Power of Word Bajanje

The Power of the Word: Healing Charms as an Oral GenreAuthor(s): Barbara Kerewsky Halpern and John Miles FoleySource: The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 91, No. 362 (Oct. - Dec., 1978), pp. 903-924Published by: American Folklore SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/539224 .

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BARBARA KEREWSKY HALPERN and JOHN MILES FOLEY

The Power of the Word Healing Charms as an Oral Genre*

As PART OF AN ONGOING STUDY of aspects of oral tradition in the Balkans,' in this paper we present evidence that healing charms are still being transmitted orally and continue as part of the contemporary folk repertoire. Our concern here is with process, both cultural and linguistic. We want to discover why as well as how orality works as a vital means of preservation and transmission.

This we undertake by examining bajanje, a form of folk curing relying primarily on incantation. Texts of basme, oral charms uttered by practitioners of this type of medicine, have been reported by local ethnographers and others over the past fifty years.2 While these fragments are of interest comparatively,

* Research was carried out under a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities

(# RC-20505-74-552). Fieldwork resulting in the collection of the present data took place under the

aegis of participation by Joel M. Halpern in an official exchange program between the National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C., and the Serbian Academy of Sciences, Belgrade, during the summer of 1975. We acknowledge with particular appreciation the cooperation of the host academy in endorsing the field phase of the project. J. M. Foley wishes to thank the American Council of Learned Societies for a 1976-1977 fellowship enabling him to carry on research at the Milman Parry Collection of Oral Literature at Harvard University, and in particular Professor Albert B. Lord and Dr. David E. Bynum, curator of the collection. We also take this opportunity to express our gratitude to the following in- dividuals for reading and commenting on the present study: Professors Lydia Black, Wayles Browne, Joel Halpern, Harriet Lyons, Zdenek Salzmann, and Olga TomiL.

I See John Miles Foley and Barbara Kerewsky Halpern, " 'UdovicaJana': a Case Study of an Oral Per-

formance," Slavonic and East European Review, 54 (1976), 11-23; Foley, "The Traditional Oral

Audience," Balkan Studies, 18 (1977), 145-154; Halpern, "Genealogy as Genre," in Selected Papers on a Serbian Village: Social Structure as Reflected by History, Demography, and Oral Tradition, ed. B. K. Halpern and Joel M. Halpern (Amherst: University of Massachusetts, 1977), pp. 141-164; B. K. Halpern, J. M.

Halpern, and J. M. Foley, "Traditional Recall and Family Histories: a Commentary on Mode and Method," in Selected Papers, pp. 165-198; Foley, "Research on Oral Traditional Expression in Sumadija and its Relevance to the Study of Other Oral Traditions," in Selected Papers, pp. 199-236; and Foley, "The Traditional Structure of Ibro BaliC's 'Alagi' Alija and Velagi' Selim,' " Slavic and East European Journal, 22 (1978),1-14.

2 See J. M. Pavlovic, Zivot i obi'aji narodni u KragujevackojJasenici u Sumadiji (Beograd: Srpska Kraljev- ska Akademija, 1921); P. Kemp. Healing Ritual: Studies in the Technique and Tradition of the Southern Slavs (London: Faber and Faber, 1935); A. Petrovic, Rakovica: socijalno-zdravstvene i higijenske prilike (Beograd: Biblioteka Centralnog Higijenskog Zavoda, 1939); P.Z. Petrovi', Zivot i obicaji narodni u

Gru,'i (Beograd:

Srpska Akademija Nauka, 1948); S. Knezevi' and A. Jovanovi6, Jarmenovci (Beograd: Srpska Akademija Nauka, 1958).



904 BARBARA KEREWSKY HALPERN and JOHN MILES FOLEY

in order to demonstrate oral process it is necessary to work from an inventory of "complete" texts of a particular charm.3 Toward this end we have based the analysis on our recent field recordings made in Serbia, backed by extensive prior research in the same geographical area.4

In the present study we first describe the cultural setting in which such charms are found. A representative basma is then given in two versions, as recorded during the course of fieldwork; our translation from Serbo-Croatian follows the texts. Supplementing the transcribed texts is the Variant Table, which summarizes six additional versions of the same charm elicited from the same bajalica ("conjurer") in the course of two visits over an eight-day period. A structural analysis is made on several levels, isolating internal frames and examining linguistic and symbolic components.5 Diagrammatic representation of symbolic action shows how the bajanje functions spatially and temporally to effect the cure.

The Setting

The region of Sumadija in central Serbia is characterized by ethnic homogeneity. Originally wooded, it later supported a peasant subsistence economy based on a combination of herding and mixed cultivation, a pattern consistent with the needs of the multigenerational, South Slav, extended- family household.6 Ancestors of today's population began to migrate into the area toward the end of the eighteenth century, when Turkish control was on

3 Of the Serbo-Croatian oral epic, as well as other oral epic traditions, Albert Lord has remarked (The Singer of Tales, [1960; rpt. New York: Atheneum, 1968], p. 101): "The song we are listening to is 'the

song'; for each performance is more than a performance; it is a re-creation. ... Both synchronically and

historically there would be numerous creations and re-creations of the song. This concept of the relation-

ship between 'songs' (performances of the same specific or generic song) is closer to the truth than the

concept of an 'original' and 'variants.' In a sense each performance is 'an' original, if not 'the' original." See also The Making of Homeric Verse: the Collected Papers of Milman Parry (Oxford: Clarendon Press,

1971); and Parry and Lord, coll., ed., and trans., Serbo-Croatian Heroic Songs, vols. 1 and 2 (Cambridge, Mass. and Belgrade: Harvard University Press and the Serbian Academy of Sciences, 1953-1954) for,

respectively, the original statement of the oral traditional theory and examples of related performances of a range of songs by the same and different singers collected in Novi Pazar at various times. Of supplemen- tary interest is Edward R. Haymes, A Bibliography of Studies Relating to Parry's and Lord's Oral Theory (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Printing Office, 1973).

4 For detailed discussion, see J. M. Halpern and B. K. Halpern, A Serbian Village in Historical Perspective (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1972); and note 1.

s See especially Claude Levi-Strauss, "The Effectiveness of Symbols," in Structural Anthropology (New York: Anchor Books, 1967), pp. 181-201. Compare P. Maranda and E. K. Maranda, eds., Structural

Analysis of Oral Tradition (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1971). 6 See also Joel M. Halpern, A Serbian Village, 2nd ed. (New York: Harper and Row, 1967); and note

4.



HEALING CHARMS AS AN ORAL GENRE 905

the wane in that part of the Balkans. From their mountain homeland in

Montenegro, they brought with them a highly structured patriarchal and

patrilocal social order and a proud identity defined and refined by oral tradi-

tion-by the performance of epics of medieval Serbian heroes from the time of the Turkish conquest and earlier, by the sense of self in the recollection of

genealogies back to the founders of lineages, and by the practical wisdom ex-

emplified in narodni lek ("folk medicine"). In many respects the extended household was a largely self-sufficient unit,

providing from within for most of the economic, physical, and emotional needs of its members. Some men were part-time tanners, carpenters, or distillers. Any elder with a gusle, the single-stringed instrument used to accom-

pany the singing of heroic epics, could be a bard. Some women were skilled in

dyeing and weaving, or in healing with herbs and grasses. In Sumadija formal

religion was never crucial in shaping attitudes; being a Serb meant being a member of the Serbian Orthodox faith. The head of a household was in a sense his own priest, personally conducting the most important ritual occasion of the yearly cycle, the slava ceremony honoring his clan's patron saint. He was on comfortable terms with God, interceding directly on behalf of the entire family.

It was not the function of this patriarchal and collective structure, however, to deal with magic and devilry, to banish diseases caused by mysterious chthonic powers, to counteract the evil eye, to divine, to bewitch. For this work specialists were required; their activities were self-directed and free from

customary responsiblilities to the group. Some performed magic mainly by means of ritual objects (vrac'anje). Others mediated with the power of words, and it is this bajanje which we will examine.7

Today in rural Serbia, as in contemporary Yugoslavia generally, with the in-

creasing participation of peasants in the economy of an industrializing socialist nation, traditional patterns are undergoing marked changes of all kinds. The

regional market town now provides most peasant needs, including the services of doctors and pharmacists. "But," says one man, "for some things, what do doctors know? Injections, injections-and nothing! For some things, treba da se baje ('you have to cure with charms')."

People say that folk magic is now legally forbidden. However, with the tradition of secrecy surrounding these skills and the state's tolerance for limited, small-scale private enterprise, divining and conjuring do persist in the villages. These practices maintain a continuity of services in response to individual needs. In addition, there is continuity in the traditional oral transmis-

7 Note that Julius Pokorny, in his Indogermanisches Etymologisches Wmirterbuch (Bern and Munich: A. Francke, 1959, 1969), vol. 1, 105-106, derives bajati from Indo-European 2bhh-, or sprechen.




sion of such specialized knowledge. In Serbia, as in most parts of the Balkans, practitioners have been women exclusively.8 This sex distinction is still manifest in the allocation of ritual roles: within the conventions of society, the regularized cycle of ritual acts remains primarily the province of men; nonregularized, secret activities are the domain of females.

Charms are regarded as an inheritance, items of great usefulness to be preserved and passed on. Young girls are taught these basme by their mothers or grandmothers, and they may also be present while a grandmother is actually performing. An in-marrying bride can learn from her mother-in-law or grandmother-in-law.9 Consider how a woman in her sixties recalls acquiring a charm from her grandmother some fifty-five years ago: "Baba told me, 'Go sit in the corner, child, and pay attention!' So I did. Later she told me what the whispering and mumbling meant. She taught me, so I learned it and remembered it, and that's how I know how to say it." A woman now in her mid-forties describes a similar experience: "When I was preparing to marry, my mother gave me this [charm] and she said, 'This is nice for you to have, daughter. With it you can help others. It will be sevap' ('a good deed'). Thus I received it. And now," she adds, "I can use it." Unbroken lines of transmission, whether consanguineal or affinal, are felt by villagers to be

important,10 and practitioners pass on their special knowledge to selected receivers only."

While a female of any age may learn a charm, only a ritually clean (that is, postmenstrual) woman may actively practice bajanje. This convention

designates a time span of up to thirty-five years or so during which she is restricted from performing the charm. It thus places her within the ancient and

8 See, for example, J. Obrebski, Field notes on research in a Macedonian village (unpublished), Univer-

sity of Massachusetts Library Archives; and Kemp, Healing Ritual.

9 A survey of brides' villages of origin indicates that approximately two-thirds of rural brides marry outside their natal villages and within a radius of 20-25 miles (A Serbian Village, p. 190).

10 Compare Richard Blum and Eva Blum, The Dangerous Hour: the Lore and Culture of Crisis and Mystery in Rural Greece (New York: Scribner, 1970), p. 351. Obrebski observed a similar belief in a Macedonian

village: ". .. to be fully effective the spells must be transmitted in the performer's mother's line, 'from

my faith and from my blood.' " ("Social Structure and Ritual in a Macedonian Village," ed. and trans.

B. K. Halpern, posthumous paper presented at the 1969 meeting of the American Association for the Ad-

vancement of Slavic Studies, Boston, Massachusetts).

11 Often in the course of fieldwork we reassured informants that the tapes were being recorded for our

use only, that we were interested in the charms as examples of traditional poetry and as part of history. "Well, if that's the way it is," one woman agreed. "But you know what it's like here in the village-if that black Radojka were to find out that I know this charm, she'd be jealous, and who knows what

evil spell she'd work on me!"




widespread belief system in which females of childbearing age are defined as a special class, in possession of dual powers-one sacred and related to the cyclical properties so similar to the mysteries of nature, and the other polluting and negative.12 Both aspects are seen as potentially dangerous, a fact articulated even by contemporary villagers. Another consideration, particularly within the structure of a strongly patriarchal society, is that during these years a woman is viewed as part of a procreative unit and not as an individual. (In many parts of the Balkans, upon marriage a bride's given name is dropped, and her first name becomes the possessive inflected form of her husband's.) Only menopausal women, therefore, are nonthreatening as mediators with the nether world. At the same time, the effectiveness of old women as healers draws on their experience in traditional female roles as nurturers and protectors.

Despite occasional reinforcement by hearing the charm and perhaps even transmitting it, the prescribed period of restriction on actual bajanje raises interesting questions with regard to retention.13 In our analysis of the basma presented below, we examine linguistic and prosodic features which serve to trigger recall. These features include larger thematic and structural components, the connective links between them, and the smaller, more subtle fac- tors of assonance and stress. The language of the charm and the societal motivation to preserve and transmit it, functioning within a still largely traditional oral culture, share in accounting for the ability to recollect without active use over so long a time period in a woman's life.

The Conjurer Desanka

Against this background we introduce Desanka, a practicing bajalica. She is a robust, pleasant-looking woman of fifty-seven. Unlike most village women of that age, she goes about her household work with her head uncovered. Were it not for her calloused hands and bare feet, Desanka would resemble an urban matron. From her appearance, so unlike that of the stereotype of the wrinkled Balkan crone peering out from the folds of a dark kerchief, one would not sur- mise that she is a conjurer of considerable local repute. Her familial position is that of an elder female in a four-generation household of which her aged father-in-law is the titular head. The other members are her husband and their elder son, daughter-in-law, and two grandchildren. Their younger son is a factory worker in Germany, and Desanka has been to visit him there. He took

12 Compare Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1966); and Victor W. Turner, The Drums of Affliction (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968).

" See also A. Petrovih, p. 79.



908 BARBARA KEREWSKY HALPERN andJOHN MILES FOLEY

her to a doctor to treat her recurrent arthritis. "Their aspirin is better than ours," she maintains.

Desanka is recognized as a specialist in dealing with diseases called the "nine winds." Villagers perceive these illnesses as both borne on and caused by the

powers of the wind (vetar). Although the terminology involved is no longer part of the contemporary lexicon, a classificatory system of winds persists, assigning qualities ("sprightly," "gusty," and so forth) and designating colors as synonymous with a class of skin disorders. For example, they call

erysipelas the "red wind," eczema the "white wind," and anthrax the "black wind."

When we stopped by to visit (on July 30, 1975), Desanka was pasturing pigs. Following traditions of hospitality, she ushered us inside the white- washed, mud-brick house and offered ritual servings of slatko (sweet preserves), homemade brandy, and Turkish coffee. Eventually, reassured by the presence of her husband, who had come in from the hay field, she raced

through a recitation of the charm to dispel the red wind (crveni vetar). When she hesitated at one point in this first performance, her seven-year-old grandson Marko prompted her. The resultant uneven pace provided a logical reason to ask Desanka to repeat the basma. A third version was elicited by asking for clarification of a certain passage; in order to retrieve that small section, she had to go back and start from the beginning. This third version (A3) is the former of the two transcribed below.

After making a preliminary analysis of the three charm texts, we returned to Desanka eight days later, explaining that some of the archaic language was un- familiar to us. In this manner we came to understand better the folk interpreta- tions of the role of the bajalica as mediator, attitudes toward psychic healing, notions of wind-borne diseases, and the dynamics of transmission. During this session we obtained on tape five additional versions of the same charm, one of which (Bl) serves as our second example below. In the course of this second visit, daughter-in-law Nada was present most of the time. Toward the end of the interview she suggested fetching Desanka's pribor ("equipment"), so that

they could reenact a "real" cure, with Nada in the role of the afflicted person kneeling before the conjurer. The result was an irregular text of the charm

(B5), a situation recognized by Desanka herself, preoccupied as she was

illustrating the use of the conjuring tools (feather, knife, stone, and coal scuttle with a live ember14). Conscious of enunciating for the tape recorder, she ex-

14 Desanka's equipment was an essential part of enacting the charm. During performance she held each

of the objects in turn over the head of the person kneeling before her (the person to be cured), proceeding from one implement to the next as she changed frames within the charm (see analysis of frame structure

below). Two of these, the feather (lako kao pero, "light as a feather") and the stone (Bezi pod kamen,




plained that she was not accustomed to thinking of the words: "When I'm saying it for real, it's like whispering. I recall the words, and what I don't recall I dream at night."

The Texts of the Charm

All versions of the charm reveal a composite structure of a series of internally coherent and externally related units, which we enumerate as follows:

a - horse and rider b - as/so c - carry d - animal catalog e - Christian catalog f- banishment g - cow

h - hen i - purification j- symbolic names k - inverted counting I- wolf

These frames tend toward prosodic units of four octosyllabic lines each and demonstrate relatively uniform actualization from one version to the next. Variations depend upon the identity of the frame, the immediate textual en- vironment, and the performance situation. Using A3 and B1 as bases for generalization (see Variant Table below for a summary of the other six versions), we isolate and discuss the inventory of units which make up the charm, commenting on their linguistic dynamics and the structural role that each plays in the larger context.

Version A3 (7/30/75)15 a 1. Otud ide crveni konj,

Version Bl (8/7/75) 1. Otud ide crveni konj,

"Begone under a stone"), are mentioned in the text itself, and their actual material presence serves as a kind of metonymy or symbolic dimension in the rite. All four objects suggest the exorcism process and the purity which the bajalica seeks to effect, both through the power of the words of the charm and the power of its visual symbolism.

Is The occasional deviations from standard Serbo-Croatian result from (1) differences between rural and urban speech patterns, and (2) the exigencies of the oral compositional process, which at times subor- dinates morphology to formulaic patterns.




2. Crveni ?ovek, crvena usta, 3. Crvene ruke, crvene noge, 4. Crvena grifa, crvene kopita.

b 5. Kako dodje, tako stile, 6. Ovu boljku odmah dize;

c 7. I odnose i prenose, 8. Preko mora bez odmora-

d 9. Gde maika ne mauce, 10. Gde svinjce ne gurice, 11. Gde ovce ne bleje, 12. Gde koze ne vrece,

e 13. Gde pop ne dolazi, 14. Gde krst ne donosi,16 15. Da se kolac ne lomi, 16. Da se sve'e ne pali.

f 17. Bei boljku u polje, 18. Bei boljku u more, 19. Bez'i boljku pod kamen; 20. Tu ti mesta nema!

g 21. Otud ide crvena krava, 22. Crveno tele otelila, 23. Crveno mleko podojila.

h 24. Otud ide crvena kvocka, 25. Vode devet crvenih pilida, 26. Padole na crveni bunjak, 27. Pokupile crveni crvidi.

c2 28. I odnele preko mora, 29. Preko mora bez odmora.

2. Crveni ?ovek, crvena usta, 3. Crvene ruke, crvene noge, 4. Crvena grifa, crvene kopita.

5. Kako dodje, tako stile, 6. Ovu boljku odmah dize;

7. I odnose i prenose, 8. Preko mora bez odmora-

9. Gde ma'ka ne mauce 10. Gde svinjie ne gurice, 11. Gde ovce ne bleje, 12. Gde koze ne vrece, 13. Gde konj ne vri'ti, 14. Gde pile ne pi'ti, 15. Gde pevac ne peva, 16. Gde koko'ka ne kakoce, 17. Gde (konj) pop ne dolazi, 18. Gde krst ne donosi, 19. Da se kolaw ne lomi, 20. Da se sve'e ne pali.

21. Otud ide crvena krava, 22. Crveno tele otelila, 23. Crveno mleko podojila.

24. Otud ide crvena kvo'ka,

25. Padole na crveni bunjak, 26. Pokupise crveni crvidi.

27. I odnege / preko mora / bez odmora

16 A syntactically sound realization of this line would include the reflexive particle "* Gde se krst ne donosi." But the e frame is understood as two paired couplets. The deep structure of the second line

(A3.14) is reflexive, but it is transformed at the surface under the influence of the structure of the

preceding line.




k

f2 30. (Idi) Beii vetra u polje, 31. Beli vetra u more, 32. Bei vetra; 33. Tu ti mesta nema!

i -[(ime) ostaje] 34. Lako kao pero, 35. Cisti kao srebro, 36. Blaii kao materno mleko.

j 37. Otud ide Ugimir, 38. Ugini boljku, ugini! 39. Otud ide Stanimir, 40. Stani boljku, stani! 41. Otud ide Persa, 42. Prestani boljku, prestani!

k 43. Deset, devet, osam, sedam, 44. Sest, pet, Eet'ri, tri, dva, jedan.

1 45. U kurjaka 'iet'ri noge, peti rep, 46. Od mog odgovora bio lek.

Translation

a 1. Out of there comes the red man, 2. The red man, the red mouth, 3. The red arms, the red legs, 4. The red mane, the red hooves.

b 5. As he comes, so he approaches, 6. He lifts out the disease immediately;

c 7. He carries it off and carries it away, 8. Across the sea without delay-

d 9. Where the cat doesn't meow, 10. Where the pig doesn't grunt, 11. Where the sheep don't bleat, 12. Where the goats don't low,

28. Deset, devet, osam, sedam, 29. Sest, pet, Eet'ri, tri, dva, jedan.

30. Otud ide Ugimir, 31. Ugini boljku, ugini! 32. Otud ide Stanimir, 33. Stani boljku, stani! 34. Otud ide Persa, 35. Prestani boljku, prestani!

36. U kurjaka "'et'ri noge, peti rep, 37. Od mog odgovora bio lek.

1. Out of there comes the red man, 2. The red man, the red mouth, 3. The red arms, the red legs, 4. The red mane, the red hooves.

5. As he comes, so he approaches, 6. He lifts out the disease immediately;

7. He carries it off and carries it away, 8. Across the sea without delay-

9. Where the cat doesn't meow, 10. Where the pig doesn't grunt, 11. Where the sheep don't bleat, 12. Where the goats don't low, 13. Where the horse doesn't neigh, 14. Where the chick doesn't peep, 15. Where the rooster doesn't crow,




e 13. Where the priest doesn't come,

14. Where the cross isn't borne, 15. So that ritual bread isn't broken, 16. So that candles aren't lit.

f 17. Banish the disease into the field, 18. Banish the disease into the sea, 19. Banish the disease under a stone; 20. You have no place here!

g 21. Out of there comes the red cow, 22. She gave birth to a red calf. 23. She provided red milk.

h 24. Out of there comes the red hen, 25. She leads nine red chicks, 26. She fell upon a red dung-heap, 27. She gathered up red worms.

c 28. And she carried it off across the sea, 29. Across the sea without delay.

f 30. Banish the illness into the field, 31. Banish the illness into the sea, 32. Banish the illness; 33. You have no place here!

i -[Let (name) remain] 34. Light(ly) as a feather, 35. Pure as silver, 36. Mild as mother's milk.

j 37. Out of there comes Ugimir, 38. Kill the disease, kill it! 39. Out of there comes Stanimir, 40. Halt the disease, halt it! 41. Out of there comes Persa, 42. Stop the disease, stop it!

k 43. Ten, nine, eight, seven, 44. Six, five, four, three, two, one.

16. Where the hen doesn't cackle,

17. Where the (horse) priest doesn't come,

18. Where the cross isn't borne, 19. So that ritual bread isn't broken, 20. So that candles aren't lit.

21. Out of there comes the red cow, 22. She gave birth to a red calf. 23. She provided red milk.

24. Out of there comes the red hen,

25. She fell upon a red dung-heap, 26. She gathered up red worms.

27. And she carried it off/across the sea / without delay.

28. Ten, nine, eight, seven, 29. Six, five, four, three, two, one.

30. Out of there comes Ugimir, 31. Kill the disease, kill it! 32. Out of there comes Stanimir, 33. Halt the disease, halt it! 34. Out of there comes Persa, 35. Stop the disease, stop it!




45. Into the wolf's four legs, and fifth the tail,

46. From my speaking may there be a cure!

36. Into the wolf's four legs, and fifth the tail,

37. From my speaking may there be a cure!

Linguistic Analysis The basma begins with the horse and rider (a), the first of four otud ("out of

there") frames. The bajalica adjusts the color scheme to the type of disease (vetar) with which the patient is afflicted. In A3 and B1, for example, the ob- ject of the healing exorcism is the red wind (crveni vetar), or erysipelas. Besides a substitutable position for color, each half-line contains one of a sequence of features descriptive of the horse and rider figure. These characteristics are most commonly enumerated in the order found in A3 and Bi: horse, man, mouth, arms, legs, mane, hooves. Note that the last four items are always present in the same two-line format, a stability in part attributable to the /g/-/k/ velar consonant exchange in ruke/noge and grifa/kopita. No similar mnemonic organizes the other features, and our sample shows considerable variation in the arrangement and length of the opening section of a. Such flexible internal structure allows actualizations of 4, 41/2, and 5 lines, a range which points up the identity of the half-line as an information-bearing datum. The resultant hybrid metrics of four- and eight-syllable patterns account for the richness of the charm's prosodic organization.

This two-level prosody underlies the structure of the as/so and carry frames (b and c, respectively), in each version the consequents of the a motif. In their usual realizations, these two units of two lines apiece occur in succession as a composite frame of four octosyllables; c may, however, appear alone in slightly modified form (c2) later on in the recitation. At the whole-line level, the stiz'e/di'e rhyme, whose grammatical subject is the horse and rider of a, seals off b into an easily recalled couplet. At the half-line level, the rhyming kako/tako and the assonating initial syllables of ovu/odmah provide an internal mnemonic for each octosyllable. Sound repetition also structures c, with the patterns I/i, -nose/-nose, pre-/pre-, and mora/-mora guiding the articulation. The fact that the -mora sequence, unlike any of the other pairs, overrides morphemic and suprasegmental differences emphasizes the importance of sound in the organization of the charm."7

The next frame, which also depends heavily on aural association for its

17 Mara is genitive singular of the neuter noun mare ("sea"), the diacritic indicating a long falling accent on the first syllable. The form 6dmora, genitive singular of the masculine noun bdmor ("delay pause"), bears a short rising accent on ad- and none on -mora. Compare Albert B. Lord, "The Role o. Sound Patterns in Serbo-Croatian Epic," in For Roman Jakobson (The Hague: Mouton, 1956), pp. 301-305.




coherence, is the animal catalog (d). Syntactically continuous with b-c, and

descriptive of the supernatural anti-world to which the horse and rider will return the disease, this highly structured listing most often occurs in a double frame of eight lines, as represented in B1. Each octosyllable is generated from the same formulaic template, "Gde [animal] ne [verb for animal sound]," a

grid of largely syntactic definition.'s Some of the more obvious phonological bridges between lines and half-lines include the alliteration of the animal's name and sound (B1.9, 14, 15, 16), the /k/-/vr/ sequence (B1.12, 13), con- sonance (/6/ in 9 and 10), assonance (the penultimate /e/ in 11 and 12), and

rhyme (B1.16, 17). Other associations exist, most of them approximate (for example, kokolka/kakoie, B1.16), but all mediate paratactically among individual line units by creating an aural pathway through the catalog. Thus, while the grouping of pile, pevac, and koko'ka ("chick," "rooster," and "hen," respectively) shows semantic structure, its internal order is determined

phonologically. The Gde formula maintains continuity between d and the Christian catalog (e)

which follows, with the substitutable positions now containing four nouns of Christian provenance and verbs denoting the appropriate action. The common

prefix and near rhyme of dolazi/donosi function similarly to the stizve/dive end-

rhyme in b. Joined to that first couplet by alliteration on /k/ and semantic fulfillment of the frame's general theme,19 the latter two lines are bound

together through a shared causative syntax continuous with the Gde series. Banishment (f), in which the conjurer urges the agent from the anti-world to remove the vetar from the ill person, begins a self-contained semantic unit that marks the closure of the charm's first section (a-f).20 The four lines again reveal grouping by twos, both in the pattern of bilabial consonants in A3.17-20 (/b/ in boljku, /p/ in polje, /m/ in more), and in a rhythmic shift par-

"8 The concept of the substitutable frame at the foundation of the oral poet's art was developed by

Parry, who defined the formula in Homer as "an expression regularly used, under the same metrical con-

ditions, to express an essential idea" (The Making of Homeric Verse, p. 13). For subsequent approaches to

the study of the formula, see Lord, The Singer of Tales, pp. 30-67; Michael Nagler, Spontaneity and Tradi-

tion: a Study in the Oral Art of Homer (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), pp. 1-63; Gregory

Nagy, Comparative Studies in Greek and Indic Meter (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974);

Berkley Peabody, The Winged Word: a Study in the Technique of Ancient Greek Oral Composition as Seen

Principally through Hesiod's Works and Days (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1975); Foley, "Formula and Theme in Old English Poetry," in Oral Literature and the Formula (Ann Arbor: Center for

Coordination of Ancient and Modern Studies, 1976), pp. 207-232; and, generally, Haymes, A

Bibliography. 19 For a description of the slava ritual, during which the ceremonial loaf (kolaY) is broken and candles

(sveie) are lit, see A Serbian Village in Historical Perspective, pp. 112-114.

20 All sections of the charm do not exhibit the same structure, but the occurrence of thefframe always denotes the end of one unit and the beginning of another.




ticular to the first two lines. The normally unstressed preposition and proclitic u (here "into") receives an accent when used in a phrase like ti polje or ui more

(long rising stress in both cases); since the preposition pod is not a proclitic, the accentual scheme of pod kWmen (short falling stress) is quite different.21 If even the first half of the third line is recalled, the fourth follows without variation. The Tu ("here") refers to the real world of the patient, into which the disease has intruded, the opposite of the nether world from which the appropriately conjured agents of removal are summoned.

Two more agents now appear in succession, their descriptions initiated by the formula that began a, "Otud ide [color] [animal], and concerned with the

bringing forth and nourishing of their young. In the cow (g), these actions take the form of otelila (from oteliti, "to calf") and podojila (from podojiti, "to nurse"), a rhyme which aurally associates the second and third lines. The g frame is adjusted according to color, just as in the case of the first agent (a) and the hen unit (h). Most of the same narrative and linguistic features that structure g help to organize h as well. A hen hatches her chicks and provides them with worms as sustenance. The near-rhyme (pilita/crvici) of the second and fourth lines in h, as well as the pattern of four octosyllables per frame which

pertains throughout most of the basma, suggests that the informant may have

consistently failed to recall a missing third line in the cow unit. Though this

hypothesis cannot, of course, be proved empirically, the structural similarities between g and h are extensive and argue strongly for the omission. Just how such an omission might have taken place is well demonstrated by the occasional absence of the customarily recalled second line (h, B1 and B2).

The next two units are variations of others already encountered. The first

(c2) involves two directions of transformation in the examples quoted. In both A3 and B1 the more common c, verb odnoi'e ("carries off,") modulates to odnese, perhaps under the influence of the aorist form pokupi-e in the final line of h. These formal past tenses are not a part of everyday speech, but appear quite often in traditional genres like the epic, lyric, and charm.22 The second c2 variation, realized in B1 but not in A3, is a product of the binary prosodic system discussed in relation to the a, b, and c frames. Instead of repeating the

preko mora ("across the sea") half-line as she does in A3.28-29, the bajalica

21 This difference in stress may account for the frequent failure to recall the third phrase after successful-

ly remaking the first and second (see Variant Table). 22 The aorist form is thus a functional item in the oral poetic "dialect," a subset which is distinct from

the spoken language in hypostatizing diction from earlier times amd from many geographical areas. On the nature of the ancient Greek traditional dialect, see Parry, "Studies in the Epic Technique of Oral

Verse-Making. II. The Homeric Language as the Language of an Oral Poetry," in The Making ofHoImeric Verse, pp. 325-364.




avoids the duplication and "telescopes" the two lines into one and one-half. Because of the metrical ambivalence of the octosyllable, she perceives no hiatus and therefore feels no need to hesitate.23 A variant banishment unit (fJ) follows c2 in A3, reflecting, in part, the sequence designated as a-f above, but with an

interesting difference. The vivid psychomachia of bajanje is nowhere more evident than in the conjurer's substitution of "wind" (vetra, A3.30-33) for disease (boljku). This semantic shift is attenuated by context, which makes the two terms virtually synonymous, but the syntax reveals that vetra is understood as animate (the inanimate form would be vetar), and that the illness is invested by the tradition with an anthropomorphic identity.24

Passing temporarily over the inverted counting (k) frame in B1 (it will be treated below when it occurs in A3), we consider next purification (i), in which the ritual cleansing that accompanies the exorcism is expounded. From its actualization in other versions we can reconstruct the name line that initializes the unit (see Variant Table): "[ime] ostaje," or "Let [name] remain." The three adjectival phrases which complement the imperative verb, conjugated in its imperfective aspect to denote a continuing process, are generated from the formulaic template

i lak- pero cist- kao srebro

blag/l:- materno mleko

where the first element in each line is adjusted to the gender of the patient.25 In most versions i and the symbolic names (j) are closely associated, whether

separated by fi, k2, kil, or actually contiguous.26 As in i, the j frame, itself

23 An epic singer (guslar) whom we recorded in another village in Sumadija frequently telescoped the

decasyllable lines of his particular genre from three to two and one-half musical bars by omitting the half

bar of purely instrumental accompaniment. 24 The common feminine noun declension, to which boljku (nom. s. boljka) belongs, makes no +

animate distinction. Vetra (nom. s. vetar), however, is a member of the common masculine noun declen-

sion, which differentiates between the usual vetar (inanimate acc. s.) and the highly unusual vetra (animate acc. s.).

25 We may understand lako as a neuter adjective and therefore as an "error" in this context, since ?isti and bla'i clearly refer to a masculine subject, or we may take lako as an adverb ("easily") somewhat inap-

propriately included with two adjectives. A less likely possibility is that the neuter inflection agrees with

pero. Compare the range of morphology in Al, B3, and B5.

26 Version B5, where k1 and 11 occur between i andj, is of relatively limited usefulness, since, as noted

above, it was elicited under circumstances which distorted performance. Other versions of thej frame in-

clude a text collected elsewhere in Sumadija which uses three different names and metonymic functions:

"Venimir da uvene, / Sanimir da usane, / Ginimir da ugine" ('Venimir to wither, / Sanimir to carry out, / Ginimir to kill') (A. Petrovi%, p. 105).




divisible into two-line segments, does not conform absolutely to an oc-

tosyllabic configuration, largely because of extensive substitution throughout the six lines. The familiar "Otud ide [name]" formula begins the unit and heads its three subsections, each of which develops a symbolic name-agent into the sound of an exorcizing verb (for example, Ugimir and ugini ["kill"]). As the first three agents were conjured according to the vetar from which the patient suffered, so Ugimir, Stanimir, and Persa are summoned because of their aural appropriateness, that is, because the sounds inherent in the three names match the task that the bajalica, as mediator, has undertaken.

At this point in Al and again in A2, Desanka made an "error" which reveals a great deal about the process of oral recall in performance. In Al she had paused momentarily just before thej frame to attend to her grandson, who was sitting on her lap during the first recitation. Before she could go on, the little boy interjected "Otud ide Stanimir," customarily the second in the series of names, and his grandmother responded by repeating the Stanimir couplet and then proceeding to Pera and Ugimir. She maintained this relative 2-3-1 order through A2, and then returned to the "standard" sequence for A3 and B1-B5. This variance makes two theoretical points. First, the two-line elements within j are apparently recalled in succession, since the conjurer moves from name no. 2 (Stanimir) to no. 3 (Pera) before returning to no. 1

(Ugimir). She seems also to understand the triplet structure as a unit and not

simply as a linear string, or Ugimir would never have been retrieved. Second, the maintenance of the 2-3-1 order in A2, which precedes resumption of the more usual sequence in A3, adumbrates the role of conscious reinforcement.

Having made a "mistake" in Al, Desanka first recalls that "mistake" in A2 before her recollection shifts from the synchronic immediacy of the performance situation back to the diachronic depth of tradition.27

With the disease exorcized by the dynamics of the charm, the bajalica now turns to the two closure units, namely inverted counting (k) and wolf(l), which

correspond in function to the initiatory a. The numeric frame is of interest not

only because of its phenomenological reduction of something to nothing,28 but also because of the accommodation to octosyllabic constraints evident in the

27 Note that Marko has absorbed the charm structure simply by having been present when Desanka

performed the healing ritual. As a male, he would never have been formally taught the basma, and will never practice bajanje in the future. This ability to internalize traditional genres, even when age and sex roles preclude active performance of the material, is characteristic of the members of an oral culture (see Foley, "The Traditional Oral Audience").

28 Versions of related charms collected from other women in the area include a similar frame which is most often actualized as follows: "Od devet osam, od osam sedam, ... od dvajedan, odjedan nijedan" ("From nine eight, from eight seven, .... from two one, from one none").




syncope of the medial syllable in Jet'ri. In I the banishment of the disease into the wolf (kurjak) and the conjurer's acknowledgment of her oral role in the cure are allotted separate lines linked together by the assonance of rep and lek.29 The wolf and its mediation between the world of the sufferer and the anti- world, in which the disease originates and to which it is dispelled, is discussed below. We pause at this stage of the analysis only to stress the dual connotation of odgovor as (1) an oral process (the root govor means "speech") and (2) the involvement or participation of the bajalica in the healing ritual. With the

emergence of lek, the basma ends and the cure is complete. Many additional variations, summarized in the Variant Table below, occur

in A1-A2 and B2-B5. We have detailed the sequence and nature of the frames for each version, denoting variant units with a subscript (2) (for example, c2, as

above), and recording how each subscripted element differs from its actualization in A3 and B1.

Variant Table

Version Al: a2 , , c , dl, e , gi, hi, c2, i,2 f1 , j , kl , 11 (47 lines)

a2: vetar, covek, usta, nos, ruke, noge, grifa, kopita c2: I odnese preko mora, / Preko mora bez odmora. i2: Ljubica, / Laka kao pero, / Cista kao srebro, / Blaga kao materno

mleko. j2: Stanimir, Pera, Ugimir

Version A2: a*l, bl, c1, d2, ei, f2 , j2, c2, kl, 11 (331/2 lines) a*l: Otud ide viloviti, / Viloviti, orloviti, / Saroviti, plikoviti, / Plavi,

(crvi?) crveni, Zuti. d2: pevac and kokolka omitted

f2: Be'i boljku u polje, / Be'i boljku u more, / Be-i boljku; / Tu ti mesta nema!

j2: Otud ide Pera, / Sad prestani boljku, prestani! c2: Idi, boljko, preko mora, / Preko mora bez odmora.

Version A3: See text and translation above. Version Bl: See text and translation above. Version B2: a*2, bl, cl, d1, el , g2 , cT2, 1 , kl, 1i (371/2 lines)

a2: Otud ide aloviti, / Aloviti, viloviti, / Orloviti, laroviti, / Plavi, crn-, crveni.

29 Compare this variation on the I frame from another source: "U kurjaka c'etir' noge, dva uva, rep i zev, / U kurjaka stra'an zev: boljku 6e zazenut'!" ('Into the wolf's four feet, two ears, tail, and mouth, / Into the terrible maw of the wolf: he will swallow up the disease!' (J.M. Pavlovii, p. 144).




g2: Otud ide crvena (pause) krava, / (Da se) crveno tele otelila, / Crveno mleko podojila.

h2: line 2 of sequence omitted C2: I odno'e / preko mora / bez odmora.

Version B3: a2, b2, cl, di, el,j , ki, 11 (31 lines)

a2: konj, Eovek, vetar, usta, nos, ruke, noge, grifa, kopita b2: Tako stile, kako dodje, / Ovu boljku odmah dize.

Version B4: a2, 2 , d1, el, f , i2, kl, li, jj, kl, 11 (391/2 lines)

a2: konj, Eovek, vetar, usta, ruke, noge, grifa, kopita b2: Kako stile, tako (di-)dodje, / Ovu boljku. C2: I odnese i prenese, / Preko mora bez odmora. f2: last 2 lines of sequence omitted i2: Zarko, / Lak kao pero, / Cist kao srebro, / Blag kao materno mleko.

Version B5: a2, b , l, d, f2i, ii, kl, l, j,, hi, c2 ,gl (42 lines)

a2: konj, covek, vetar, ust', nos, ruke, noge, grifa, kopita f2: last two lines of sequence omitted C2: I odnele preko mora, / Preko mora bez odmora.

The two a* designations merit special comment, since these actualizations serve as alternate openings for A2 and B2. As in a, the frame begins with an "Otud ide [color]" formula, with the remaining elements successively enumerated in the two lines that follow. The bajalica consistently repeats the term which occupies the substitutable slot of the initiating formula in the first position of the next line and uses four items from the five-element inventory (viloviti, aloviti, orloviti, 'aroviti, and plikoviti),30 over 11.1-3 of each recitation. The apparent closure of a2 may well be a somewhat arbitrary sequence tacked on to an already completed unit, if its lack of prosodic organization and the hesitation involved in its recall are any measure. By contrast, the omission of the final two Gde elements in d (A2) was made without hesitation and indicates the tendency of the hybrid versification toward couplets of octosyllables within the usual four-line (or eight-line) unit structure (compare b and c). In A2 neither the semantic grouping nor the /p/-alliteration (pile, pi.ti / pevac, peva) is a strong enough mnemonic to prevent the omission.

The false start at A3.30 (Idi instead of Beii) may be explained by reference to a unique c2 frame at A2.29-30: "Idi, boljko, preko mora, / Preko mora bez

30 These are some of the archaic terms in the folk classificatory system of winds: viloviti ("sprightly"), aloviti ("biting"), orloviti ("soaring"), Taroviti ("capricious"), plikoviti ("gusty").




odmora" ("Go, disease, across the sea, / Across the sea without delay"). The A2 syntax has boljka in the vocative singular (boljko), as opposed to the A3 animate accusative singular vetra (boljku in other versions) taken by the Be'i verb in A3. Desanka halted after Idi because continuing meant election of a vocative form (here *vetre), an aberration which would then have to be repeated twice more. Another hesitation over variant organization occurs at the same point (b2) in B3 and B4, but these latter actualizations proceed further before the bajalica discovers her slip:

B3.6-7: Tako sti'e, kako dodje, Ovu boljku odmah dize.

In B3 the half-lines of the opening octosyllable are reversed, and the expected couplet rhyme thereby precluded. Such a reversal is possible because the kako/tako rhyme remains intact (if not in order); that is, because of the autonomy of the half-line within the hybrid prosodic system. The second b2 variant reveals the strength of the mnemonic system even more clearly:

B4.6-7: Kako stiie, tako (di-)dodje, Ovu boljku...

Under the influence of the version just completed (see the discussion of the b frame in Al and A2 above), Desanka again reverses half-lines within the opening octosyllable, but this time with kako and tako in the correct order. The mnemonic direction suggested by the stiz-e/dile rhyme then causes her to recall the first syllable of dike before moving on to dodje. And with that half of the

couplet so unsatisfactorily realized, she trails off after Ovu bolku, since there is now no possibility of completing b2 with its normal rhyme.

Symbolic Dynamics

By means of her ritual words, the bajalica seeks to exorcize disease. The initial situation is this: an illness from the anti-world (denoted by otud, "out of

there") has intruded upon the natural world (denoted by tu, "here"), and has become a destructive force that challenges the normal order. Were it still located in that "other" place, "where the cat doesn't meow," all would be as it should and there would be no call for the restorative power of bajanje. But with the natural world disrupted by the presence of crveni vetar, more specifical- ly with the patient suffering from erysipelas, the intercession of the conjurer is

required. As a mediator between the two worlds, she will serve as a catalyst to effect a reversal of the instrusive process; that is, by means of her odgovor Desanka will remove the disease and consign it to its proper and original domain-the anti-world.




In order to accomplish that removal, she summons a series of exorcizing agents, all of whom are introduced by the "Otud ide [name]" formula discussed above. The first three, the horse and rider (a), cow (g), and hen (h), are also conjured according to color; they are suited in both nature and origin to the task they are to undertake.31 Ugimir, Stanimir, and Persa also belong to the anti-world, the locus of illness, and they provide metonymic aid to the ba-

jalica. The general movement of the charm, then, the return of the diseased

person to his original healthy state, is twofold: (1) agents to match the disease are summoned to the natural world, and (2) these agents and the vetar to which they are adapted are collectively dispelled back to their common place of

origin. The result is a restoration of "here" and "there" order, a cure which reestablishes the phenomenological balance between the two worlds.32 Table I illustrates the dynamics of the exorcism process.

Table 1. Agents and their Function

Element Natural World Anti-world

Diseased vetar State (Intrusion of disease)

Cure, horse and rider (a) Step 1 (cow) (g)

hen (h) symbolic names (j)

(Summoning of agents)

Cure, vetar

Step 2 a, g, h, j (Banishment of disease)

The four agents assist the conjurer in various ways. The cow (g) and hen (h) are mimetic types of the bajalica herself, nurturing their young and affirming the continuity of the natural world. All these actions are based on a common paradigm:

X, provides X2 to nurture X3 cow milk calf hen worms chicks

bajalica bajanje patient This structural relationship sets up some important associations and opposi- tions that can be conveniently schematized in binary notation, with redness in- dicated by a plus (+) and lack of redness by a minus (-) symbol.

31 See Kemp, p. 36. 32 Compare Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane: the Nature of Religion, trans. Willard R. Trask

(New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1959), pp. 20-65.




X, provides X2 to nurture X3 + + +

+ + +

+ to -

In g and h the agents, though inhabitants of the anti-world (+), fulfill natural functions in bearing and contributing to the healthy growth of their progeny (+). For them it is fitting that redness be cultivated and maintained in those

assigned to their care. But the patient, who lives in this world (-), ex-

periences redness as a disease, a destructive influence which threatens his health. His cure involves the seeking of an appropriate maternal figure, the ba-

jalica (-), who can provide the proper sustenance, bajanje (-), to cast out the disease (+) and return him to a healthy condition (-). Though the three actualizations of the nurturing paradigm differ with respect to the :- character of their principal elements, in each case the process is consistent in its dynamics and outcome.

The conjurer also summons first the horse and rider (a) and later the symbolic names (j) to help bring about the restoration of order. The man on horseback comes to actively dispel the illness and carry it "across the sea without delay" to the anti-world (a and b). Probably a mythic figure cognate with the heroes of epic tradition, he imitates the passage of the sun through the diurnal cycle. The pattern of his journey coincides, for example, with that of a legendary figure who braved the darkness of the other world: "And he bears himself over level Kosovo, / Even then the sun began to shine through the darkness."'3 Like the cow and the hen, the man on horseback personifies a natural process in terms of that "other" place, for his identity is + redness to match the disease he must bring back. In following an archetypal paradigm, he too becomes a type of the bajalica, restoring to wholeness and order that which has been disrupted by crveni vetar. Appropriately, then, the a frame initializes the charm through the "Otud ide [name]" formula and the horse and rider's imitation of diurnal rhythm.34

The symbolic names, on the other hand, employ a somewhat different mode of mimetic exorcism. As mentioned above, Ugimir, Stanimir, and Persa con- tain morphemes derived from the verbs to "kill," "halt," and "stop," respectively. If such homonymic agreement were nothing more than a series of

33 These lines are translated from Vuk Stefan Karad'i6, Zivot i obilaji naroda Srpskoga (Beograd: Srpska

Knjiievna Zadruga, 1957), p. 233.

34 Conjurers identify a ritual time of day for the practice of bajanje; our fieldwork indicates that the

designated time varies (both among bajalice and among diseases). Most, common, however, is po podne ("after noon"), when the sun begins its downward motion.




clever collocations, we might easily dismiss thej frame without further comment. But the three couplets, as simple as they seem, reveal the dynamics of bajanje at the most basic level. For behind the juxtaposition of similar syllables and the repetition of syntactic paradigms lies a belief in the power of the word, a conviction that the ultimate curative is sound articulated in a ritually prescribed manner.

The final two lines of the basma consistently serve as the formal termination to the ritual process (see 1 in the Variant Table). The bajalica sends the disease

away "into the wolf's four legs, and fifth the tail." The kurjak ("wolf"), comediator with the conjurer, acts as a passageway between the two worlds, a channel through which the vetar is returned from the "here" to the "there." As is powerfully illustrated in a sketch (see cover and Figure 1) by a Serbian

Figure 1.

folk artist, the wolf receives the disease into his body and transfers it across the chasm separating the world of chaos or disease from the world of order or health.35 This concept of the animal as an interface is preserved in the protec- tive ritual of passing a newborn child through a wolf's jawbones and back out again, thus symbolically presenting the infant to the demons of the other world and returning it to safety.36 Structurally, that return fulfills the same

3 This line drawing has been closely adapted by Meredith C. Foley from the sketch by "Milid od Macve" in the Srpski mitolos'ki rec'nik, ed. S. Kuli i6, P. Z. Petrovid, and N. Pantelid (Beograd: Nolit, 1970), p. 82.

36 See Kuli'ii et al., p. 82; and Kemp, p. 143. Of related interest is Wayland D. Hand, " 'Passing Through': Folk Medical Magic and Symbolism," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 112 (1968), 379-402.




pattern that underlies the journey of the horse and rider and the healing art of bajanje itself (see Table 1). In the assonating last line the conjurer designates the cure as the product of her odgovor. By means of its dual connotation of "speaking out" and "participation," this term acknowledges her role as mediator between the two worlds and as the immediate source of the charm's magic.

Transmission and Process

Unlike other genres in the oral repertoire of rural Serbia, charms are transmitted through female lines. In a patrilocal society, by the time a female is ready to pass her knowledge on to another, she has long since taken up residence away from her household of origin and thus from the bajalica who taught her. With the exception of affinal transmission, those who will in turn receive the charm from her will eventually move out. Over generations, then, a given basma is subject to transmission from family to family and place to place.

Just as it is not possible to pinpoint the geographical origins of charms, neither can we date them. Components in any synchronic recitation may include mythic symbols (the horse and rider) and Christian references (the priest, cross, and so on), as well as symbols based on relatively recent cultural adapta- tions, such as animal husbandry, compared to predominant pastoralism (the domesticated cow). The diachronic nature of oral process manifests itself in the combination of these kinds of elements. Oral composition has sometimes been characterized as a patchwork based on a reassembling of available parts. In fact, it is much more complex: each performance, each act of recollection, results in a new composition. The fundamental truth of the charm, and the source of its

phenomenological power, lies in the ritual act of making the collective wisdom of the past the living inheritance of the present.

University of Massachusetts A mherst

Emory University Atlanta, Georgia



Power of Word Bajanje

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