Cult of fertility among the Bosnian People

so that humans can cure themselves
when sick. Numerous legends speak
of this, about a mysterious doctor
called Lokuman or Lacmanin, about
whom we don't know much, not even
his nationality, nor religion, nor
where he comes from. There is a
possibility that we're talking
about a man, doctor or mystic,
from western Europe primarily
because in the past the Bosnian
people called all those people
wearing a tight suit a Lacmanin,
and later that same name was used
to denote Germans. As legends say,
on one occasion Lokuman
accompanied by a villager headed
to the mountains. When they came
to the area with the thickest
forest, he took out a wand and
whistled with it, and immediately
a multitude of snakes appeared
around him. He picked out one of
them, caught her, whistled and all
other snakes dispersed. Lokuman
slew the snake, he punctured the
snakes body with a stick and
cooked it over a fire. Since he
cooked her, Lokuman ate the snake
and said to his follower to bury
the grill in the ground. But,
since this all was strange and
interesting to him, before burying
the stick he licked it to see how
the snake tastes. When they headed
towards the mountain, the
Lokuman's follower could
understand all the plants around
him, without realising how it
happened. One plant said: "My name
Raif Esmerović
is so and so, and I'm a cure for
such and such disease, another
said a similar thing, etc." When
one of the plants: "My name is
comfrey (Symphytum officinale) and
I'm a cure for hernia!", the
follower laughed and the Lokuman
asked him: "why are you laughing?"
- "No reason!", - "Did you eat
some of the snake?" - "No!" -
"Open your mouth so I can check".
The follower opened his mouth and
the Lokuman spat in them
immediately, and immediately the
plants stopped speaking.
(1) There is a thesis that the Greeks,
neighbours of the Illyrians, took a
good deal of the religious beliefs
tied to the snake and add them to
Asclepius, god of medicine, which is
depicted as a man with cane around
which a snake is wrapped.
Because of such information, the
Illyrian snake cult doesn't end with
this example, there is other
documented information which point to
the conclusion that among the Bosnian
people, the snake always had divine,
supernatural abilities to influence
people's lives.
Cult of fertility among the Bosnian People