Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 28, 1917.djvu/73

 Serbian Habits and Cnstonis.

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of the Church's representatives to unite in prayer for rain, for the fertility of the country, for the health of their nien, and the prosperity of the cattle. It is at this period that the superstitious religious traditions reappear: the exhumation and cremation of the vampires, the persecution of women who were believed to be witches, sorcery and magic, etc. It is in this way that the primitive religious habits were renewed to the detriment of the Christian Church's habits.

The primitive economical and medical customs, which, as we have already stated, remained nearl\' intact at the time of the Independence of the Serbian State, continued to exist under the Turkish Government. The communal care of the cattle and oratory control vigils, popular doctors and popular chemistry, etc., remained almost the same as in ancient times.

Such was the state of the Serbian customs during the Turkish Government.

This state of affairs was not unacceptable to the Turks, because it saved them trouble, especially when they had the Knez, where the Serbian chiefs represented their people to the Turks. These chiefs were provided with decrees from the Turkish Government. The pachas protected this arrangement, and punished the Turks who wanted to cause disorder.

In the mountains of Dalmatia, under the Venetian domination, the Serbian habits existed in all their purity. There all persecution of customs by State and Church failed. On one hand, we must attribute this to the geographic situation of the mountainous country, and, on the other, to the emigration of the Serbs, who, escaping the Turkish yoke, constantly arrived in great numbers in Dalmatia, bringing their unchanged habits and custom.s.

Another fate was reserved for the Serbian traditions and customs in part of Bosnia-Herzegovina, where a certain number of the Serbian inhabitants had adopted the Mahometan religion. The latter were in a more favourable