Cult of fertility among the Bosnian People

to a beautiful child. Also, the
child will be pretty if the
pregnant woman looks at her
reflection in the mirror while the
child is moving for the first time.
When the child comes alive, and
moves a lot inside the mother, he
will be restless or a jolly fellow
and he can't wait to come into the
world to perform marifete,
kunstove, umjetnosti (art). If the
child is calm inside the mother
and barely moves, it will be calm
and introvert, he will be a
weakling.
Further in the text Antun Hangi
states an interesting belief of
the Bosnian folk about snakes,
which coincides with the Illyrian
belief about the snake - symbol of
fertility and also protector of
life. Namely, the author writes:
When the woman gets pregnant, and
a fox or snake crosses her path,
the child will be happy and have a
long life. If a rabbit crosses her
path, the child will be unlucky,
selfish and a bum and there won't
be any use for him. If a rabbit
crosses her path the woman
shouldn't proceed so that she
doesn't cross his path, she should
return home immediately so that
she may have luck. A pregnant
woman needs to watch not to eat or
drink from a chipped dishes, since
the woman which drinks or eats
from chipped dishes will give
birth to a child which will have a
rabbit lip. Also she should take
care not to make fun of someone,
since her child will be šišijasto,
crooked eyed. When a pregnant
woman is eating, she needs to take
care that her hands are completely
clean, since the woman which eats
with hands covered with flour, her
child will have dandruff.
Among the Bosnian people there are
a lot of superstitions tied to
what a pregnant woman should
follow if she wants to give birth
to a normal and healthy child. All
these rules begin with the words
"it is wrong" or "it's not good"
and the most interesting ones have
been published in Gračanica
(Gračanica herald: magazine for
cultural history of Gračanica and
its surrounding, Volume 14, 2002)
in the text written by Fikret
Ahmetbošić "Some national customs
and beliefs in Sokol, Doborovci
and Džakul”:
-It's wrong for a pregnant woman
to kill a snake, her child will
have bad breath.
-It's wrong for a pregnant woman
to stare into an open flame - the
child will have a red face.
Raif Esmerović
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Cult of fertility among the Bosnian People