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Raif EsmerovićCult of snake in Bosnia

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Raif EsmerovićCult of snake in Bosnia

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Raif EsmerovićCult of snake in Bosnia

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As a religious and national symbol of the Illyrians the snake was present in numerous folk beliefs andpractices around Bosnia and Herzegovina. The cult of the snake the guardian of the hearth and homeand a holly animal with which all of the Illyrian tribes identified with was so dominant in the religionof our ancestors that the arrival of Slavs and monotheism couldn't uproot it.

The belief in the snake a guardian of the house was widespread around Bosnia and Herzegovina. Itwas believed that she is inside a hole in a wall or a nearby hole in the ground from where sheprotects the inhabitants of the house. Her presence was never doubted even when none of theinhabitants have seen her. According to folk belief she was usually of a dark hue, and as a protectorof the house she was usually gifted with food placed next to the house or a hole. In such a waypeople showed devotion and gratitude. As a totem symbol she was directly connected with theowner of the house and therefore it was forbidden to kill her out of fear that the owner might alsodie or someone else from the family.

However, the in difficult times the snake could sacrifice itself to protect the inhabitants of ahousehold. Since the snake was a totem symbol from the ancient times we shouldn't be surprised bygraphical depictions through drawings on the house or tattoos on the skin. Tattooing was also aheritage from the Illyrians which was upheld by the Bosnian Catholics in the form of a tattoo of thecross on the hand but it was also noted among the Bosnian Muslims in the form of a snake. AugustinKristić in his ethnological work "From the folk medicine of Bosnia and Herzegovina" (original title:Urežnjaci iz narodnog liječenja po Bosni i Hercegovini ), mentions tattooing of the snake on the arms:"Not a lot, but on the hands of women and less in men, I came across a tattoo of a snake. By asking:"Why did you tattoo a snake?" I didn't get the same response everywhere. The Most commonanswers were: "It protects against spellbound eyes", "It brings luck", "I won't get bitten by a snake".

While among the Arab people we come across a practice of painting a hand on the walls of thehouses as a prophylactic symbol against spellbound eyes and evil in Bosnia we see carvings ordrawings of a snake. In such a manner it was clearly shown that the house was under the protectionof the snake, its guardian, which has the power to protect the entire family from the disease, evil andbad luck.

It is interesting to mention a few examples of how the snake cult adopted into Islam, the religion ofthe Bosnian people, i.e. into the representation of the religion according to the people also called"folk Islam" which is much more liberal and tolerant from the official Islam in which the old Illyrianreligion is mentioned through monotheistic tradition.

According to the tradition from Velika Kladuša, a snake saved Noah's ark and by that act the entireworld. In that legend a mouse made a hole in the bottom of the ark through which water startedcoming in. The only animal that realised what was happening was the snake, she quickly jumped onthe mouse swallowed him and curled on top of the hole and stopped the water from coming in.That's why among the folk there is a belief that it is a sin to kill a snake since it indebted the entirehuman animal species.

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A snake like the sheep can be a sacrifice to God i.e. kurban. When a house is threatened by a greatevil or bad luck, the snake (guardian) senses it and offers itself willingly as kurban (sacrifice) to savethat family. Usually in such extreme moments the snake appears in front of the enemy of that familytrying to attack him/her in order for him/her to be frightened and punished. In such events it wasoften the case that the snake died but her death according to folk belief would remove the dangerfrom the home. Uncommonly if the snake felt a great evil arrive she would attack the owner of thehouse in order that the owner can kill the snake and neutralise the danger and remove the evil fromthe house.

Bosniaks - snake people

According to Bosnian mythology the snake is the first being that God created, it appeared 40 yearsbefore the first man and animal were created. This mythological data is especially interesting fromthe aspect of perceiving numerous other beliefs and legends about the snake in BiH since it gives us abasis for understanding the entire concept of the snake cult phenomenon. We should especially notethe connection of this cult with the tradition of our people whose Illyrian genes justify denominationof Bosniaks as snake people.

Among the multitude of beliefs a legend about a giant snake stands out, this snake encircles theentire globe, forming a belt around it, which when analysed geometrically depicts a circle which has adot in the centre. In such a way we get the symbol of the sun which is inseparable from the snakecult. We shouldn't disregard the peculiarity of this transcendental myth which directs us towards amystical idea that a snake has a celestial form besides its earthly one.

Folk beliefs claim that the snake is as large as a mountain in its original form but thanks to its mysticalpowers it manages to appear in its miniature form in front of humans. It is, according to all aforesaid,a being of exceptional magical power and one of the greatest forces that exist in the universe. Thecult of mountain peaks, which certain folklorists and ethnologists hypothesised to belong to the solarcult, can be directly connected with the snake cult through simple logic and folk descriptions of thesnake as a gigantic appearance which is compared to that of a mountain. In such a manner we againconfirm the hypothesis about the inseparable connection of the sun and the snake in folk beliefs.

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Tuesday - holly day

Folklore claims that snakes live like humans: they have their families but also kingdoms andmonarchies. They always gather exclusively on Tuesdays in order to hold their meetings andagreements and at that moment, according to folk belief, there are hundreds of them on one place.Depending on the religion that they follow they have names which are identical to humans. Howwidespread this belief is still today is best shown by the statement of stravarka Alija from VelikaKladuša. On one occasion, when she went to her neighbour's house, Alija met a black snake laying onthe road and observed her. Seeing the snake on the road Alija stopped and started uttering allBosnian female names that she could think of: Mejra, Bejza, Hanifa, Fatime, Senada,. and only aftershe uttered the name Katka the snake reacted and started moving towards a nearby meadow,disappearing in the tall grass. According to Alija's belief each snake has its own name, which isidentical to a human name, and as soon as one guesses it the snake will disappear.

Even though people avoid close contact with snakes from fear of their attack we should mention thata snake bite is not seen as a large unfortunate event. Namely, it is considered to be a heavenly giftsince the person which is bitten by a snake, will according to belief, gain magical strength - it will gainthe power of the curse. Alije, which was bitten by a snake at a very young age, claimed that shepossessed the power of the curse which she never wanted to demonstrate sine "it is a great sin!".

All those Bosnian beliefs are the result of a tradition over a thousand years old, whose Illyrian originis evident in all of its parts. It is especially recognizable in beliefs tied to Tuesday - holly day of snakesbut also of Bogomils. That's why this day has a special meaning for understanding numeroussegments of Bosnia's past but also mythology. Tuesday is a holly day which is in accordance with thatmarked by various taboos, especially the ones that have to do with men, which can point to an ideaof a "female" day i.e. that in the past it was dedicated to a goddess, probably the goddess of moon.There is some evidence for this fact, namely, in Visoko it is believed that a deer fasts every Tuesdayand that it refuses to feed its young on that day. In order to understand the hidden meaning of thisbelief we need to reach out to mythology of those people which had a significant influence on ourIllyrian forefathers, and those people are the Celts.

In Celtic mythology the goddess of moon was transformed into a deer by magic and in that form sheis taking care of her son Oisin. Moon goddess is at the same time the ruler of the dead which isanalogous to the Bosnian belief that on Tuesday men shouldn't shave or that their clothes should bewashed "since the dirty water is poured into the eyes of the dead". In the background of this beliefwe can notice the cult of the moon goddess Arianrhod, depicted on a Bosnian tombstone, which istaking care of warriors and their souls.

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Celtic goddess of moon Arianrhod. Celtic goddess of moon Arianrhod on a Bosnian tombstone.

The connection of a deer i.e. a roe with the underworld, especially in combination with the depictionof a bird, was relatively a constant occurrence on tombstones, Šefik Bešlagić claims in his book"Stećci-kultura I umjetnost" (tombstones - culture and art), which means that he belief in the fast ofthe deer on Tuesday is not accidental and it is only a small segment of a once large cult of fertility inBosnia and Herzegovina. We shouldn't forget the fact that without death there is no new life, no newfruit unless a seed is buried in the ground, and that the entire concept of the cult of fertility and cultof the dead is based upon that principle. And in other cultures one addresses the ancestors whenone wishes their intervention in the form of protection for the family, facilitation of fertility and new-borns.

Since we are talking about a lunar deity, which has an arbitrary role over water and weatherconditions, it is logical that all gathering of Bosniaks on Tuesday on high places, had in theirbackground the cult of the moon goddess, water and fertility. Their location is besides a place whichwere geopolitically important in the thousand year old history of Bosnia. All dovišta (pilgrimage site)are located on clearings and plateaus with lush vegetation and undergrowth, forests and localstreams. The most important characteristic of all dovišta is that they are former worshiping places ofBogomils, where they gathered and prayed together to god to send them rain and ensure a bountifulharvest, successful defence from enemies, protection of the home, fertility of women, etc.

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However, ethnologists found out that ritual sacrifices of sheep at those places are proof that dovištaare not exclusively a part of the Bogomil tradition but that they only continued to observe mucholder Illyrian cults, especially astral cults and the cult of god of streams Bindu.

One of these places of worship dovište Dobre vode (good water) near Foča which is connected to thetomb of two "dobri" (good), i.e. a father and son that a stepmother wanted to kill with the help of asnake, is an ideal example of the cult of water. Visit to medicinal streams which are located there andwhere prayer is done during the first Tuesday up to Hidirllez and first Tuesday after it.

With the advent of Islam or better to say with the conversion of Bogomils to Islam besides Tuesday,Friday also gained the characteristic of a holly day and because of that fact we have numerouscommon beliefs and taboos connected to them. The most dominant belief is that during these daysone shouldn't wash clothes, especially male clothes, in order to avoid lightning striking a home oreven a homeowner dying, which is a clear influence of the cult of the snake, the protector of thefamily and home. In Rogatica and Žepa it is believed that on Tuesday and Friday it is not good toneither wash clothes nor do anything else on the river or stream in order to avoid stirring the watersince it can cause hailstorm.

Snake in the Bogomil legends

In numerous Bogomil legends the snake plays a main or supporting role like the one aboutGrandfather Ravuš or Did Ravuš, which folk tales describe as an old man with long white beard whoperformed his regular prayers, like all the other Bogomil priests, under a linden tree.

The daughter of bey Džafer, a Bogomil nobleman who converted to Islam, was a girl given formarriage. On one occasion the suitors came to ask for her hand and a beautiful young man fromDuvno succeeded. The marriage was planned for a Friday, and the day before that the girl went tothe meadow to pick some flowers with which she wanted to decorate the wedding procession.However, her niece was very jealous of her and her marriage and she was looking for a way to hurther and seeing her jovially walking towards the meadow to pick some flowers she came up with theidea to plant some snakes which will bite her. Approaching her cousin carefully without her noticingit, she dropped a snake and walked away.

As soon as the snake saw the girl it started to move towards her but at that moment out of nowhereGrandfather Ravuš appeared and made a circle around her uttering a few words which turned thesnake into stone.

In another legend from Middle ages the snake is tied to two holly men so called evlije for which atomb was raised which later became a pilgrimage site. When Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror,conquered Bosnia, all Bogomil population converted to Islam in a very short time period.

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New religion and customs were not as strange to them as much as Christianity was rigid to whichthey never wanted to surrender. We know little today about the events that took place during themedieval Bosnia, since legends hide the truth. One of them is tied to a father and a son whichconverted to Islam, and they lived in a village Kolun near Foča. The father was a man of exceptionalphysical strength, while the son was of a more gentle constitution. The reason for that is that at avery young age the boy lost his mother and he grew up on food that his father procured.

As he could not manage without a woman, the father re-married after some time to a woman whichdidn't show care and respect to his son, which she also secretly tortured. On one occasion, while hewas sleeping, she placed a small snake in his mouth which entered him and all that the boy ate thesnake would swallow. The boy ate a lot but he was pale and skinny regardless. His body became everweaker. At night after he said his prayers, he asked Allah to help him and that evening he dreamt ofhis deceased mother, who told him in his sleep to enter the room where they keep yoghurt, whichhis stepmother forbid him.

Tomorrow, while the stepmother was out of the house, the boy entered the forbidden room, foundthe yoghurt in a wooden plate and drank it. At that moment the boy fainted. A miracle happened.Disturbed by the yoghurt the snake left the boy's body and hid under a shelf with cheese. Soon afterthat the boy woke up and escaped from the room. He was very hungry. As soon as the stepmothercame into the house he told her that he is hungry and she replied that she will give him some food.She entered the room where she kept the cheese, and the snake jumped and bit her by her face. Thestepmother died and the snake escaped. When the father came, he realised what was going on, andhe promised his son that he will never get married again.

Zmijari - Illyrian priests

Zmijar is a name for a person which has power over snakes and knows the secrets of curing snakebites. It is interesting to note that a zmijari is always a man and that there are no records of a womanever being one. Because of their extraordinary and supernatural characteristics a zmijar representedall that which designated a priest or a shaman during Illyrian times, he knew all the secrets of theworld of snakes, primarily the way in which to communicate with them. Since a snake wasconsidered to be a supreme deity to which various gifts were offered, especially food, which is a partof religious practice which existed among the Bosnian people until the last century in the form ofleaving food for a snake - house keeper. According to snake's movements, its life habits andreproductive cycle the Illyrians determined time for religious practice but also of social practices tiedto fertility such as a wedding.

Tattooing motifs of a snake on one's skin, especially hands and face, the Illyrians wanted to provideclose contact with their deity but also to connect to all their ancestors. That's why tattooing had aspecial significance in their tradition.

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The thing that all zmijar had to have is nobleness and courage, also they were not allowed to kill anyliving beings, even if it was a spider or ant. Snakes had their special language, that is not like anylanguage that exists among the humans.

Dautović Velaga better known under his nickname Velija from Marjanovac, was during his lifetimethe best known zmijar in Velika Kladuša. He was always called for interventions when an invasion ofsnakes took place or when one would enter a house. His power over snakes was gained accidentally.During WWII he found a sheet of paper with magical formulas in a pocket of a dead solider, utteringthese formulas he gained mysterious powers over snakes. He didn't trust the secret communicationwith snakes to anyone, and he took it to his grave. However, more mystery was caused when a jarwas unearthed from his yard which contained an amulet containing Arabic script and a completelyparched snake?! Still, the most important details of his ability was the fact that Velija communicatedwith the snakes using telepathy so that he was able to chase snakes out of a house which was thirtykilometres away from him, while he was lying in his bed.

Hajrudin Keran from Jajce is the second zmijar who gained his powers of contact with snakes duringchildhood. According to legends snakes saved him from his father's constant abuse. -On one occasionwhile I was looking after a heard of sheep in the mountains, my father came furious and for noreason he started beating me savagely. Hajrudin, then a boy eight years old, managed to somehowescape from him and all scared and tearful he ran into the woods. While running he asked god forhelp. According to his words all of a sudden snakes appeared in front of him and covered him withtheir bodies. - I'm shaking, I was looking at my father as he searched for me, but he didn't see me. Onthat occasion he spent a few days with the snakes which fed and took care of him. After that,Hajrudin gained the ability to communicate with the snakes by which he gained knowledge ofnumerous secrets of nature. He never misused his power and he was always ready to help in case asnake had to be chased out of the house or property. Hajrudin did it in his own way, with respecttowards the snake.

Cult of fertility

The cult of the snake, which was dominant in the entire religious and social concept of ourforefathers, represents the core of the cult of fertility for the most part because of the phallus shapeof the snake. The Illyrians showed their first forefather as a suckling child wrapped by a snake whichoffers the child wisdom and magical power, so that he can turn into a snake once he dies. Besidesbeing a totem symbol the snake represented to the Illyrians the largest deity whose spirit permeatesthe whole of nature and universe. Its role in the cult of the Grand Mother is especially important.Namely, the snake, or in its heavenly form a dragon, is a classic symbol of fertility.

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In the Bosnian tradition the connection of the snake and the dragon can be tied to thepersonification of the vegetative cycle which is analogous to the one from the Greco-Romanmythology. The dragon in fact makes a circular journey, he comes out of the water, flies and passesto another location where he enters a pit, hole, disappears inside the earth and then reappears aftersome time.

The snake has its dualistic nature, it can represent the principle of good but also of evil, which makesit a universal symbol. Also, after her winter sleep the snake sheds its skin which results in the beliefthat it is a symbol of resurrection and new life. That's why it is present in many legends and folkstories which clearly reflect its power of evil but also of good. According to an ancient legend a longtime ago there were three suns in the sky. On one occasion the big dragon swallowed two suns andthe third one was saved by a swallow which took it high up in the sky.