Witchcraft in Bosnia

Thanks to Bogumils who at one period of the BiH history used to be dominant religion and, in the same time, worshipers of Nature, the old cults managed to survive. By their credit we can, today, follow the leads of old days witchcraft performance, which, after so many centuries still exist through various beliefs and practical performance.



Witches and their religion of Nature; worshiping of God and Goddess through the Sun and the Moon, have their deep roots in the beliefs of many nations across the Balkans and the rest of the Europe. These days, analysing ethnological data, as well as traditional beliefs from Bosnia; dozens of extremely interesting details can be disclosed showing us that old religion of Nature managed to survive both time and monotheism. However, in order to present data on witches’ performance it is necessary to write so many pages with so many data enclosed. Since, every single journey begins with a single step we’ll commence the story on witchcraft along with this very text and end it sometimes/somewhere in the future.




Time of the ritual

In Bosnia, the most powerful and the most dangerous days are considered to be those between 30th of April and the 13th of May in which, accidentally or not, the witches holiday Beltane (1st of May) happens to be. In this very period the regeneration of Nature is at its peak, as well as farming works. In the middle of this period there is a Hidirllez (6th of May) Christian-Moslem holiday of Pagan origin that is traditionally put in the context of Nature and water which is under the influence of the Moon. The worshiping of water as one of the manifestation of the Goddess is well reflected in two customs that are practised even these days in some parts of Bosnia. This is about the celebration of the first Tuesday that precedes Hidirllez Holiday called Boni Tuesday (Boni utorak) entirely devoted to the water treatment (of the sick). During Boni Tuesday, healing springs in the Nature are being visited; the sick drink the water and wash their bodies with it. The first Tuesday after the 6th of May is called Dovni Tuesday (Dovni utorak) and on this day prayers are to be chanted for the wellbeing of individuals and the community as a whole. Clearly speaking; the believers used to pray or, better to say, thank to the ruler of the water (the Moon) for its support, aiming to get its protection throughout the year. Of course, by the appearance of Islam all that referring to the old Cult had to be suppressed and assimilated into the new religion. The Goddess had been changed to the prayer to Allah, although it is clear at the very first glance that those rituals have nothing to do with the Islam.



Light and the darkness



Even today in the 21st century the Bosnian witches follow the ancient guidelines in their magic performance. The part of the day when the Sun is setting and the night falls down between Aksham and Jaci ( „između akšama i jacije“ ) is still considered to be the best period for the magic performance, especially for the love magic.

Analysing in detail the information why the sunset period is the most important period of the day to the Bosnian witches for performance of the magic ritual, is to be sought in the very roots of European witchcraft history. Two of the most important holidays Beltane and Samhain celebrates the beginning of the shiny & dark part of the year. Both holidays are the moments of the most celebrated celebrations and most powerful rituals related to the divinity of the Nature. Similar to that, the end of the day and the beginning of the night represents the miniature alteration of light and the darkness, Beltan and Samhain. According to Bosnian believes , immediately after the sunset Jinny get the power, they wake up and go active, what is coincided with the belief that in the night of Beltan and Samhain the door of the spiritual world open from which various spirits and demons come to he world of human beings.

The Moon Cult

Although small number of ethnological data on magic inheritance of Bosnia & Herzegovina can be found today, from what such data disclose it can be clearly found that in the past existed several types of cults among which the Sun and the Moon cults dominated.


Even these days, when they see a New Moon, some Bosniak women perform the ritual in which the influence of Islam and the old days Moon cult interlace with each-other. While gazing to the moon, a woman, lifts her arms to the chest level, with her palms pointing the sky, chants 5 Qu'ran-s prayers, after what she wipes her face with the palms. In the continuation, a Moon Cult ritual follows; a woman points her right forefinger to the Moon saying: “The way you Moon grove and transform so renew my form (existence)”. Apart from this ritual there were dozens of similar rituals amongst Bosniak women that were passed from one female generation to another. In another ritual woman prays to the New Moon for a good health of her children, in which case she directly alludes to the Goddess of the Moon; the protector of fertility and children. Another interesting belief alludes to the old times idea on divine characteristic of the Moon, namely; it is believed that when the New Moon is seen for the first time the formula:“ I see New Moon, Mashallah!“ should be chanted, as in contrary a bad magic of “evil eyes” can strike the person. In traditional Bosnian beliefs small kids are most vulnerable to the influence of the evil eyes what leads to the idea that in the old days the New Moon has been considered as a divine child,i.e. freshly (re)born Goddess, which her followers need to protect; in the faze when she has no enough strength and power.

Anita Salihović is an old lines witch, once a member of a Rroma clan in what is now Bosnia, who is somewhat older than she appears (she seems to be in her mid-twenties, but was born back in the 1760s); she is an example of a witch who abused her powers and became a succubus, reliant on soul-craft and soul consumption to sustain her—she's one of the most dangerous women in Britain, certainly more so than any human woman, but she doesn't want you to know that, and she doesn't particularly want to be, either. She works as a nurse in a coma ward, attempting to manage her need to feed on souls by only stealing the spiritual essence of those who are likely to never return. Although not as strongly tied to witches' magic as she once was, due to her transition into one of the succubi, she nevertheless knows a lot of their history from an intimate perspective, and is a good ally—one who strongly emphasizes the scant few rules all witches must follow. After all, no one knows better what the consequences can be.



history |
Probably the last truly powerful European witch of note, Anita was born Lamia in Ottoman-occupied Bosnia during the year 1762. She came from a Rroma traveller family and experienced enormous persecution, and contrary to stereotype, abilities like hers would not have been welcomed; she hid them for years. When she came into adulthood and married, she had two children, both of whom died of illnesses before reaching their third birthdays. Disillusioned with life and her husband, she abandoned him at the age of twenty, using her light skinned appearance to parley herself a new identity as a Bosniak woman. She met other witches, who recognized her powers and taught her how to use them. Employing both her magic and her social savvy, she quickly charmed many people with not inconsiderable power, and ruthlessly blackmailed heads of government whenever she saw fit—but she also helped them with her magic and influence. She became known as "the lady of dragons", for her sometimes-malicious use of an Ala which was under her control. When she realized she was a witch who could still use soulcraft to its complete extent, something that even by the late 18th century was virtually unheard of, she began to use it against her worst enemies, those she believed deserved it for their cruelty, particularly toward women. She became effectively immortal in the mid-1780s, and continued her reign for the next thirty years. When the Ottoman Empire collapsed, she moved her attentions to England and its assorted territories, even causing chaos during the first World War.