The dead in vernacular magic practices among Bosniaks

Mencej, Mirjana (author)

Based on fieldwork research among the Bosniak (Muslim) population in rural areas of Bosnia and Herzegovina, this article starts with the technique of summoning the dead, aimed at obtaining information about missing goods. It argues that the practice of summoning the dead, like practices aimed at magically harming others, is based on the same moral rules that govern everyday relations between the living and the dead. While these rules are generally followed and observed in everyday life, they can also be deliberately inverted to one’s own advantage or to the disadvantage of others. Ultimately, I argue that the dead prove to be moral agents who act when moral norms are violated.

• Language: English
• Keywords: the dead, agency, morality, summoning the dead, necromancy, magic, soil, Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FF - Faculty of Arts
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Publication date: 14.05.2024
• Year: 2024
• Number of pages: Str. 1-14
• Numbering: Vol. 15, No. 5
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-160042
• UDC: 393(497.6)
• ISSN on article: 2077-1444
• DOI: 10.3390/rel15050605
• COBISS.SI-ID: 195493123
• Publication date in RUL: 09.08.2024

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Religions
• Shortened title: Religions
• Publisher: MDPI AG
• ISSN: 2077-1444
• COBISS.SI-ID: 520261657

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: mrtvi, etika, klicanje mrtvih, nekromantija, verovanje, magija, prst, Bosna in Hercegovina

Projects

• Funder: EC - European Commission
• Project number: 101095729
• Name: The roles of the agency of the dead in the lives of individuals in contemporary society
• Acronym: DEAGENCY