Apparitions in western Serbia
Danijel, Sinani
Glasnik Etnografskog instituta SANU
53
305
317
http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/Article.aspx?ID=0350-08610553305S
2005-2020/03/06/18:09:11
In Serbian folk tradition, apparitions represent a special, established and separated category of beliefs, with determined and elaborated passive and active relationship about this supernatural phenomenon. There are a number of beliefs concerning the sole essence of an apparition, periods and places when such phenomenon occurs, and various different features that a person should possess in order (not) to communicate with the supernatural; these are accompanied with elaborated religious practice, to prevent or enhance such a meeting/communication. This paper takes apparitions as communications. The greatest number of beliefs is centered on the act of dying and trespasses into the other world, and a special category of deceased, so the analysis is focused on these matters. Based on the literature on the subject, we were able to construct a correct sequence of events leading into peaceful afterlife. When aberrations appear, however, the sequence is diverged, depending on the presence/absence of the mortuary rituals. This conclusion has helped us to decode a message being transferred during the contact with an aberration, and we translate it as a manual for peaceful, eternal, afterlife, which should came about as a result of a traditional norms of behavior and customs. A social function of these rules and customs we found among small communities, where losing a member could jeopardize the existence of a community itself; a social channeling of dying through rituals, reducing the act of dying to its real boundaries of a natural process, as well as a confirmation that a given community is strong enough to overcome the dying crisis, in situations like this, becomes of a vital importance. At the same time, there is an expression and a need to correct deviations from a given community which could pressure a great deal, especially if there is no other way of protection from deviant individuals.
ritual, deceased, apparitions, supernatural world
