat straw to her". Artemisia is known as the goddess of hunting, nature and animals, all things that Illyrians ascribed to the goddess Tana. With this data we are closer to the conclusion that Tana is behind the Great Mother, often times depicted on reliefs and monuments alongside god Vidasus. Wheat plays a pronounced role in the cult of fertility and the act of offering of wheat to the goddess has the goal of securing her grace and successful harvest. Dominant symbol of the one that gives life, first deity in human history, for the Illyrians wheat represented the biggest sanctity but also ancient sin.

During the time of the Roman's i.e. Roman occupation there was a father with seven sons and one daughter in Illirika. At one opportunity the sons out of boredom and wanton took the bread out of the house, placed it on a larger stone and used it for target practice with spears. The father was unaware of their actions, but hearing their laughter he decided to see what was going on. At the same time, while the father was exiting the house, the spear of one of the sons hit the bread, and to everyone's surprise, blood started to flow out of it. Seeing this the father yelled at his boys, asking what they have done, because now they caused the wrath of gods, which will punish them surely. Punishment is ruthless since god's sentence sons to banishment and they have to leave the home, parting on all four sides of the globe, and the only ones left are the father and his daughter. Soon the father died out of great sorrow for his sons. The girl wept and mourned since she was the only one left in the house. The god's decided to turn her into a huge snake which will guard treasure in a deep cave and each year, during spring, she would go out onto the daylight, to have a chance to meet a hero, whose courage will be so great that he will kiss her between the eyes. If he performs this feat he will receive the treasure and the girl as his wife.

Besides being interesting, the legend reveals some historical facts such as sons leaving the home for such a long time that their father didn't live to see them return. Namely, after a long Illyrian uprising against the Romans, the occupying forces decided to send Illyrian men to the boarders of the Roman empire where they would serve the army for twenty or thirty years, after which they will be allowed to return home, if they survive. Sorrow and loneliness of the girl and her transformation into a snake, symbol of fertility, similarly speak of girls which couldn't get married and achieve motherhood because of the lack of men. But, more than that, the appearance of the snake in spring hints to awakening of fertility in nature, regeneration of the eternal cycle of new birth, and throughout the entire content of the myth, we have a few crucial elements which mutually agree and complement each other: young men, whose sexual power is represented by a spear - phallus, and bread the symbol of the Grand Mother, i.e. virgin, which is being penetrated by a spear, act of defloration. We shouldn't leave out the meaning of number 9 (seven sons, father and daughter) which is the number of the Grand Mother, with which this legend represents one of the oldest Illyrian legends which remained in the collective conscience of our people. Also, bread placed on the stone and punctured with a spear could represent a type of sacrifice to Illyrian gods before the men leave for war.

In another Illyrian legend there is talk of a time of wellbeing, when the people lived in times of plentiful food; the people developed hubris and became ungrateful. In their arrogance they made shoes out of bread which angered the gods and they punished them with a period of hunger and poverty.

In this legend also we notice historical sequences about a period of peace i.e. wellbeing and a period of war (hunger), which are always connected with god's of fertility, which is understandable if we take into consideration the fact that survivability of people depended on their fertility from the beginning of times. That's why in traditional Bosnian belief we come across numerous taboos tied to bread;

it's a large sin to trample bread crumbs;

bread shouldn't be turned upside down on the table;

you shouldn't walk down the street and eat bread.

Hearth as the centre of a household and a place where bread was baked is holly and it is forbidden to thread on it, i.e. undertake blasphemy.

Not even rain was allowed to fall on the hearth that's why the dormers was closed every night, otherwise an owl could fly inside the house, personification of death in ancient beliefs of our people. Namely, if an owl enters the house through a dormer, the entire family will die.

One even swears on bread, namely, if it so happens that a person is talking while eating and holding bread in his hand he would utter: "It was like that, I swear by this nimet (bread)!"

Bogomil demon of disease


One of the grand authorities of Bogomil religion is a priest called Jeremiah (Jeremija), for which many historians presumed that he could have been the famed Bogomil preiest, founder of Bogomilsm. But, what is certain is that Jeremiah was indeed a Bogomil, and this was confirmed to us by Atanasij, a Jerusalem monk. Without a doubt, we are talking about a very interesting historical person, an extraordinary mind and the biggest religious authority in this part of Europe and we could easily call him the Balkan Zarathustra. Jeremiah is credited with authorship over a number of popular, but forbidden works, but today it is obvious that many of those books had other Bogomil authors.

In Russia all those books were called by a collective name "Bulgarian basma (spell)" and they were extremely popular among the folk, which can also be discerned from the inscriptions of the Belarus translation by Iohannes Damascenus from the 16th century, in which the translator complains: "We haven't even translated the tenth honourable book of our teachers, because of the laziness and neglect of our nobility; and additionally the so called teachers of our century are entertained by Bulgarian basma, Bulgarian magical formulas, or better to say, old wives foolery, they read these things and laud them".

That the Bogomil religion left a deep trace in Bosnian tradition is evident from numerous examples, and some can be found through this analysis. By investigating available data about Jeremiah and his books I discovered another Bogomil belief in Bosnia about the demons of disease. Namely, the Bulgarian folk believed in a type of dangerous witches, or better to say, female demons which attack humans in various ways. They were called Tresavice. According to the writing of Jeremiah they were daughters of Irud and they were seven in number. Among the Russians, which latter took this belief, those demons were 12 in total.

In the Russian version of Jeremiah's exorcist formula (basma) this text is mentioned: "There is a stone pillar in the red sea (in the original basma: Mount Sinai), apostle Sisinij sits on the pillar and observes how the sea has been agitated and how it rises up to the sky and twelve long haired women are coming out of it (in the original: seven). Those women said: We are Tresavice, daughters of the king Irod". Holly Sisinij asked them: "cursed devils, why did you come here?" They replied: "We came to torture the human kind; whomever interests us we will follow and torture him: who oversleeps the morning prayer, doesn't pray to God, doesn't respect holidays and eats and drinks early in the morning, he is our favourite! Holly Sisinij prayed to god: God, God! Save the human race from these damned devils. Christ sent him two angels, Sihail and Anos and four evangelists. They started beating the Tresavice with four iron rods, causing them three thousand wounds a day." In the rest of the basma the tortured demons revealed their names and ways in which they torture people: Treseja, Ognjeja, Ledeja, Gnjeteja, Ginuša, Gluheja, Lomeja, Puhnjeja, Žuteja, Krkuša, Gledeja and Neveja.

But, in contrast to Russian, Bosnian folk medicine mentions a total of seven female demons: Mraza, Tvora, Otrovnica, Činilica, Krvopilica, Strava and Mora, of which, each in their own way tortures a man. However, only a few exorcist formulas were kept about a few demons such as the ones against Mora or Strava, while for others, for now, I didn't manage to find any valid data.



Nežit or poganica



Nežit is also another type of dangerous demon of disease against which the Bogomil priest Jeremiah revealed exorcist formulas through which he emphasizes the dualistic battle of good and evil, with the goal of releasing the human body i.e. healing. One of those formulas reads:

Nežit went from the dry sea, while Jesus went from the sky, they met and Jesus told him: "where are you going, Nežit? Nežit replied: "Sir, I'm going into a human's head, to drink his brain, brake his jaw, bite his teeth, bend his neck and deafen his ears, blind his eyes, stuff his nose, spill his blood. Jesus told him: "go back, Nežit, into a desolate valley and desert, find a deer head and move into it, etc."

After the basma has been uttered one would continue with the religious prayers until all the negative effects of this demon has disappeared. As we can see from the above text of the basma, the meeting between Jesus and Nežit is described, where the demon reveals ways in which he will torture humans, while Jesus discourages him and tells him to inhabit a deer's head, etc. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, and in all places where Bogumils lived, the belief in Nežit has been preserved, over time Nežit was beginning to be called poganica, we will discuss this later.

Nežit or Poganica - demon disease

According to etymology the name nežit and poganica have an interesting origin. Nežit is a term which comes from the term "neither alive nor dead", because of the state the person is in which is afflicted by this disease, while poganica comes from the term pogan(sordid) or unclean, or even pagan, i.e. we could look for the origin of poganica in the demons function from the ancient times, which the demon actually represents, namely an evil spirit which in some ancient time in the religious history of our region, represented one of the numerous dieties. Undeniably the belief in nežit was present in each territory where at some period during the middle ages Bogomils lived or even if their religion was present in that area. Therefore, for example, in Herzegovina and a part of Dalmatia, it was believed that this disease appears mostly through unexpected pain in human limbs, while there is no visible wound. If the diseased feels weakness and dizziness, the diagnosis is, without a doubt, poganica.

Folk belief from all parts of BiH coincide in the belief that poganica manifests in a mysterious and secret way, usually as a manifestation of spellbound eyes, evil gaze, black magic or by a person accidentally "stepping" on it. During one of the enumerated extreme cases an evil spirit of disease enters into a human and "through blood" attacks the person, or better to say, "travels" through the body, which is identical to folk description of how poganica can appear on any place on the body. That's why, similarly, it is believed that poganica originates from a hematoma, place where "blood has gathered".

According to some specific symptoms, poganica can even be characterized as an imaginary illness, since it is demonstrated by a weird, even phantom pain, which suddenly and unexpectedly appears. But, in order to remove the veil of mysticism, we need to studiously fathom in all it represents in folk medicine, how it is detected and cured. According to the symptoms which follow poganica has the most congruence with rheumatism (Rheumatismus) and gout (Greek, ostealgia), since it is manifested in acute pain, usually in the bones of the arms and legs, neck but also the head.

What is interesting to mention is the fact that poganica is sometimes used to name diseases for which people cannot find an obvious and visible cause. In Bosnia, since the old days, it is claimed that one disease, if treated on time, carries with it another, often more dangerous, disease. A classic example can be found, in the traditional fear that individual wounds on the child's body won't become inflamed and result in two inflammations, or more often, that a hematoma (uboj) doesn't transform into a poganica. This archaic belief is the product of mythological belief of pagan Bosnia when the belief that wounds on human bodies, especially ones that have blood oozing out of them, attract evil spirits of disease and stimulate them to attack the diseased through them.

Kučibaba or Baba kukača


Among the Bosnian Catholics and Orthodox there is a belief in a grandma with a hook, which is called kučibaba or grandma kukača. This mythological being was used to scare little children to prevent them from approaching a well or the bank of a river since they could be caught by the grandma with her hook and they could be pulled towards her.

Behind the name kučibaba a Russian female demon is hidden called Baba Jaga, which is among the Russians identified as a cannibal witch since she feeds off the flesh of children which she catches and kills. In certain legends it is considered that she is the protector of streams and running water, which is why she is connected with streams and water in general in stories of Bosnian Catholic and Orthodox Christians.

Though the belief in kučibaba (Baba Jagi) is not present among Bosniaks, it is interesting to note that they told stories of Grandpa and Grandma (Did i Baba) to their children, Bogomil priest and his wife, in the form of humorous stories. Therefore extremely popular were the stories of the Grandpa sending the Grandma to the stream to get some water in a griddle and the Grandma cooked a bitch instead of a chicken out of revenge, etc. Such stories stemmed from the middle ages and as we can see they were transferred generation through generation.

Two angels of the afterlife

As Antun Hangi wrote in his anthological edition about the tradition and life of Bosnian people after funeral, when the gathered people leave the cemetery, i.e. move 40 steps from the grave, Suvaldžije or Suradžije come to the deceased to prepare suval for him, i.e. ask him about his earthly life. When Suradžije come the deceased comes to life, but not in the form that he lived on earth, he is in some hypnotic state, from which he will answer all the questions that will be posed to him. According to Bosnian mythology, Suvaldžije are two angels which are called Munkir and Nekir. They're in charge of asking certain questions based on which the decision if the soul will go to heaven or hell will be made. First questions to which the deceased will answer are: "Who is your God?". He will reply: "My God is Allah". Then comes the second question: "What is qibla to you?" - "Qibla is my Mecca". "Who is God's messenger?" - "God's messenger is Muhammad". The questioning doesn't end, then comes the second round of mysterious questions about which people know nothing about. But we can presume that they are tied to the character and good deeds. If the deceased was a good Muslim, i.e. if he was a true believer and if he followed the rules of the religion and abided by them, he will then answer positively and quickly to all questions. The result in the end will be that Suvaldžija will take his soul to heaven. After his soul has been taken to heaven, his grave will be widened so that his body doesn't suffer, since the body of the just will not see judgment day. If the deceased was not a real Muslim and he hasn't died in god's grace and the real fate which was revealed by Muhammad, he cannot then reply to all the questions, and his soul will be taken by Suvaldžija and thrown into hell, which the deceased earned with his inadequate life and character.

Zduhači or Stuhe


The wealth of Bosnian mythology is certainly reflected in numerous names for various beings from the folklore such as guzenzuba, previdi, more, leptirice, plakavac, div, buka, kučibaba, kamenica... Though Bosnia and Herzegovina is a relatively small country often a few names signify one mythological being such as bird-child soul called Plačo, Plakavac, Buka, Meknjača, or for example name for a witch: leptirica, naletnica, sihirbaza, guzenzuba, etc.

Certain mythological beings are tied to geographically small areas such as kamenica and are therefore relatively unknown or there is only mention of them in folk stories. Such is the case with divovi (giants) which among the Bosnian people exist solely in folk tales and stories (Folk short stories, author Munib Maglajić, Esma Smailbegović, Svjetlost, 1978) where cannibals are described while in folklore there is no mention of any memorable giants or a belief about them.

But, when we talk about stuhe or zduhači it is very interesting to mention the data that in BiH, where we come across a widespread belief in stuhe or zduhače, together with border territories of Montenegro, Serbia and Croatia, we can find tombstones. This information is very important since it leads to a conclusion that stuhe or zduhači were probably guardians of tombstones, which was modified after the Middle ages into the belief that stuhe are guardians of a place. In the parts of Bosnia where there are no findings of tombstones there is no mention of stuhe nor mention of a local zduhač, no matter the religious affiliation.

Karanđoloz and Psoglav


Three demonic beings which were used to scare people are karanđoloz, kučibaba and psoglav. Karanđoloz is a dark demon from the Turkish folklore about which there is a belief in Bulgaria, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is believed that he wears an iron shirt and that he smells horribly. Karanđoloz has a habit of jumping on one's back at an intersection in order to be carried around. He is a nocturnal being and appears only then.

Psoglav (doghead) is a mythological being of Bosnian Orthodox which stems from Russia. It is described as a human being with legs of a horse and the head of a dog. It has teeth of steel and an eye on the middle of the forehead. It is used to scare disobedient children.

Aždaha

Another mythological being about which there are a lot of stories and beliefs in Bosnia is Aždaha which is described by people to be fat and round as a stump, it can devour a goat, has no wings and can be heard when an hour away. "Wherever it comes it will create havoc or evil". According to mythology aždaha which devoured the sun was called Sap. A long time ago there were three suns in the sky and the aždahe which lived in the lake ate two and cut into the third one. People shot cannons at them in vain. Then a gypsy came and said: "Don't do it like that, slaughter a hundred sheep, skin them, fill them with plaster and throw them into the lake in order for aždaha to come out." When they threw plaster the aždahe thought it was a sheep, they ate them and died.

Living dead - lampiri


Vampire is a Bulgarian word, which comes from north Turkish word upir. That's why there is a logical question - did the belief in vampires even exist before the advent of the Ottomans to the Balkans?! According to the available data we can conclude that such mythological beliefs in the territory of the Balkans did not exist until the Ottomans came, which confirmed by the issue "Karadžić svesci" from 1900 where folk tales are described about how Muhammad became a vampire since "the Turks took care that no one leapt over Muhammad and not if someone stole him, since they believed in vampires".

The first known vampire in the Balkans is the one from Istra, Jure Grando, whose existence was documented in 1689. Jure Grando from a place Kringa, not far from Pazin, died in 1656 when Stipan Milašić decapitated him with an axe. There are testimonies about Jure the vampire in the work "Slava vojvodine Kranjske" from the Slovenian historian Janez Vajkarda Valvazor (Johann Weikhard von Valvasor).

Among the Bosnian people, both in BiH and Sandžak (Sanjak), the most widespread name for a vampire is lampir. According to etymology the name lampir stems from the folk name for a butterfly - lepir, lampijer, which is confirmed by the Bosnian belief that the vampire exits the grave through a small hole in the ground in the shape of a butterfly. In Serbia and Montenegro lampir is often called ukolak, which is why in some places in Bosnia we come across the name vukodlak (werewolf), though he has no real connection with the lampir.

Prevalent opinion about the lampir among the Bosnian folk is animistic i.e. it is a "rogue spirit" of a man who died i.e. his spirit mysteriously received such power that even without a soul it can temporarily resurrect a dead body:

-"But, in order to die we must be born, feel life for at least a moment, in order for our spirit and soul to achieve a balance, since without this alignment with two universal principles, or with two deities of our forefathers Bogomils, we cannot enter the adventure called death. Folk wisdom claims that the spirit is the representative of the god of evil and the soul, pure and holly, it represents the god of good inside of us. While the spirit has the possibility to, usually at night while the man is sleeping, go out of the body and travel the world and also perform some weird, often bad things and bring us into various temptations, the soul is firmly fixed for the human body and there is no possibility of exiting it until death*"

Lampiri are socially aware. They know how to return to their home, make love to their spouse or disturb the neighbours by throwing rocks on their roof. Business is not strange to them, namely, "some lampir, stemming from Herzegovina, had his own store in Sarajevo where he sold all goods by a yardstick (scales), so when they pierced him in his birth place, they forcefully tried to break his store, but the store was nothing more but spider web and snowdrift. When people find out that someone in the village has become a vampire, then they make a fire on that person's grave and they sharpen a hawthorn stick to puncture the dead person's stomach. When a strong stick has been made with hammers it is bashed to bring him into the grave." In the descriptions of the treatment of the lampir among the Bosnian people we cannot but notice an almost identical treatment toward the soul and the dead which the angels Azrail and Džibril have according to Bosnian mythology:

-"Such belief confirms the belief that when the deceased is buried he is visited in the grave by angels, judges, Azrail and Džibrail. They question the deceased about his good deeds and sins, and if he is sinful they hit him and bury him into the ground. Folk claim that they can bury him up to 77 meters into the ground".**(Soul and death in Bosnian tradition, author Raif Esmerović)

Making a fire on the grave is obviously alluding to the fire from hell which swallows the souls of the evil and sinful people. It is used to scare the deceased, moreover, give him a mortal fear so that the spirit runs from the body, which will then be decapitated and made unsuitable for use by puncturing its stomach. Lampiri can be very aggressive.

According to the documented case of Ahmed Ramov Mujović from Montenegro who got into a fight with this supernatural being. Coming back home one night from ploughing, "something stopped his oxen and they couldn't move forward". Seeing this he shouted: "Please if you are ukolak, but a devil, but a human, move away, by my faith I will return again". Then he went home, took his sabre, two pistols and a rifle and returned to that place where he shouted: "Where are ye that has waited for me?" at that moment ukolak appeared. They fought until the roosters sounds were heard. Tomorrow Ahmed came back to that same spot and found out that it was a lampir. He followed the bloody trail and arrived at the yard of the family Puranović. They found him there in the grave, they burnt him with quicklime and stuck him on to a stake made out of the tree Prunus spinosa.

Dwarf Perkman

Political rise of Bosnia was followed from the first part of the XIV century by a corresponding development and progress. By expansion of the territories of medieval Bosnian state naturally the scope of trade had increased, which in its basis had the rise of production, especially mining. Bosnia was rich in ore and metal which were produced and processed in numerous places: Fojnica, Zenica, Vareš, Kakanj, Srebrenica, Foča, Banja Luka, Tuzla, Goražde, Ustikolina and Zvornik. Significant source of income for the rulers and nobility were the mines, especially of silver and lead. Migration of the Germans and the Slavs covered the continuous development of ancient mining in the late ancient and early medieval period on the territory of Bosnia. Mining still existed, but with reduced capacity on the traces of the ancient mines. A greater swing in the development of mining belongs only to the developed middle ages. The reason for these improvements is found in the fact that after the shortage of noble metals in western and middle Europe, a general search began for the metals which had its reflection also on this territory. For that purpose the German miners sasi or Saxons (German tribe) were employed, they were specialised in finding and organizing exploitation of ores. This is why Srebrenica was the homeland of the miners spirit, dwarf Perkman, north-German mythological being. Remnants of the medieval mining works for which it is believed that during their excavation the merry dwarf Perkman helped, they are visible by the promenade which leads towards the spa from the city.

Azrail


According to traditional belief the soul and body during a human's lifetime create a whole. If the soul leaves the body forever - death occurs. The body will decompose over time and disappear, it is believed that the soul is eternal and immortal. The soul cannot disappear, but over time it changes its habitat and goes to an unknown world which is called Ahiret or another world.

The soul doesn't leave the body on its own, Azrail intervenes, who in Bosnian mythology described as a skinny man with long arms and wings. Instead of nails he has claws, like a bird, which he uses to rip the soul or take it out of the body.

General belief is that the soul leaves the body slowly, since it is wrapped around every joint 99 times, it exits through the nose and mouth. Only with a man who has been hanged the soul does not exit in this manner, instead it exits through the rectum and this is why it gets dirty which makes it difficult for it to go to the next world.

The soul leaves the body from the legs towards the head. This belief has a rational interpretation since the feet and hands go blue to the deceased. On its way from the body the soul can be disturbed and confused if there is a noise and weeping inside the house that's why a general rule is that there should be peace and quiet around the deceased. Otherwise the dying shall die painfully and for a long time. It is believed that sinful people die with difficulty and suffer mightily before death. To ease the final moments the person is descended from the bed onto the ground, on a strewn carpet, while his shoes and socks should be taken off so he doesn't die with his socks on, in that case he would lose his religion. Rings are mandatorily taken off from a female in order to ease the passing of the soul.

When Azrail rips the soul from the human he carries it to the seventh heavenly floor and gives it to Allah, where it stays until judgement day. According to another belief, angel Azrail takes the soul from the body and there his job end. Separated from the soul, the soul stays there, close, for a certain period. It can follow what is going on with its body, but without any emotions since exiting the body it became free of any feelings, in the house, on the way to the cemetery and in the grave itself.

How snow came into being


In the old days the people very corrupt, they became evil and godless, when Allah saw what had happened he decided to destroy all the people that were evil. In that intent he created a huge snowball with which he intended to destroy the entire deviant people. At the moment when he raised it, Muhammad came and begged him humbly not to do it, because he could kill good men among the wicked. That's why snow falls both during summer and winter, but people can't see it always, since due to sun rays in the summer it melts and turns into air. Tow angels, as it is believed among the Bosnian folk, haven't managed to scrape half of the snow from the snowball and it will be a couple of thousand years until they finish it. According to Saliha Santara, which was recorded by Ivan Zovko, the more wicked and evil people are the snow will be more abundant during winter.

Prikaza


It is believed that when a virgin dies that she can often turn into a mystical being called Prikaza. We are talking about a luminous phenomena, which often sits next to its grave at night and weeps. To stop the innocent girl from having such a supernatural state, during her burial one should break her pinkie on the hand.

Mythology in fairy tales and folk tales


A large chunk of mythological elements of ancient Bosnian mythology is hidden in folk fairy tales which individual ethnologists have written down and stored in the annals of the Herald of the national museum in Sarajevo. Thanks to them, today we know about the goddess (female demon) of the underworld "with breasts over her shoulder and teeth large as hooks from a scale", which helps those who favour her and her three daughters, which will marry mortals, cannibalistic demon, sometimes in a form of a pig, which devours entire cities, and she is beaten by the hero "peasant" (sometimes Nasrudin-hodža (Imam)), old woman riding a goat, she lives in a house full of "children's fingers". In the surrounding area of Srebrenica fairy tales about a demon were written which turned tsar Murat into a donkey, he turned her into a magpie from which all magpies and ravens stem from; about a hero Ćelo who leaves, climbing a giant tree, for the astral world of (heavenly) demon's which pluck eyes; in legends around Bratunac there appears a "wolf shepherd", forest or mountain ghost which leads wolves and he coordinates where they will find food (master of animals).

A group of mythological beings which are particularly interesting are the "bearded men", which live in streams and "throw chains to those swimming in them". Emilian Lilek, a professor at the Grand Gymnasium in Sarajevo at the time, still in 1985 in his work Religious antiquities from Bosnia and Herzegovina, recorded a custom of "gifting the river" with food, clothes and valuables, spread both among the Christians and Muslims - which represents the remainder of the sacrificial offering to the ancient Illyrian god of streams, Bindu.

All mentioned mythological creatures and beliefs fit nicely into the narrow frame of the things familiar to us about the belief of the Illyrian-Roman inhabitants, and especially of the things which are considered as authentic work of Illyrian cults, where among other things worship of various spirits of nature which live on earth, in water and air, and special attention was paid to the cult of celestial body which is called among the Illyrian people "father", "grandfather" - sun. An interesting data is that the sun is called among the folk Zvizdan (zvizda, zvijezda-star) which alludes to the Illyrian cult of star worship as the seat of human souls. According to this data we can conclude that sun or zvizdan is considered the leader (guide, father or emperor) over other stars i.e. souls. A good example of dedication of certain places to this deity is the name of the medieval city Podzvizd in Velika Kladuša, etc.

While the sun was called the father or grandfather, the moon was called "mother" or "grandmother". In Illyrian-Bosnian legends the moon was always denoted by a female creature, Grand Mother, to which prayers were directed for the life of new-borns, and it was recorded that the Catholics in Bosnia during the appearance of a new moon fell to their knees. As Šefik Bešlagić recorded in 1982 one of the biggest scholars of Bosnian middle ages, "one of our Catholics sought advice 30 years ago from one of the priests if she could pray to the new moon" (Šefik Bešlagić, Tombstones - culture and art, IRO Veselin Masleša, Sarajevo 1982). No matter how questionable the credibility of such conclusions can be, it is pretty evident that the moon, precisely as mythological Illyrian-Pagan "sanctuary of souls", i.e. a symbol of fertility and regeneration, ended up on Bosnian-Hum medieval marbles (tombstones), in the form of crescent moon, as the most widely used astral motif.

For the most famous tombstone from Radimlja - representation of Radoja Miloradović with a lowered right hand, next to which are a bow, arrow, sword and shield and the left hand raised towards the representation of the crescent moon - is tied a folk legend from north-western Bosnia according to which in the nights of a full moon, one can see on his surface a giant figure which god punished when he raised an axe on his mother in anger. His punishment was that god killed him immediately and placed his body with the raised hand onto the surface of the moon to stay there forever as a reminder to humans (sons - males) that they need to respect their mothers (woman, goddess Grand Mother).

Among the Illyrians the moon was closely tied with the cult of the dead and therefore tombstone and legend clearly depict a picture of abandoning the earthly life and the crossing into the afterlife - moon world. However, since death is a major part of the cult of fertility, the moon besides the function of psychopomp (guide of the dead), represents fertility but also carrier of this fertility, "grandmother" i.e. woman.

This fits into the etymology (history of meaning) of the Slavic word Mjesec (moon), which comes from pre Indo-European root *med-mjeriti (measure), which entails calendar calculation of time, such as measuring pregnancy, and means that the Illyrian mythical moon, home and symbol of the divine ancestral being which controls periodic renewal, both in cosmic and celestial, plant, animal and human plan. In Bosnia, both in relief of medieval tombstones as well as saved traditions, we find valuable material for the reconstruction of Illyrian lunar myth.

A fairy tale written in the north of Bosnia in the village Debeljaci has special value, it speaks of the connection of three ancient mythological beings: "A wolf came to the shepherd Ivo and asked if he would like him to eat his sheep or him. Ivo told him that he should eat him, but only when he gets married. On the day of the marriage Ivo ran away and went to the moon's mother. She gave him a magical shawl. Running from the wolf, he came across the mother of that wolf which had an iron head. Along the way, he came across three dogs which helped him. The mother of the wolf talked Ivo into him becoming her shepherd so her son can eat him. She tricked him into leaving the dogs, but the dogs managed to save Ivo from the wolves". (Vlajko Palavestra, Radmila Fabijanić, Folk tales from Bosnia, GZM, N.S. Ethnography, sv. XIII, Sarajevo 1962, p. 163). According to that, the moon had a divine mother, sorceress which, like the goddess of the underworld, saved the ones that favour her. They are known in Bosnian mythology as fairy Zlatna and Mountain fairy. In this case, she is the ally against the demon wolf and his cunning mother (it is unclear if it is a mythological creature, demon, mother of all wolves).

It is interesting that Saint Ivan (Saint Ivo), according to the belief of Bosnian Catholics which was recorded by Ivan Zvonko, was born twice and died twice: the first time Jesus advised him to burn himself, he burned completely expect his heart which was swallowed by his mother, and becoming pregnant she gave birth to him (Ivan Zvonko, Belief from Herzegovina, in collections life and customs, book 6, p. 190 and p. 303).

Krkleri


In Sarajevo there was a belief that the one who wishes to see Dobre should go to Obhodža, on the eastern periphery of the city, or to a grave of a Šehid (martyr) or ascetic and to pray for his soul there. Then Krkleri will appear to him, forty Dobri, clad in green clothes, which, before dawn, rush one after the other to the morning prayer in the mosque.

Wild grandma


In Bosnian mythology it is believed that in every chasm in the ground a wild grandma lives who has her kitchen utensils in the underworld and that she does the jobs that women do in the real world. Legend says that a sheepherder threw a stone into a chasm in the ground and soon he heard a threatening woman's voice: "If my hand's weren't covered in flour I would come out and I would punish you!" Belief in the wild grandma is a remnant of previous beliefs in pagan Bosnia when this mythological character represented a female demon or one of the goddesses of nature which controlled weather. In favour of it speaks the belief that every wind is born out of large chasms in the ground and still today one can hear from the old Bosniaks that when there is a wind blowing one should go and place a large stone on the openining of the chasm and that the wind will stop blowing