Spirit Possession and Exorcism in Serbia - the Ritual of "Rusalje" Danijel Sinani Abstract: The paper is dealing with

the ritual of "rusalje as a manifestation of a spirit possession phenomena. By its expressive elements, this ritual represents the unique appearance in the traditional culture of Serbs, involving for more than 100 women at the same time in the ritual drama and including mediumship, sorcery and clairvoyance. It is argued that for the categories of oppressed and deprived people this ritual represents the channel to exert mystical pressure upon their superiors, but also one of the few channels available to them for gaining some vertical social mobility. In its most developed forms the ritual becomes the channel for making special kind of career becoming the ritual official in the community. This paper is also concerned with the processes of inheritance and transmission of ritual roles in the "rusalje" ritual. Its rapid expansion and adoption in the neighboring regions are interpreted, followed by an analysis of the reasons and circumstances of the decline in the rituals significance and the disappearance of its most characteristic form. Key words: rusalje, ritual, spirit possession, exorcism, mediums, sorcery, career, ritual officials, vertical social mobility. The Rusalje ritual is one of the most exotic and most dramatic examples of ritual practice in the traditional culture of Serbia. This ritual marked its culmination in the first half of the 20th century, only to stop taking place in its most developed form on the public scene during the eighties. The ritual drew great attention of national and foreign authors of different profile, and numerous studies and rich ethnographic material about it were published.1 The Rusalje ritual took place in a wider region of Eastern Serbia, but its epicentre was in the village of Duboka located in the north-east part of Serbia, in the region of Homolje Mountains. The ritual took place during the movable feast the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles, or the Holy Trinity, which is celebrated in Duboka as a village saints day. The central part of the event is falling into trance of a great number of ritual participants and the exorcist ritual that follows 2. Exorcism is performed by a specially formed exorcist group composed of three kings and three queens who evict demons from Rusalje being in the state of ritual ecstasy with music, dance, song and specific ritual actions. The ways trance

Danijel Sinani _________________________________________________________________ is manifested differ significantly from one case to another, but most often it results in a certain form of communication with the ''otherworldly''. The ritual gathered a great number of interested people who tried to get in touch with the world of the dead. During the trance trance-women (padalice) shake on the ground, with their jaws clenched and their eyelids strongly closed down - they wriggle'', scream, cry, ''flail'' their arms, stamp their feet, gesticulate with their faces. Some trance-women clench their fists jerkily, they beat themselves, thump their chests with their fists, tear up their clothes, punch and kick around, make moves with their hands as if protecting themselves from someone, some of them cross themselves, kiss their hands, whisper, communicate with the supernatural. Some of them foam at the mouth, they try to run away, they bite their shirts, try to bite, break their fingers, spit on the present, and hit their husbands. Having returned from trance they mostly claim not to remember what had happened to them during the attack. Rusaljes ecstasy is considered by the people to be a state of illness which is, in different interpretations, thought to be the result of demonic creatures entering the body of a possessed person or of another spiritualized entity extruding the soul of the possessed. These entities are conceptualised sometimes as souls of ancestors, sometimes as good spirits sent by God, and sometimes as the very divine beings. It is believed that demons can enter a human body self-initiatively, most often through mouth, and not through the state of a provoked trance or in a manner that would remind of the shaman initiation. Rich ethnographic material clearly shows that women are a category of persons mostly subject to the possession attacks, so it is them who most often participate in the Rusalje ritual. Beside women, a possibility of men falling into trance is also mentioned, but much less, and there is also information on children of different age that were believed to be possessed and that they needed to be provided with the ritual of exorcism. When we talk about women as the category most subject to possession attacks, one should bear in mind, above all, the fact that women in Eastern Serbia spend their life in the patriarchal environment where power lies on the side of men. Most living aspects in this type of social community create conditions for numerous frustrations, feeling of subordination and marginalisation with female population. Along with this basic fact of them being subject to men in almost all domains of life, moments of exclusion from all organisational activities and key positions in the official dogma are also important in this case Orthodox Christianity, as well as exclusion from economic-political flows and decisionmaking systems, except for the earning. For all that, it should be born in mind that the region in which the ritual had developed is located in a severe area of the

Spirit Possession and Exorcism in Serbia-the Ritual of Rusalje _________________________________________________________________ tangle of mounting chains where the main economic activity is cattle breeding and perhaps agriculture where possible, and according to the testimony of our sources people here spend ''an atrociously difficult life'. 3 Woman is expected to fulfil her reproductive function and to perform hard work related with both the house and the entire household. According to the information from the sources, men are often absent from their homes, morality is at a low level, and marital and family conflicts are frequent, so the community breaks easily. Female participants in the Rusalje ritual are predominantly married women, and it can be easily observed that many started falling in trance immediately after the act of marriage. Arriving to a new environment upon marriage, woman, who was in a subordinate position in relation to the male members of the household in her own home, is now faced with the fact that her desires, aspirations and behaviour have to be subordinated not only to men who are completely new persons to her, but also to other women from the house she had married into. The position of deprivation is significantly dramatised in such circumstances. Taking into account the fact that in this area the so called juvenile marriage is a regular phenomenon, and that some girls come to their new family of her husbands who was selected by an agreement between the two families at the age of twelve of thirteen, the frustration factors reach their culmination. One very frequent piece of information is the fact that many of the married women falling into trance are barren. All this, with the previously described living conditions which all women from this region spend their whole lives in, creates sufficient basis for various frustrations to occur. Common denominators of all the described cases are subordination, deprivation and marginalisation.4 However, as it can be seen from the sources, manners of manifestation of the state of trance during the ritual differ from one group of women to another. The interviewees themselves who attended the execution of the Rusalje ritual tended to differentiate two groups of ''trance-women'' those who are prophetesses and those who are not. ''Trance-women'' that communicate with the otherworldly, foretell and then assume the title of sorceresses, are predominantly women of middle and advanced age, 40 to 60 years old. They have the most dramatic and the most serious attacks during the state of ecstasy, which is the one that lasts longest. They are the ones who are hardest to retrieve from this state, and the doctors are prevented from approaching and examining them. These persons are mostly the only ones who fall into trance in their family or, perhaps older women from their family (mostly mothers) used to fall into trance before them. On the other hand, persons whose attacks are manifested in a lighter way are not considered sorceresses, and in their ecstasy they are most frequently sad,

Danijel Sinani _________________________________________________________________ tired, complaining of pain and weakness and they often cry. Besides them, other female family members from different generations frequently fall into trance (mothers, sisters, aunts, etc.). Attacks in this category of women can also be strong and dramatic, with manifestations similar to those of the first category. But there is an important difference in these cases there is no explicit contact with the otherworldly whatsoever. This group usually includes younger persons of 20 to 30 years of age. Surely, the observed regularities should not be understood exclusively, for they also include existence of different examples and overlapping of certain elements. However, another, perhaps the largest group of women falling into trance is observed in the descriptive material, and their behaviour can be positioned between the two types previously described. In their trance, they make contact with the world of the dead and during the possession attack they have the role of a medium. Their attacks can be mild, so they whistle or ''hum a tune'', whisper in their talks to the dead, or they can be manifested very strongly, even with the expression of substantial aggression towards themselves or the surroundings. In that case communication with the world of the dead starts when Rusalja calms down and interested people start gathering around her trying to get answers to the questions of their interest. Gathered people usually want to obtain information from Rusalja about their deceased how are they doing in the other world, if there is something they lack or something else they could do to make their afterlife easier. People try to use these opportunities to send things to the deceased they think the deceased need, which are given to the trancewoman so that she would symbolically hand these things over to the souls of the dead, or she uses them for exchange of information and an attempt to talk with the dear deceased persons. Frequent case is that Rusalje of this kind transfer information from the world of the dead self-initiatively, which are intended for the members of her family or gathered, interested people, and sometimes such information also contains views that propagate holding on to the traditionally established forms of behaviour, particularly in the sphere of relations towards the deceased. Hence, it can be concluded that we can basically differentiate two types of Rusalje trance-women those who did not (or have not yet) achieve(d) certain level of professionalization, and those who became professionals due to circumstances in which they were recognised as possessed. The first are usually possessed by demonic, mythical beings, while the second type of trance-women in the role of possessing agents comes across the souls of ancestors, good spirits sent by God all the way to the beings from celestial hierarchy, even God itself.

Spirit Possession and Exorcism in Serbia-the Ritual of Rusalje _________________________________________________________________ In a wider sense, however, the group of professionalized trance-women does not represent a unique category but more the whole scale of different persons who assumed a major or minor number of roles and functions, relying on the manifestations of possession taking place in the Rusalje ritual. It is formed of persons providing different types of services from communication with dead relatives and ancestors, to establishment of a communication bridge with the otherworldly and making contacts with the dead possible for other persons not belonging to the immediate family, through persons who foretell and preach religious/moral/ethical contents during their state of ecstasy, and persons that in life, based on the possession phenomenon and outside the cycle of spiritual feast, assume the role of leading religious ritual functionaries in their community thus making a specific career. The latter renew their authority by falling into ecstasy for other big feasts as well the higher the number of possession attacks the higher the status of the person basing her capacities on them; bigger powers are attributed to such person, which, again, brings more clients and a more important role and status not only in her own community, but also in a broader social community. So, it can be said that the first category of Rusalje trance-women includes persons from the social margine, primarily women who feel any form of deprivation and suffer certain frustrations, either of emotional or sexual nature, or those resulting from pressures of the obligations brought to women by daily life in the patriarchal type of community, or expectations imposed to them by the community that they cannot fulfil (barren women, marriage), or personal and professional failure of accomplishment, exclusion from the religious life, main decision making streams, etc. In this case, by reaching out to possession and taking part in the Rusalje ritual, women will point to their position, express their revolt, speak and behave in a manner that would be otherwise impossible in regular circumstances. At the same time, at least for that particular day, they will attract attention of their fellow beings and receive appropriate care and special treatment.5 But their social status will not change with these attacks of possession. They are usually possessed by demonic entities. However, manifestations of possession and conditions of this category of persons can further move in two basic directions: the first direction would lead to healing i.e. stopping falling into ecstasy once the conditions for that are met (the source of frustration disappears), and the other direction is orientation towards certain level of professionalization, depending on personal ambitions and abilities, and also on public readiness to accept such developments. This process is conditioned by the increase of morality and authority of possessing entities.6

Danijel Sinani _________________________________________________________________ The second category of Rusalje is formed of persons who have already used their attacks of possession to achieve certain level of professionalization and engagement in the community. In these cases women are most often possessed by the souls of the dead, relatives or distant ancestors. They enable communication with the souls of the dead and insight into the afterlife. In return, they receive gifts that are symbolically dedicated to the souls of the deceased. Increase of the social status of these persons, if any, is not significant and is reduced to the feeling of respect or awe shown to them by the other members of the community. Their role is related exclusively with the Rusalje ritual and outside the system of spiritual feasts they return to their regular activities. Their ecstasy originates in one of the above mentioned categories of deprivation, and their further role in the Rusalje ritual can also take two directions towards healing and ceasing to take part in the Rusalje ritual, or towards further professionalization and building a career that will be based on repeated and nourished attacks of possession. The third category is formed of highly professionalized persons who become possessed by agents of a higher rank. In some cases it is again about the souls of ancestors, but most often these are the creatures of divine provenance. These persons change their social status to a great extent, their role in the community does not end with the manifestation of possession i.e. falling into trance during spiritual ceremonies. These persons, known among the people by different names (mainly sorceresses or church persons - crkvarke), offer a wide range of services to their clients - from communication with the dead to healing services, through fortune telling. In some cases, these persons are also advocates and propagators of religious/moral/ethic principles important for the culturalcognitive reproduction of the community, so they assume the role of a religiousritual functionary. Bearing in mind the fact that in Duboka, for instance, church did not exist in the period when the Rusalje ritual took place at full strength, meaning that the presence of the official religion was almost unperceivable, the need for functionaries of this kind was highly marked. Persons whose manifestations of possession result in this sequence of events, usually abandon their regular activities, and they earn substantial part of their income (money and gifts) based on the services offered to the interested clientele. Hence, change and progress in economic aspects of life of the persons in question are evident. On the other hand, their social status grows in the community they live in according to the importance of the role they assume which may culminate with the role of one of the principal religious functionaries in the community. Stopping participating in the Rusalje ritual, in this case, is actually the end of one entirely specific career.

Spirit Possession and Exorcism in Serbia-the Ritual of Rusalje _________________________________________________________________ Quite obviously, many of the women taking part in this ritual seek a vent this way or a compensation mechanism for their numerous frustrating conditions they live under. This way they give vent to their feelings by publically expressing their frustration through a socially accepted idiom or they make pressure on their environment, men above all, to pay attention to their condition and to give them more importance in these moments and to be more interested in them. However, expression of dissatisfaction, satisfaction of frustrations or revolt against the gender monopolizing the positions of power are not the only things present in the Rusalje ritual; there is another, very specific tendency of a certain number of persons to find a channel through which to achieve vertical social passing through for themselves, for their better life and a higher position, independently from the relations with the remaining part of the community.7 What is important for this paper is that one category of persons, thanks to their own abilities and aspirations, manages to influence the public by using manifestations of possession attacks and also to provide for themselves a significant progress in the social status including the aspects related to the personal reputation they enjoy, as well as economic aspects. This way participation in the Rusalje ritual becomes a socially desirable form of behaviour, and the question of progressing on the social scale is the question of a successful professionalization of the abilities the person claims to acquire through the possession attacks. Those persons who have not professionalized their possession attacks, in case they are not given attention from their fellow men and the proper ritual is not performed, they have an additional mechanism that can relieve them to a certain extent from the pressures of the community they live in; it is, therefore, believed that women for whom the exorcist wheel dance has not been performed, or those who fall into trance outside the stage where the Rusalje ritual takes place, will become ill, tired or, generally, incapable to work during a certain period of time covering between seven days and the whole year. In such cases, it is possible to engage other therapeutic means, so these persons are taken to a sorceress for healing or to treatments in monasteries. If left unsatisfied with the treatment guaranteed to the possessed persons during the Rusalje ritual, and if having capabilities and tendencies to further progress in the ritual life of the community, the possessed person will start claiming in time to be possessed by entities of a higher rank and initiate professionalization of the condition originally seen as illness caused by the demonic creatures attacks. These efforts are frequently supported by her relatives, which is indicated by the information from the sources saying that Rusalja often communicates with them during her ecstasy and that they give instructions to one another regarding development of the state they are in.

Danijel Sinani _________________________________________________________________ Relatives are also those who do not allow a more detailed review of trancewomen, which could lead to their unmasking, if the attacks of trance are feigned. Likewise, the sources testify that in cases happening in the Rusalja ritual possession is not considered to be voluntary which is one of the basic assumptions for it to be publically accepted and culturally evaluated.8 In that sense, there are numerous claims that women do not want to fall into trance during spiritual feasts, that they went to see a sorceress or a priest to help them get free from this illness, but in practice such attempts seldom result in success and getting out of the circle of Rusalja ritual participants. The level of achieved professionalization of Rusalja is also important in these cases. Highly professionalized persons say that nothing can free them from the possession attacks, and some have even claimed that it was given to them by God. Regarding participation of men in the role of those falling into trance during spiritual feasts although there are stories of men also falling into trance (only a smaller number of them) only one specific example of a male being possessed during spiritual feasts can be found in the entire descriptive material. This is a person who had a physical deficiency in both legs by birth.9 It is quite clear that this physically disturbed person was not able to fulfil his male role in the patriarchal community to the full extent and to fairly participate in a competition for positions with other male members. In that sense, subordination, deprivation and marginalisation are totally expected, an as a favourable alternative idiom for progress in the status, the one actually used in the community as the channel for social passing through was accepted participation in the Rusalje ritual. When we talk about children falling into trance, the entire ethnographic material gives explicitly only five cases recorded by doctors. In all of the mentioned examples, real conditions of weakness or specific diseases were diagnosed. Parents of these children insisted on performing an exorcist ritual without paying attention to doctors advice, and that can be understood in two ways: they either believe in possession as the cause of the disease, for which exorcism is required, or they try to initiate their children into the order of chronically possessed participants of the Rusalje ritual which, again, is about the preference of such form of behaviour.

Notes:

See, e.g: V. Suboti, Rusalje u Srbiji ili padalice u selu Dubokoj u Zvidu. Tri predavanja, Kongres srpskih lekara i prirodnjaka u Beogradu, Beograd, 1905; V. Meduri, Kraljice. Prosvetni pregled, br 2 i 3, Novi Sad, 1925; M. Dragi, Rusalje kao funkcionalna neuroza masa. Socijalno medicinski pregled, Knjiga 8, Sveska 4, Beograd, 1936, pp. 201 206; R. Kazimirovi, Tajanstvene pojave u naem narodu i kremansko proroanstvo, Beograd, 1940; G. A. Kppers, Rosalienfest und Trancetnze in Duboka. Zeitschrift fr Ethnologie, 79, Braunschweig, 1954, pp. 212 224; V. Jakovljevi, Preiveli oblici orgijastikog vida arhainih rusalskih obreda homoljske rusalije, padalice. Etnoloki pregled, br. 2, Beograd, 1960, pp. 8 14; D. Bandi, amanistika komponenta rusaljskog rituala. Etnoloki pregled, br. 15, Beograd, 1978, pp. 21 35. 2 Two doctors who did a separate research of trance in Rusaljes from Duboka in the first half of the 20th century examined around two hundred participants falling into trance during only one single cycle of feasts; See: Suboti, indicated piece; Dragi, indicated piece. 3 Suboti, p. 78. 4 Also see: I. M. Lewis, Spirit Possession and Deprivation Cults. Man, New Series, Vol. 1. No. 3, Sep., 1966, pp. 307-329; R. Gomm, Bargaining from Weakness: Spirit Possession on the South Kenya Coast. Man, New Series, Vol. 10, No. 4, Dec., 1975, pp. 530-543; D. N. Gellner, Priests, Healers, Mediums and Witches: The Context of Possession in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal. Man, New series, Vol. 29, No. 1, Mar., 1994, pp. 27-48. 5 Also see: Lewis, op.cit. 6 Also see: Lewis, op.cit.; Gellner, op.cit. 7 See: D. Sinani, Opsednutost i egzorcizam u Srbiji, SGC, Beograd, 2007 8 About cultural evaluation of the possession phenomenon, see: I. M. Lewis, Ecstatic Religion An Anthropology Studies of Spirit Possession and Shamanism, Routledge, London, 2003. 9 Suboti, p. 89.

Bibliography: Bandi, D., amanistika komponenta rusaljskog rituala. Etnoloki pregled, br. 15, Beograd, 1978, pp. 21 35. Dragi, M., Rusalje kao funkcionalna neuroza masa. Socijalno medicinski pregled, Knjiga 8, Sveska 4, Beograd, 1936, pp. 201 206. Gellner, D. N., Priests, Healers, Mediums and Witches: The Context of Possession in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal. Man, New series, Vol. 29, No. 1, Mar., 1994, pp. 27-48. Gomm, R., Bargaining from Weakness: Spirit Possession on the South Kenya Coast. Man, New Series, Vol. 10, No. 4, Dec., 1975, pp. 530-543. Jakovljevi, V., Preiveli oblici orgijastikog vida arhainih rusalskih obreda homoljske rusalije, padalice. Etnoloki pregled, br. 2, Beograd, 1960, pp. 8 14. Kazimirovi, R., Tajanstvene pojave u naem narodu i kremansko proroanstvo. Beograd, 1940. Kppers, G. A., Rosalienfest und Trancetnze in Duboka. Zeitschrift fr Ethnologie, 79, Braunschweig, 1954, pp. 212 224. Lewis, I. M., Spirit Possession and Deprivation Cults. Man, New Series, Vol. 1. No. 3, Sep., 1966, pp. 307-329. Lewis, I. M., Ecstatic Religion An Anthropology Studies of Spirit Possession and Shamanism. Routledge, London, 2003. Meduri, V., Kraljice. Prosvetni pregled, br 2 i 3, Novi Sad, 1925. Sinani, D., Opsednutost i egzorcizam u Srbiji. SGC, Beograd, 2007.Suboti, V., Rusalje u Srbiji ili padalice u selu Dubokoj u Zvidu. Tri predavanja. Kongres srpskih lekara i prirodnjaka u Beogradu, Beograd, 1905.

Danijel Sinani is Assistant Professor at the Department of Ethnology and Anthropology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade. He is interested in topics such as: folk religion, demonology, magic, myth, ritual and new religions