Abstract
Further Concepts of Serbian Gypsies relating to Disease BIBI, who brings disease to Gadže children, but protects gypsy children from every illness, says Alexander Petrovič (J. Gypsy Lore Soc., Ser. 3, 18, 4; 1939), among the gypsies of Golubinci is regarded as a hen. When she flies her chickens fly after her; and they are devils, witches, fever, cholera, diphtheria, and every kind of disease. Some believe that Bibi is in the whirlwind. They are afraid of the whirlwind, and believe that when it gets hold of a man he loses the use of an arm or a leg, or his speech. Bibi is found in dust: we breathe or swallow dust, and disease with it. Illness is caught at the new moon, and waxes and wanes with the moon. Other gypsies believe that cholera is brought to the village by a woman “dressed in black”, who carries disease only to those houses which are unclean. They conclude that a man is saved from cholera who keeps his house clean. The Golubinci gypsies, on the contrary, with a similar belief as to the origin of the disease, have come to the opposite conclusion. Because Bibi does not like smoke, dust, dirty napkins, dirty clothes and greasy pillow-cases, and these things stifle her, she will flee. In a house where everything is clean, she enters, touches each inmate, and they die. In the spring when colds, fevers, etc., begin to be prevalent, small dolls are dressed in red, one of which thrown into the well drowns Bibi, the other suspended from a high pole, is Bibi's son, the devil who drives her away. The Golubinci gypsies believe that every illness comes from fever. This may account for the belief that Bibi is a hen. A man suffering from malaria trembles violently, just as a hen does, when she beats her wings as if shaking off something. Thus it is not the sick man who shivers and trembles, but the disease itself, the hen that is in him.
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Research Items. Nature 144, 837–838 (1939). https://doi.org/10.1038/144837a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/144837a0