On the power of the word: healing incantations of Bosnian Sephardic women [English translation]

Abstract

The article is dedicated to Sephardic popular medicine, more precisely to Sephardic feminine traditional healing incantations, the way these were preserved and perpetuated in the Sarajevo Jewish community. These incantations are set, meticulous magical formulas widely distributed among Sephardic communities, that have parallels in Christian Iberian culture (the land of origin of the community’s members) as well as in the culture of Ottoman Muslims and Christians (the country of Sephardic resettlement). The authors perceive these incantations as a literary genre in all regards, and the article proposes a literary-cultural analysis of all such incantations that were preserved in Bosnian tradition. The limitation to one single communal tradition allowed for a more sharp distinction between the different sub-genres, as well as for a proposal of a model that could, in the future, constitute a research instrument applicable to the genre in general.

Članak je posvećen sefardskoj popularnoj medicini, tačnije tradiciji isceliteljskih bajalica sefardskih žena, načinu na koji su one sačuvane i održane u sarajevskoj jevrejskoj zajednici. Ove bajalice, magijske formule su široko rasprostranjene među sefardskim zajednicama, koje imaju paralele u hrišćanskoj iberijskoj kulturi (zemlja porekla članova zajednice), kao i u kulturi osmanskih muslimana i hrišćana (zemlja sefardskog preseljenja). Autori u svim pogledima ove bajalice doživljavaju kao književnu vrstu, a članak predlaže književno-kulturnu analizu svih takvih bajalica koje su sačuvane u bosanskoj tradiciji. Ograničenje na jednu zajedničku tradiciju omogućilo je oštriju razliku između različitih podžanrova, kao i predlog modela koji bi u budućnosti mogao da predstavlja istraživački instrument primenljiv na žanr uopšte.