Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 28, 1917.djvu/81

 Serbian Habits ami Customs. 49

Serbian habits and customs are seldom mentioned in writings of antiquity. That which is most frequently mentioned in historical documents is the Slava. We find it in Macedonia on the Lake of Ochrida already in 1018, later on in Herzegovina 1391, at Konavlia 1466, at the " Bouches of Cattaro 1772," and many times among the Serbian in Hungary in the eighteenth century. The Christmas log is mentioned at Ragusa (Badnjak) 1271.

In Serbia in the eighteenth century abduction is mentioned.

The Emperor Dusan speaks to us of the social, religious, legal and economic habits. There was a special prayer in the Middle Ages for the preservation of the custom of pobratimstvo. Travellers coming from the Occident and crossing the Serbian countries in the Turkish period noticed the existence of a good number of Serbian customs and traditions. The existence of some of these is revealed to us by the decrees that the Christian Church has pub- lished against them. Finally, Serbian writers of the eighteenth century in Austria also mention them. Informa- tion about these customs has only reached us accidentally.

The first collections and descriptions of them were collected by Vuk S. Karadjic (1787- 1864), the founder of the " Yougoslaves Ethnographical Studies," and the father of modern Serbian literature. In his many publications he has gathered and described a great number of the Serbian customs, particularly in his "Serbian Dictionary" {Srpski Rjecnik, Bee, 181 8), in the "Treasure," a history of the language and of the customs of the Serbian nation {Kovciszic za istorijnzijetik i obicajc, 1849), and in the posthumous work, " The Habits and Customs of the Serbian People " {Obicaji 7ia7-oda srpskoga, 1867).

Since Karadjic the collections relating to the habits and customs already constitute a considerable literature.

Recently the Yougoslave Academy at Agram and the Royal Academy of Belgrade have done much for the