Describing folk beliefs dedicated to the issue of fertility and magical encouragement of fertility, Rabija Hasanbegović (Folk belief for ensuring fertility in marriage) observes well that Bosnian folk usually ascribe infertility to women, while it is rare to even consider sterility in men. This is of course a product of patriarchy but also an archaic understanding of women as a symbol of fertility. Humanity is taken away from barren women and they are mockingly called jalovica (fruitless), barren, neroduša (childless). Under such social pressure women tried to achieve motherhood obsessively without choosing a method.
Anthropological research, such as this, clearly show us how a longer time period of our history there was no professional medical knowledge and with that no tolerance towards persons, primarily women, which had this issue. Social scrutiny doesn't stop with humiliation of women but the entire family, namely, people believed that infertility in women was god's punishment or a cause of some curse. That's why a woman that couldn't get pregnant should give alms during nine months in the hope that this good deed will be rewarded with motherhood.
In the past there were numerous ways with which women tried to stimulate fertility. In order to get pregnant she would fumigate herself over balsam herb (Tanacetum balsamita) when her period ends, before she has intercourse. Some of them practiced a method of mutual bathing with their husbands in water in which they previously placed nine splinters from the woodpile "so that children fall off of her like splinters.", then red and white turnip and "herb which grows in water and whose leaves are blinking." In certain customs social solidarity is noted with barren women to which fruits were gifted from a fruit grafted in spring, by people who own the fruit tree. According to folk belief, after the consumption of the fruit the woman would, during the same year, stay pregnant, therefore it was a good deed to give fruit to such women who desperately wanted to become mothers. In order become pregnant women would drink coffee with violet seeds, etc.
In the desire to achieve motherhood the women used both religious (their domination) and magical practice. The best example of how women from all three Bosnian constitutional people around Jajce spurred fertility was recorded in the ethnological work called Customs related to birth published by GZM from Sarajevo:
"Barren woman is looking for a cure for her flaw. Recently, she would usually turn to a priest for inscriptions and use divination. In Dobretići one would use this: when a woman lays with her husband, she covers her husband and then herself. She does this for nine Tuesday's. Whenever the husband wakes at night, he should uncover his wife up until the knees. In Lendići: one should take water which "praz" (castrated) a horse pukes from his mouth when it raises its head when he drinks water, place ground hooves of a donkey inside it, and the woman should then drink that water. In Grbavica; barren women wowed to celebrate saint Sisoja (July 19th) or; not to sleep with her husband on the eve of Sunday or holidays; she should bathe on St. George's day before the sun with water "omeljom" (small drops of water which sprinkle from the watermill rudders), fast on young Sundays."
In Nevesinje and its surrounding a barren woman would drink catnip (Nepeta cataria) on an empty stomach, or to gird the herbs. A woman which cannot get pregnant "zapne"easily should fumigate herself over baked coffee beans, in such a way that no one notices it. Desperate women visit places of worship and the woman is advised to unlock a door of a church or a mosque early in the morning. Frequent visits of the Tekke in Blagaj were recorded, as well as rituals of threading through prayer beads, which are located on a tomb. Women guided by an insatiable desire for motherhood go to graves and scrape dust off of tombs and later they drink it mixed in water.
Homeopathic procedures have a lot of influence in ritual beliefs of our people with the goal of achieving fertility and all that which has any connection with fertility is taken as a magical drug. It is good for a barren woman to lay down for a while on a maternity bed, because she can stay pregnant more easily, it is recommended for her to eat a stew which contains boiled eggs of a fertile male animal, such as an ox or rooster, or to place some dried uterus of a rabbit in her stew.
A woman which has recently given birth is ascribed powers of fertility and the apple which she has bitten is given to barren women to eat. As we have seen in a folk song a barren woman is often compared to a fruit tree which bears no fruit and she is looking for a fruitful tree, she bends down its branch and passes underneath it three times uttering: "as you are not barren so I will also not be barren", etc.
