Cheating evil destiny

Frano Murgić in his ethnological work "Visoko in Bosnia - Folk life and customs" mentions high birth rate which was frequent in the previous centuries among the Bosnian folk, mostly in rural areas. But, reason for this was hidden mostly in the average life span which was at that time between 50-60 years and extremely long and cold winters, when temperatures dropped to -27 degrees centigrade, which caused frequent deaths among the people, especially children, from hypothermia and fever. Besides, the author notes that every month or two there was a registered case of a child dying.

"People which have one wife, used to have up to twenty children, those that had two wives, were known to have up to 25 children. There are women, which gave birth up to three children at once, and in short time they give birth to two at a time. There are around 10 women which never gave birth. There are those which when their husbands died, gave birth to her second husband's children. Halil Vranac  thought that there was nothing else but infertility which caused women not giving birth".

This quote is important because of some data, from the fact that polygamy wasn't present just in some areas of BiH, as some authors are trying to show, but that its radius encircled a much larger area, and that it was alongside high birth rate a classic phenomenon for less inhabited areas while its intensity was lost in urban areas. Also, it is again confirmed through the statement of the quoted Halil Vranac that the Bosnian people had the least understanding for infertility.

In accordance with what is written it is pretty clear that sterility and fear of children dying were very pronounced in the past and as such they caused the emergence of various prophylactic rituals and measures with one very clear goal - trap misfortune, which could be hiding a family curse, as it was believed by folk, spellbound eyes, black magic or even unlucky predestination of a woman to give birth to dead children. Antun Hangi also touches this topic mentioning that there is a certain category of pregnant women on which the supernatural influence is stronger and they are more prone to giving birth to dead babies.

-"There are women which give birth to dead children. This happens, when a woman has sweet blood, and ghosts, witches and other apparitions torture her and so suffocate the child inside of her. For her child to survive while it is still in the womb she must take off a horse shoe from a dead horse. She needs to get a black smith to forge a hoop in the middle of the night and she should girdle the hoop and wear it until her child is born, when it is born, she needs to bend the hoop and place it under the child's head. Similarly it is good for such a woman to go at night in front of a mosque and from a stretcher which carry dead people, to take out a nail. Out of the nail she needs to have someone forge at night a few hoops and she should carry them with her until she gives birth, when she gives birth, she should sow them to the child's hat, so that spirits and witches don't suffocate the child.

If children die and the mother cannot nurse them, she should take nine rags from nine widows, she should sow a shirt to the child, and it will not die. Similarly it is good for such a mother or someone else to find some wool from a sheep that a wolf slaughtered. She should wash that wool, comb it and then on gargaše (a contraption for tidying up wool) to tidy it up so that it looks like silk. Once she has tidied up the wool in such a manner, she should knit a string like the waist of the child and she should girdle the child with it. Who comes late there is no luck for him that's why it should be started as soon as the child is born, since if she misses only one dekiku, minute, it will be of no use".

In Vinac next to Jajce there is a custom that to the couple whose children keep on dying after birth, call another woman to breastfeed their new born in order to fool the misfortune. This woman will also cut the child's umbilical cord and fix it and that's why she is called eba, short version of ebejka, grandma. If male children were dying other forms of magical activity was undertaken with the intention of stopping the misfortune. To a new born son one would give his father's name or even the holly name Mohammed, and it used to happen that parents would go to the extreme of actually hiding from all the neighbours that they had a baby boy. They would clothe the boy as a girl and they would teach him to act as one, and these habits used to stay with children their entire lives.