In folk religion of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is based on Illyrian
traditional beliefs, some segments of the Bosnian god Tur were preserved thanks
to the cult of basme (magical
formulas); in Bosnian mythology it was believed that Tur was a gigantic black
bull who held earth on his back. The name Tur itself probably comes from poturiti,
onaj koji potura, drži nešto ili pridržava (plant, someone who places
under, upholds or holds something) which fully corresponds to the function
which is ascribed to this mythological being.Though according to the writings
of ethnologists the belief about the gigantic bull who is holding up earth is
only found among the Bosnian people, some segments of that cult are present in
the magical practice of all three people in our country. We are talking about
healing rituals of cattle where women or men who perform these rituals preform
a spring ritual of transmission of divine power of Tur in order to gain his
blessing or power of healing.
Namely, in folk religion of Bosnia the snail is a miniature
representation of the bull Tur since it possesses attributes which symbolise
the bull: horns and house on his body which symbolises earth. It is no less
interesting to mention that for the ritual of touching, a dark coloured snail is
often sought, since the bull Tur was described as being of a black skin or
hair, therefore the Bosnian people in the northwest part of Bosnia call him Garonja (black). Significance of
touching the snail is the magical connection with earth, in which Tur lives,
otherwise in Bosnian mythology is the only culprit for causing earthquakes, and
calming Tur, personification of the earth's strength, which is clearly visible
in the formula which follows ritual touching of the snails horns: "Ustuk
biče, moje biče jače!" (stand
down bull, my strength is bigger than the bull's)
When a woman from the surrounding area of Mostar would gain the power of
healing livestock, she would use her index finger of her right hand to touch
the horns of a dark snail three times, pulling her finger down his body,
backwards, uttering the following spell: "Stu na se! Stu natrag, ne
znalo ti se za trag. Stu na se. Od Boga derman a od mog iladž!" (Go
back, go back, may your origin be unknown, go back! From God the cure and my
labour recovery). As we can see from the examples, touching the horns of the
snail is nothing but a magical imitation of touching horns of Tur, whose entire
strength rests in them, and using that force to heal, since that is the energy
of earth or Grand Mother. It is believed that after such a transfer of power
from the snail onto a woman or man, a person can use their acquired powers to
cure throughout the entire year.
A diseased animal is brought to a rock which is firmly fixed into the
ground, i.e. it never moved from that place, which is alluding to a tombstone,
then the woman which is performing the healing ritual uses her index finger to
make three circles around the diseased part of the body and utters: "stu
natrag!" (an abbreviation of "come, tread, move"). She
then spits on her index finger uttering: "Ptuj, u živac, u kamen, stu
natrag!" she repeats this three times.
Right index finger in folk medicine is the finger of healing and is
brought into connection with the finger of Hazrat Alija, who is always depicted
with a raised index finger as a symbol of god's wisdom but also blessing. This
is no coincidence since Hazrat Fatima and her husband Hazrat Ali in folk
medicine, especially in Iran and Turkey, are regarded as a couple who have
ascribed mystic properties to them, among which are healing properties. In
north-western part of Bosnia, in Velika Kladuša and Cazin, right index finger
is represented in the prayer to the new moon which is pointed towards the moon
after uttering five short (smaller) surah, then a spell is uttered with which
one aims to renew vitality and beauty of the body.
According to traditional belief for this magical transmission one would
chose the period from the beginning of May until the middle of the month which
is no coincidence, namely, it was a custom in the past to slaughter a bull
(once people used to say: "We'll slaughter a bull for the first of the May!"),
which was a symbol in the former Yugoslav republic of labour day, however, that
practice of slaughtering animals, i.e. sacrificing a bull on our territory is
an ancient practice and stems directly from Illyrians. All of this of course
has its roots on the cult of Tur and mother earth or goddess Grand Mother.
Actually, today's holiday St. George's day, which is observed on May 6th
among the Bosnian orthodox Christians, is not a Christian holiday at all, nor
any other, it has been taken over from paganism. In this data we can find an
answer as to why Bosnian people, former members of the Church of Bosnia before
the advent of Christianity, were pagans, therefore it is normal and logical to
conclude that they, like other people, did not fully renounce their old
religion. Instead they continued under the veil of Christianity and later Islam
to celebrate the holidays of their pagan forefathers. That's why among the
Bosnian folk some so called "Christian" holidays[1]
were marked (observed) but not in a religious but magical way i.e. the original
pagan way, during which destiny was foretold, spells uttered and livestock
protected from evil spirits and diseases.
[1]
Of course,
irony is that this argument was one of the main claims of the hegemonic and
militant policy of Serbia against the Bosniaks, as if they were Serbs which
converted to Islam?! The question, of how is it possible that Serbs during the
500 year rule of the Ottoman empire haven't converted to Islam, is interesting,
and the alleged "Serbs" in BiH have converted?! Were the
"Serbs" in BiH worst off than those in Serbia? And in the end there
is the question how come did one and the same people chose two different
historical paths and renounced their "holly orthodoxy" in favour of
some wild Ottomans?! A criminal organisation such as SANU (The Serbian Academy
of Science and Arts) will never give the right answers to these questions since
they would seriously threaten the foundation of their carefully constructed
Nazi policy with which the Serbian political structure has been inspired for
decades and whose catastrophic consequences we felt during the nineties of the
previous century, when the aggression on BiH started along with systematic
ethnic cleansing. An even greater irony of all of this is that those Serbs
claim that Bosniaks have been islamicized which means that they have killed
their own people and executed genocide. Actually, Bosniaks for the Serbian
people are islamicized Serbs only when the Serbs want to perform some hegemonic
plan, but this aggression actually showed and proved that they don't believe
this claim about the Bosniaks. Since logically, if they thought it to be true
they wouldn't kill "their own people".
