Raif Esmerović
BOSNIAN MYTHOLOGY
Divine bull Tur
A
mong the oldest myths where he is
mentioned is located in Mesopotamia
and the legend about the deity
Guagalanni, better known as the heavenly
bull or bull from the sky. Gugalanna was the
first husband Ereshkigala, deity of the
underworld, dark world without light. Gods
sent him to exact revenge upon Gilgamesh
because he refused sexual advances of the
goddess Inanna. During that occurrence, the
heavenly bull, whose kick causes
earthquakes, was defeated and dismembered
by Gilgamesh and his follower Enkidu. In
the middle east religious paradigm of killing
a bull is frequent and we can find it in the
legend about the genesis shaped in the
Persian god Mithra, from whose description
of his birth and life the mythological legend
of Jesus was created, this god hunted and
killed a wild bull. From the body of the dead
animal, plants started to grow, from the
bones wheat sprang up and from his blood
grapevine. That’s when the first people were
created. Even after the advent of Islam in
these areas the bull didn’t lose his divine
characteristic which is best confirmed by the
Arabian myth, or better said cosmological
representation, about the white bull Kujuta
which stands on the head of a horrible beast
Bahamut and holds the earth on his back.
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Bahamut or Behemoth is the name of a
mythological giant fish which in Arabic
cosmology represented a backbone of earth,
and for her mythology claims that she
possesses numerous eyes, ears, noses and
tongues. Certain myths claim that instead of
a fish’s head it has an elephants head or
hippopotamus head, and in some versions
Bahamut is actually a sea dragon with sharp
teeth and limbs. Bahamut holds on his
strong body all seven spheres which in
Arabic mythology constitute the entire
universe. On Bahamut, i.e. on his head, the
bull named Kujuta is positioned, which holds
a mountain made out of rubies on his back.
On top of that unusual mountain the angels
are holding the seven layers of earth.
Alternatively, on the back of Bahamut is
actually a surface made out of sand. Kujuta
is standing on that sand, and the mountain
that he is carrying on his back has a vast
ocean in the middle of which earth is
floating. Underneath Bahamut is the dark
and mysterious part filled with mist and
water. Some mythological data claim that
underneath that dark sphere there is a fire
world in which the snake Falak dwells.
 Raif Esmerović
Bahamut is an original mythological
creation of the Arabic mythology, data on it
appear in cosmological tones which date
since 1291. The name itself in Arabic means
“the beast”. About it the ancient Arabic
historian, Ibn al-Wardi wrote, it is also
mentioned in the 1001 night where the story
about the man named Isa is mentioned, who
after seeing Bahamut out of shock and fear
loses his consciousness. Once he awoke,
Allah asked him if he had seen a big fish. Isa
replied that he saw a bull standing on top of
the fish’s head. The Jews assimiliated this
mythological being, like many other
religious-mythological segments, in their
mythological traditions.
Arabic Kujuta and Bosnian Tur
Certain segments of the presented legend
have connecting points with Bosnian myths
about the gigantic bull Tur, which holds the
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planet on his back, from whose will depends
the fate of earth and all people. Generally,
the myth about Tur is short and there are
not a lot of details which would reveal
something more about the wider
representation of Bosnian cosmology and the
only exception is Rogatica. Namely, in that
part of Bosnia it was believed that
underneath the land there was an endless
sea, on its surface swam a giant fish, on the
fish’s head a bull stood and on his back
earth. When that bull moves slightly his ear,
the earth shakes, and when he would move
his leg or something else, the entire earth
would plunge into the sea, but it was
believed that Allah created a small fly which
constantly flies around the eyes of that bull
and he is so afraid of her that he literally
can’t move1.
As among the Turks there is no recorded
legend not about Bahamot nor Tur, we can
conclude that there was no transfer of myths
during the Ottoman occupation of BiH,
instead it is a rudiment of an ancient pagan
cult which was inherited by certain
Mediterranean people, and among them the
Illyrians. There is a logical probability that
Illyrian soldiers serving in the Roman
Empire transferred the legend of Tur to the
territory of Syria and further, or vice versa,
inherited it and brought it to the Balkans.
But, no matter how it happened we’re
talking about a very old legend from the old,
ancient times. The bull had a very
significant place for the Illyrians in the
religious-magical sense and even if we don’t
have many written data about the Pagan
rites of our ancestors, we discovered through
archeological findings that they preferred to
hang the horns of Bos primigenius at the
1
It is interesting to mention that at one time the people from
BiH represented the earth as a big foursquare slab, which in
the edges on a hair of the bull leaned on four pillars, and it
seemed that she might tip over at any moment. But it wouldn’t,
the people claimed, since she stood there according to god’s
will and mercy. That slab was of an even length and width.
Pillars were oily, tall and thin, they were bending, so that it
seemed that they might break off at any moment. They were
made out of white marble and planted in an unmeasured sea
depth, since under that entire slab (earth), an endless sea was
located, which cannot be seen since it is underneath us. This
is a vast sea and all others are small compared to this one.
 Raif Esmerović
front of the house which had a magical
function to protect the family and give it
fertility. Also we shouldn’t forget to mention
the traditional custom among Illyrian tribes
of offering sacrifice, gift of blood and meat to
the gods for a successful harvest of wheat,
when they would slaughter a bull during
august up on a hill.
Unique Tur
Other bypasses in the legend itself are
evident, namely, as the Arabic mythology
claims Bahamut will when judgment day
comes be destroyed by its creator i.e. god, to
whom this beast is only subjugated. Among
the Bosnians it is narrated that judgment
day will take place on the day “when Tur
shakes his body”, i.e. there are no claims
about the classic notion of Judgement day
where everything happens by god’s will,
which gives us ample space to conclude that
Tur holder of the earth is the ruler of the
planet and people.
Similarly, while in Arabic mythology the bull
Kujuta is depicted with totally white skin in
Bosnian mythology he is black, and is truly
connected to an actual animal (Bos
primigenius) which died out in Europe in the
middle ages. The best proof of its presence on
the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina are
toponyms which give a deeper historical
connotation to everything. Tur in Bosnian
tradition is without a doubt a deity and in
that form it is not seen anywhere else on the
Balkans, nor in Europe, which in and of
itself implicates that we’re talking about an
ancient supernatural being. In the past it
was assumed that his name Tur comes from
the abbreviation of the Latin word Taurus
but it is clear that the original name stems
from the actual name of the wild bovine Bos
primigenius.
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Divine plowman Vidasus
In the traditional life of Bosnia and
Herzegovina a castrated bull i.e. ox was an
integral part of a village household and it
replaced the horse, which had a higher
market price and that’s why he wasn’t
owned by numerous village households.
Researching ethnological build and oral
tradition of the belief of Bosnian people
about the ox it is noticeable that he was
treated with care and attention primarily
because of the existential but also holly
purpose. When the summer plowing begins
to the ox which was on the right side people
would wrap around his right horn a red knit
(thread), a chicken egg would be cracked on
his forehead and his neck would be covered
with butter. All of these ritual measures
were undertaken with the goal of protection
from evil and summoning good luck and
fertility.
In folk astronomy the constellation out of
seven stars so called pleiad is called the
Volovi (oxen). It is interesting because the
pleiad (Messier 45) is located in the
constellation of the bull. Though Wikipedia
claims that pleiad is represented in all
mythologies from the southern hemisphere it
is evident through legends about Tur, but
also other folk beliefs and traditions, that we
can notice a mythological connection with
the pleiad in Bosnian mythology. Segments
of the divine cult of Tur are hinted out of the
two folk names of the constellations which
are located one next to the other and they
are Orion, assembly of three stars, which in
Bosnia were called Štapovi (sticks) and the
already mentioned Volovi (oxen)2. In the
spring, when it is time for sowing, when the
Štapovi are visible on the sky, it is a sign
that dawn occurred, morning is nearing, and
2
In Bosnian love magic a girl, if she is casting a spell with
walnuts, looks at the oxen in the sky, since they’re numerous
and powerful, and if she wishes to see (dream) her future
husband then before going to bed she looks towards the pillars
and utters the following: “Illuminate me Žarinko Nasiba, set me
on fire Planinko Nasiba, so I can see my future husband. To
see him tonight in my dream as in real life, or to see his face,
or to hear his name. Until I see him he shouldn't walk nor
work!"
 Raif Esmerović

that oxen must be fed and harnessed so they take from him what the thief took from this
can plow. poor man. Soon the father and son, together
with the stolen animal, came close to their
Together these two constellations represent house. When they came next to the barn, the
the one which operates the oxen i.e. ploughs father was surprised by the silence that he
the land i.e. represents the mythological noticed in the barn, he hurried to light a
divine sower, which could be no one else candle. The pale light of the candle shone
than the Illyrian god Vidasus, known as light on the barn quickly. The barn was
Žeteoc – the one that reaps (wheat). In completely empty. There were no oxen. The
addition to that goes the data that the father ran out wildly and he held his head
plough was invented by the Illyrians. out of torment and pain. He then looked to
the sky wanting to wallow to God to what
had happened to him and before he opened
Seven oxen – seven stars his mouth he noticed in the sky seven
shining stars flickering together and wide
According to folk tales from Velika Kladuša eyed he realized that he cannot cry out to
in ancient times lived a greedy man which god, since he punished him because of his
had seven oxen. As he had an uneven great sin that he did towards that poor man.
number he yearned for another ox in order to That’s how, according to folk tales, the
have eight of them i.e. to have an even constellation of oxen (Plejade) came to be, as
number. One day he remembered that in the a warning to all that you shouldn’t steel from
neighboring village there was a poor man other people especially oxen3.
that owned only one ox. –When he has only
one he doesn't need even that one, he
concluded and he came up with a plan with
his son to go there after midnight and steal
the ox. What they conceived off they
undertook. When they came half way home
some unrest caught the father and he told
his son they should stop so they can rest.
Seeing a bale of hay close by he ordered him
to bring hay and put it into nine small
heaps, one next to the other, once this was
done he let the stolen ox feast on the hay.
But, instead of eating from the first pile the
ox hesitated, he sniffed and only stopped at
the seventh pile where he started to ear.
That horrified the father and he said: “Can
you see that, my son, what a sin we made by
stealing this ox from that poor man, his
curse will follow us up to our seventh
generation!”. But, greed in him overcame his
fear and he continued his way home.
Somehow at that time, since dawn was
nearing, the poor man awoke and headed
3
towards the barn to feed the ox but as soon Motif of teleportation of a terrestrial occurrence which

as he entered the barn he had seen that the

ox was gone and that someone stole him.
From sorrow and pain he started crying and
he cursed the thief, let God punish him and
symbolizes a great sin onto the sky, which represents the
worldly stage, is common in Bosnian traditions. Another
famous folk tale about divine intervention and public
punishment is the one in which god immediately put to death a
disobedient son, when he swung his axe towards his mother,
wanting to kill her, and his body, together with the axe, god
teleported to the surface of the moon, so that it serves as a
warning to all people that mothers must be respected.

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 Raif Esmerović
CHAPTER 2
Tur is not a Slavic but a Latin word –
Taurus, and a lot of similarity is seen in
certain Illyrian names such as Teut or Trit,
forms such as Tritan or Tritatron, and even
Tana or Medauros. It is interesting to note
that in the Bosnian language Tur is used for
the part of pants, long johns or even
pantaloons which connects tights, actually
the hem between the legs, which connects
them into a whole. Similarly the word Tur
can be seen as an abbreviation from the
terms poturiti or podturiti i.e. underlay
something in order to keep a load or mass
from falling.
Tur (taxonomically and Latin: Bos
primigenius) is an extinct genus of a wild
bovine, which lived in Europe, Asia and
North Africa, it is a forefather of today’s
cattle. The last European exemplar lived
until 1627.
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Tur was from the old days an important
animal for the survival of mankind; that’s
why the drawings and descriptions of it are
present even inscriptions “Comments on the
Gaelic wars (Commentarii de bello, Gallico)
from Julius Cesar. His character became the
status symbol of numerous European states
and cities: Alba-lulia, Kaunas, Romania,
Moldavia, Turka, province Mecklenburg and
Swiss canton Uri, which was named after
him.
Tur was larger than cattle today which is
familiar to us. It was 160-180 cm tall (males)
and 150 (females), 2.8 meters long without
the tail, the tail was 0,8 meters long. Tur’s
had pronounced sexual differences, besides
the basic biological differences in the built of
sexual organs, they differentiated
themselves by colour and size, females were
shorter and smaller (smaller backbone) than
males. Males were black-brown, and females
red-brown, both had light, almost white,
horns with black tops. Tur was abundant in
almost entire Europe. Their habitat were
usually steppe, taiga, wet swampy forests
and river valleys. These bovines lived in
herds, except a few older bulls which lived
alone, until the mating season when they
would join the herd. In the herd which had a
few dozen units, there was a dominant male,
and during the mating period there were
fights over the females. mating took place
during the end of summer, and calf’s were
born during the end of spring. Tur usually
fed off of grass, but also fruit, leaves and
softer branches. Unlike most cattle today
which are in essence day animals, Tur was
active at dusk and night. According to the
research of the paleontological museum of
the University in Oslo, the first exemplars
appeared on the area of today’s India before
 Raif Esmerović

two million years BC, from where they
migrated to the Middle East and other parts
of Asia. They reached Europe around the
year 250 00.
Illyrian cult of Tur
In the religion of our Illyrian forefathers Tur
was one of the main segments of the ancient
cult of fertility whose influence was retained
until today among the Bosnian people.
Aleksandar Stipčević, Alojz Benac authors of
the book “Cult symbols among the Illyrians:
structure and contributions of
systematization” (1981) mention the
following:
the moon phases with the length of
menstrual cycles of women, all of this gave
an extremely important role to the bovine in
the symbolic system of farming cultures from
the earlier iron age onward.
With the weakening of matriarchy and its
substitution by patriarchy in the metal age
didn’t lead to the disappearance of the bull
as the principle of fertility. In Greek and
Roman religion the bull plays a large role as
a sacrificial animal tied to the cult of
fertility.

In farming cultures of the earlier iron age, in

which the role of a woman, especially in
terms of land cultivation is of the utmost
importance for the life of the community, the
cult of the bull as a principle of fertility
represents a dominant component of the
entire belief of people at the time. Bull, i.e.
bovine, becomes an animal tied to the
fertility of earth as the plough farming
developed and the role of a woman in Tur in the folk calendar
ploughing and farming in general lead to
incorporation of the symbol of the bull as the
Studying the description of living habits of
principle of fertility in the basic of the
Tur, especially the one about fertility, I
religious cosmos of the matriarchal society. immediately noticed a connection with the
iconographicaly reduced to the horns, the folk (agronomical) calendar of Bosnia and
bovine quickly became the symbol of the Herzegovina, which is divided in only two
moon because of the similarity of the horns seasons – summer and winter – and in which
there is a very interesting segment, which
with the new moon. And the moon, as we
was unclear to me from the very beginning,
mentioned earlier, is closely tied to the
as a student of BiH ethnology.
fertility of nature itself. Hence, the role of
the woman in farming work, help of the Namely, it is no coincidence that the Bosnian
bovine in the work, similarity of the bovine folk calendar begins when summer ends i.e.
horns with the new moon, correspondence of in the middle of autumn, when mating

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 Raif Esmerović
season of Tur began, and ends in spring,
time when new members of the species are
born. That we are talking about such a
phenomenon is well demonstrated by the
belief in three occurrences called Stablići,
Kablići and Štapići, each lasts three days,
which sums up to nine days, a lunar number
and represents a stap, long wooden bowl in
which one “pounded” milk and made
butterfat, štap or mećajica i.e. an item which
was used to “pound” and kabao – wooden
vessel for storage of milk. All three names
are closely tied to cattle and signified a very
important thing, namely, when a cow brings
a calf to this world she becomes lactic, in her
udders milk is building up which is used to
feed the calf but also members of the family
which own the cow. That’s why it is clear
that this belief stems from the distant past
and is directly tied to the Illyrian cult of
fertility and Tur.
Further, Stipčević mentions another
interesting part which is directly tied to Tur:
“In Donja Dolina, near Sanski Most, during
excavations in villages a skull of the bull
forefather has been found (Bos primigenius)
which was, as Ć. Truhelka believes fastened
to façade of the house and had a function of
bucrania.”
As an inevitable symbol and bearer of
fertility, among our forefathers Illyrians, the
bull had a central role in celebration of the
harvest, when at the beginning of August
the bull was slaughtered in the name of the
goddess Grand Mother. In that ceremonial
segment of sacrificial offering, Celtic-Persian
influence is dominant, through celebration of
the pagan circle of the year with the ancient
myth about the solar god of fertility Mithra,
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which the Romans inherited from the
Persians. Goths which were at one time
mixed with the Illyrians and enriched not
only genetically but also culturally-
religiously the habit of ancient Bosnians,
they saw in Tur much more than an ordinary
animal, because of his priceless importance
in land tillage, and also the cult of fertility,
he was identified with the land, as its
guardian and ruler.
Identification with the fertile land, which
brings food and maintains the community,
its physical strength and endurance and
striking look of the horns, elevated Tur in
the pantheon to the level of divine being in
Bosnian mythology. He becomes a gigantic
bull which is holding the entire earth on his
back. In that way he rules over the destiny of
humans, but also everything else. With that
he receives the label of Tur land keeper. But,
everything is not only left on the
mythological representation and iconography
which is evident in certain ethnological
records which record the ancient practice of
dedicating prayers to this heavenly being,
which hasn’t been interrupted with the
advent of Christianity and Islam to the
territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In the book “Syncretic elements in Islam in
BiH” M. Hadžijahić states an interesting
part in which he describes the religious
practice: “From a poor elderly lady,
Puhalovka Alijaginica which lived in
Čebedžije in Sarajevo, I managed to record
this: “On Wednesday afternoon prayer is
performed and one bows down to: Ognju and
Ognjevu Piru, Tur, Hadži Dedi, Hadži
Kasapi, Sitoj Nefisi, Vejsil Karanij, his
mother and father…” Under the name Oganj
and Ognjev Pir is hidden the god of sun
(Oganj name for fire) and his son, from
mythological notion that the sun is “born”
and “dies”, but for this text the name Tur is
the most interesting, as we see, he did not
disappear from the religious consciousness of
the Bosnian people until the middle of the
twentieth century, and after that he was
mentioned solely as a mythological being
 Raif Esmerović

which is holding the earth. In the book the

author mentions another perfect example
about the preservation of the Illyrian
religion in Bosnia. Namely, in the village
Turovo underneath Jahorina each year a
celebration of Vida was held i.e. Ilyrian god
Vidasus, which was converted into a saint
with the advent of Christianity in Bosnia,
and from then on he is worshipped as holly
Vid. Tur and Vidasus, with this toponym and
somewhat shortened name, actually best
represent how well entrenched the Illyrian
religion is amongst the Bosnian people.

Illyrian crest has the sign of a half-moon as a

symbol of the horn of Tur.

See:

https://www.scribd.com/document/368857971/Mysterious-Bosnia-and-Herzegovina-Raif-
Esmerovic

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