has the meaning of "renown" or "glory") is nothing more than a relic of the old pagan ancestor worship, which with the transition to the Christian faith was transformed into the worship of some Christian Saints (most frequently St. Nikolas, St. Michael Archangel, St. Georg, St. Demetrius, or St. John).
Perhaps the tradition of the killing of the old man by the Serbs "as soon as he shows signs of ill-health or failing strength, springs directly from their profound veneration for him and from the anxiety to preserve him or rather the divine spirit by which he is animated in the most perfect state of efficiency," or "that their practice of killing old men is the best proof they can give of the high regard in which they hold him."[1]
Be that as it may, I think it is not without interest to record the Serbian popular tradition about this old custom.
Besides these examples, I have in 1900 taken notice of the following:
Tasa Alić, an old man, born in the village of Dobrujevatz, near Aleksinatz, who at that time was more than 70 years old, told me that he heard when he was a child that in the old times the men lived very long, and when they became a burden on the family they were taken into the forest and there killed.
Iovan Cakic, born in the village of Bzra, near Leskovatz, who was more than 60 years old, told me that he heard in his childhood that in the old times when a man became old he was killed, but he did not believe it.
In 1905 I was in East Serbia. On the 29th of June (o.s.) I was on the way between the villages of Kaona and Ranovatz. I asked an old Roumanian peasant woman if she had ever heard that it was once the custom to kill the old men. She answered me that in old times the men died and after forty days they arose again and lived a very long time, and became so old that they could not move and were a great trouble to the family. In order to deliver them, the family made cake of maize, put it on the head of the old man and struck with an axe till the old man was killed. They did so, as it would seem, to make out that the bread had killed him. But from the time when St. Lazar came to life again, men when once dead do not
- ↑ The Golden Bough, part iii. p. 27.
