In the past in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the 19th and half of the 20th century among the Bosnians numerous strange cases of mysterious births were mentioned where pregnant women would give birth to strange creatures called by the people "Snijet" (Mola hydalidora).
In the medical terminology we are talking about an abnormal product of conception in which the offspring doesn't develop, instead it only proliferates the placenta's embryonic tissue into a timorous formation which is called Mole by the medical profession. The belly of the pregnant woman would grow, imitating a normal pregnancy.
Because the Mole is today regarded as a tumor it is natural that such a state is considered life threatening for the pregnant woman. Probably because of this most of Snijet were born during the first three months of the pregnancy.
Most ethological documents agree that the Snijet would leave the pregnant woman during the first three to four months of pregnancy, although some documents that are found in the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina claim that the Snijet could be born after nine months of pregnancy.
As soon as the pregnancy would prolong itself or get complicated in any way, the midwife would suspect a Snijet, because in such situations the woman would bleed much more than usual and it would take longer for her to recuperate. Even though it was considered a good deed to give birth to Snijet, it was usually killed with a broom and buried where horse manure was stored.
According to the beliefs, a woman who would give birth to three Snijet's would immediately, after her death, go into heaven.
Midwife's described the Snijet as a living being that needed to be killed as soon as possible. It had red hue and it was horrible. In the past, under the guise of Snijet a lot of criminal activities (infanticide) were committed, when a woman would want to get rid of her child that she got out of wed lock.
In certain ethnological documents Snijet was often connected to dragons. Namely, in Bosnia and Herzegovina it was believed that dragons could make love to a woman that was sleeping and as a result of that children that were born had dragon origins. Besides women, the dragons impregnated cows.
In both cases the dragon child would fly off as soon as it was born in fear of human retribution. However, it would return every night while the woman was sleeping, to feed itself with the milk of its mother. Such women would claim that their breasts were empty in the morning which further sparked the belief that there was a mysterious birth.
According to written testimony of such women, they claim that their pregnancy was normal and had all the accompanying symbols of a pregnancy, until after nine months the woman would wake up one morning with an empty belly and her child missing.
Such a case would automatically be considered a Snijet or worse a dragon birth and such a case would immediately become a taboo and people avoided talking about it. People thought this appropriate because they didn't want to incur the wrath of the dragons by talking about that event.
Bosnian people describe dragons as winged snakes that fly in the sky usually on days when rain fell during a sunny day. Among the Bosnian people the memory of dragons was relieved through one of its fiercest combatants for freedom and independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina, captain Husein Gradaščević called Bosnian Dragon.
Evidence that such beliefs are not only connected to the glorious past is the National soccer team which is nicknamed Dragons, because the dragon is a symbol of power, strength and freedom.
The word bajanje (incantation) comes from a verb in the Bosnian language and it means speak or relate. The term has its origin in the Azerbaijan language where it represents folk poetry bayati which is in fact incantation- a type of magical poetry intended for sickness, happiness, love, fertility, keeping evil at bay.
The skill of incantation or magical formulas is known from the pagan times when it was used as a replacement for today's prayers. In both instances the magical-religious speech that was expressed poetically was meant to serve as a contact between humans and the supernatural in order to procure a benefit. In the Old Testament it is written:
"In the beginning, the Word existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God." The same principle is found in the Qur'an where it says that the whole universe was created out of two letters "Qaf" and "Nun" which create the word "Kun" when combined, which means "Be!"
In Bosnia and Herzegovina there are two forms of magical poetry; the shorter form called basma and the longer one called bajalica (magical whisper). Folklore claims that the whole world (Earth) is placed upon a basma and if one knew the content of that magical poem, one would then rule the whole world.
It is believed that a basma is powerful as long as a small number of people know its content (up to three) and as soon as a fourth person finds out its content, it loses its power.
The structure of the basma has a so called triad- repeating the basma three or even nine times which can be justified as three times three. It is always whispered during a particular time of the day or night, on the moon light or next to water or fire.
Some Bosnian witches believe that the world stands on a basma and the black earth on a prayer Ikhlas and that's why these two elements are inseparable during the practice of curing or making spells.
Before the witch utters a basma, she repeats the prayer Ihlas three or five times, because the 112. chapter in the Qur'an gives strength for uplifting the basma to a certain spiritual level.
Love basma are especially popular, and some girls still use them in Bosnia. It is believed that every basma works in the course of 7-40 days. When a woman wants to awaken love for her in a certain male, she needs to pee on nine white beans and she needs to throw them into the fire. As soon as the beans start crackling in the fire she utters the love basma.
After she utters it three times she needs to take an axe and hit the threshold of the entrance door. It is believed that the male, on whom the spell is cast, must fall in love with the girl, or otherwise his body will be covered with itching and rashes. Besides that the male will suffer from high fever and a desire to see the woman that threw the spell.
Other basma that are popular are those against spell bound eyes, which are based on a ritual of extinguishing coal fire. The idea behind this ritual is that by extinguishing the fire one is symbolically extinguishing the negative effect of the spell bound eyes.
source falanje
cybershamans (karmapolice) / CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
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