Page:The International Folk-Lore Congress of the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, July, 1893.djvu/108

78 abundance as of endowment. At the bottom is a cavalier with shield, on horseback, who is playing at hurling the javelin (dzilit), or the stick (buzdovan).

On the posterior portion,

1. The dance of nine men towards the left.

2. Six birds of different sizes fly towards the left, and are apparently doves.

3. The dance of nine women towards the left.

4. Two roes behind a stag going to the left.

At the head of the stecak is a trefoil cross with two wax tapers attached to it, as symbols, which burn for the defunct at the point of death. (Svijece samstnice.) Under the cross is an inscription, very simple; then underneath a cavalier on horseback, turned towards the left, who holds in the left hand the reins, and a falcon in the right. He has no helmet on his head (which is ordinarily made like a beretta). The inscription runs:

This Auko (John) writes, the nephew (son's son) of Utjesen, and companion now of Ljuboevic, the nephew (on the side of the brother, to the brother of his father) Pasitjen Ljuboevic.

Ordinarily, the stecci are placed extending east and west. Thus, as soon as the defunct is placed in the ditch, which is tolerably well made, as I have said, and covered with slabs of stone, on this is placed much earth, then comes the monument as an external sign.

The monuments, being transported from a distance, avoid being of great height, as in distant countries, although they are sufficiently so, perhaps, and very bulky.

For the most part, the trench contains one or two bodies, and rarely more. Seldom are any objects found near the defunct, and it seems that, as he came upon earth naked, so he would descend into the earth.

Often the defunct has perished in a foreign country, and the relatives raise a cenotaph for him upon the noble manor, without the body under the monument.

Stecci are found in Dalmatia, in Herzegovina, Bosnia, Old Servia, Albania, as far as Macedonia, but most frequently the most numerous and interesting are those of Bosnia and of Herzegovina, and therefore in studying them I have called