Animal Real-Unreal in Traditional Conceptions of the World in Croatian Areas

Trying to interpret oneself and the other in the world, the traditional Man has established a real world and an otherworld. Specific herbal and animal attributes were ascribed to particular people who allegedly had the power to communicate between worldliness and transcendence. Also some human characteristics were linked with herbal and animal mediators. These attributes were folklorized as miraculous powers. Such supernatural beings from South Slavic traditional conceptionsof the world have been largely associated with the pre-Christian deities and their degradations, based on the observed real attributes of the vegetal and animal species. The interdisciplinary comparative way of treating South Slavic folklore real-unreal motifs through time and space in this article is its ethnological, animalistic and anthropological contribution.


Introduction
Anthropological research of the interaction between nature and culture have been spreading ever since the research work of Franz Boas , a pioneer of American and world modern anthropology. At the beginning of the 21 st century, multispecies ethnologists and anthropologists started focusing their attention on herbal and animal organisms directly intertwined with those of humans. Their emerging interdisciplinary research includes ethnographic and environmental studies, biological and technology studies of living organisms, bioscientific artefacts, ethnobiological subjects and connecting biopolitical actions.
Trying to interpret the world, oneself and the other, the traditional Man, faced with transience and death, developed perceptions of a real world and an otherworld. Those individuals strived to reconcile the realities of their microcosm with those of the surrounding macrocosm without alienating themselves from their natural environment. The endeavour inevitably transformed individuals, as well as whole societies into cultural and eccentric entities with the result that the non-herbal world became herbalized and the non-animal world became animalized in the psyche of both individuals and societies. Intentional selection played, and it continues to play, an essential role in the process of the development of the anthropomorphised perceptions of herbal and animal worlds; it is, for all intents and purposes, an evolutionary Il.  process. In this particular sense we see the evolution of the Japanese crab Heikegani (Heikeopsis japonica), which imprinted its importance on the collective psyche of people in Japan firstly by the agency of discernible human shapes on its extravagant armour resembling the samurais of the Heike clan, and later by the establishment of the Heike clan cult after the members of the clan had been massacred in the 12 th century (Sagan, 1983, 24-26). The trend has always been to ascribe certain animal or plant characteristics to those who alleged have the ability to interact with the spirit world. By the same token, plant or animal intermediaries between the real world and the otherworld have been ascribed some human features. It's commonly known that New Years' and wedding disguises encompass apotropaic, homeopathic, contagious and repetitive magic of totemistic, manistic, animistic and demonistic perceptibilities (Kulišić, 1979, 59). Those traditions have deep roots in the mechanism of the anthropomorphization of plants and animals and vice versa. Participants wear floral or animal masks and use numerous plant or animal props -for example a decorated wedding young tree majga (mother) implanted in the bride's yard (Međimurje) (Bajuk, 2020, 207) and St. George's horns (Gavazzi, 1991, 53), sometimes also trained real animals -for example a Carnival dancing bear dressed in clothes (throughout Croatia). Dances that accompany them "often imitate the motions of animals, while music sometimes mimics their sounds" (Sax, 2001, xii), for example in the South Slavic wedding dance Paun i kolo (peacock and cirlce-dance) (Kuhač, 1880(Kuhač, , no. 1004(Kuhač, -1008. Until relatively recently, these characters, their carriers, puppets or parts were seen as possessed of miraculous powers (Lozica, 2007, 204-205). This perception had many manifestations in every-day life; for example, newborn babies in Istria were sheltered from evil by wrapping animal hides around their bodies (Facchinetti, 2005, 51) or by attaching red threads of plant or animal origin around their wrists and ivy branches on the chest in Dalmatia (Furčić, 1988, 503). Known plants and animals were worshipped and involved in Croatian annual and life rites of passage (Grbić, 2007, 221, 234-235), for example a decorated young tree (Gavazzi, 1991, 42) included in St. George's processions and a rooster included in wedding customs (Bajuk, 2020, 209).
Since the traditional Man distinguishes in visibility, corporeality, symmetry, clothing, girding, hair coverage and "speaking of everything that is Il. 3 not human, but may have a human shape" (Раденковић, 1996, 354-355), this article presents the gradually reshaped Croatian animal fragments of traditional understanding and symbolic images which are based on the concepts of the Man assuming the animal attributes, "becoming animal" (cf. Deleuze, Guattari, 1987), and Animal gradually acquiring human features.

Phytomorphic, zoomorphic, antropomorphic, hybrid
Special innate, inherited and acquired abilities and powers were seen as the necessary precondition to personal involvement in magic activities connected to controlling the annual weather and life conditions, mythically correlated with archaic cults of divine female healers, self-fertile virgins and animal mistresses, who were in an incestuous (mother -son) or jealous (mother -daughter) relationship with their own children and who were phytomorphized and/or animalized by their worshipers within hunting, livestock breeding and agrarian beliefs, and gradually demonized in the Judeo-Christian tradition. For example, Croatian echoes of ancient female cults existed in the traditional women's headgear rogi (Čulinović-Konstantinović, 1998, 162-163), as well as in the concept of self-centred young women, who were traditionally identified with bloodthirsty more (Mares) (Kipre, 2014, 40), evoking the ancient Greek identification of Egyptian sphinxes with wild female cannibals (Everton, 2018) and cognition of nightmares caused by feelings of anxiety, paralysis and breathlessness (Davies, 2003, 182). Also they were seen as coming from contacts between local healing women and capable matrons with skilful women vještice (witches) who look, it was believed, old, ugly, crookbacked, tousled, squint, nosy, toothless and sometimes threepersonal, who are also sloppy, self-contained, adventurous, ecstatic, rumbustious, lustful, shrewd, meanness, enchanting and bloodthirsty holders of inherited secret knowledge and supernatural abilities about guided meteorology, natural elements, hallucinogenic substances, transformation into all living beings and inanimate objects, 1 communication with dead ancestors, lethal exhaustion, life-saving healing and to speed up or retard the growth of plants and animals (if they were conceived on Christmas, Easter or Ember Days, if they were born on Ember days or in an amniotic placenta, or as a result of being in connected to dark forces) (Marjanić, 1999, 62;Šešo, 2007, 253-255, 258).
Il. 6. Old Carnival masks mukači (cows) and copernice (witches), Međimurje (northern Croatia), phot. L. Bajuk, 2013 478). Examples of their equivalents are zduhači (blowers) in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and vjedogonje (wind chasers) in Montenegro's Bay of Kotor, who blow into hail-bearing clouds (Dronjić, Šimunović, 2010, 306). Dubrovnik legromanti/negromanti (negromants), who fight each other, attain their supernatural powers by being born with a tail which must not be seen, otherwise they lose that powers (Šešo, 2016, 87). Supernatural abilities were also ascribed to the zmija-mladoženja (snake-groom) (Bošković-Stulli, 1962, 28-30;Romić, 2019), who is at the same time a man trapped in an animal and a snake trapped in a human body, as well as to the spirit of an infant born in the placenta or of an unbaptised young boy, manifested as a lucky snaky, leporine, canine or cat-faced macić, who could also arise as a particular being from a black hen's egg or from a nine-year-old rooster (Grbić, 2001, 474-475). The stillborn spirit of the central Croatian Turopolje, whose mother conceived by swallowing an oak nut and died at childbirth, allegedly appears as a fish, pig or dragon-like thunderous mogut (Car, 2020) and might be connected to an aborted fetus or a dysmature (hypoxic, malnourished, wrinkled, scaly, hairy, long-nailed) infant who was born after 42 weeks of pregnancy 2 . The widespread Croatian folklore dog-headed being -called psoglavacallegedly is the child of a woman who swore on her unborn baby, or was born of promiscuous parents (Šešo, 2007, 260-261; 265-270, 271), or whose father was a member of the Asian-steppe Tatars  the youngest annual well-wisher and dancer vuk (wolf). Since paraliturgical processions of pre-Christian origin end as a New Year's procession, which will soon continue as a closing wedding procession, it becomes understandable why the South Slavs believed that traditional wedding guests were transformed into vukovi (wolves), as well as insubordinate, wanton, untrustworthy and evil people (Kulišić, 1979, 48). Wedding guests of honour are marked by floral (seeds, branches, implanted trees, paper flowers, embroidered fabrics, fruits, straw) and animal decorations (feathering, hides, leather, body parts, bones). They are actually re-enacting the cyclic mythical creation of the world, in relationship with the divine family: a mothers-in-law from the mother's and from the father's side, as well as a cook with the mother of god; an elder, godfather and flag-bearer with the father of god; female companions and singers with divine sisters; masqueraded wedding inviter(s) and wedding masquerades with divine brothers; a brother-in-law and groom with the young god; a bride with the young goddess. Their dramatized phytomorphic and zoomorphic roles were inwrought into the social structure of the community through mythical cosmogonic-eschatological conceptions (Grbić, 2007, 218).
In constant communion with the spirit world and the divine, the Man has marked by nature and culture and in that sense the Man has adjusted to the environment through his culture. For that reason, individuals have interpreted the world of nature with their religious images -their real and ostensible movement, structures and forms, external and internal features, acoustic and other sensations -embedding them in sacred stories decomposed into oral literary forms, traditional value systems, handmade motifs, dance figures, holiday dishes etc. Earth and sky, peaks and water forms, thunder and lightning, ancient and large plants and their Il. 8. Wedding invitor's cap of cow and hedgehogs skin, Samobor Mountains (central Croatia), phot. T. Zebec, 2017 roots, ferns, mushrooms or huge animals were personified with supreme deities; a rainbow, sprigs, flowers or little beasts with the divine bride; boulders or packs with divine wedding guests; seeds, tubers, sprouts or whelps with (the) divine infant(s); observable celestial bodies, crops, pack or flock with young deities. In South Slavic mythology: the dragon, bee, peacock, bear, deer and ox were folklorized Perun's and Veles' animals; the snake, peahen, she-bear, doe and cow were Mokoš's animals; the cuckoo, marten/weasel or she-wolf and mare were Morana's animals; the hawk, wolf and horse were Jarilo's animals.
In a gradual way, a cultural resistance (Le Goff, 1993, 41) develops as response to the concept of cultures in which the Man is perceived as more precious than animals. This is confirmed by many zoomorphisms in the form of metaphors, curses, phrasemes, eroticism, vulgarisms and speciesism (Leach, 1988, 83-105;Visković, 2007, 362-365;2009, 54-55;Dunayer, 2009, 41). In many of them, it's recognizable linguistic traces of the historical Indo-European migration, conquest of territories and establishment of martial deities at the expense of the suppressed pre-Indo-European Earth Goddess, Great Mother. It has to be noted that the frequent use of zoonymic diminutives, as a characteristic of the sung traditional poetry of Međimurje (the northernmost Croatian county) which is intangible cultural property under UNESCO protection (since 2018) called međimurska popevka, denoting caring parental relationship with one's own child or love relationship with a loved one. It's also confirmation of the driving force and interconnectedness of biodiversity much earlier than the Jean-Jacques Rousseau's shout "Return to nature!". Novel beliefs sprouted along the confine between the old religious dogmas and newer influential ideas of philosophy, about the secret animal language spoken by animals and sinless humans at certain times of the day and year. These were perceived as particular creatures thanks to divine favour (Zorica, 1999, 25). Allegedly speaking this spirit language in its dream, the Croatian and Bosnian-Herzegovinian endemic cyprinid fish (Delminichthys adspersus) which survived a number of ice ages, called dalmatinska ribica, encouraged the enchanted prince to persuade their Mother-River to flood the grove so as to stay safe from the evil old woman and loggers (Delić Peršen, 2009, 109-110). Maybe on the trail of that primordial-mythical language are fragments of unintelligible ceremonial verses from indigenous antiquity, partly preserved in pre-Christian Slavic holy texts, which were folklorized in some incomprehensible refrains of traditional ceremonial dance songs, incantations, casting spells and prayers (Katičić, 2008, 8) and in the primordial fairy language identified with the buzzing of the bees (Ivančan, 1982, 114). This may also be connected to a legend from the Croatian Dalmatian Hinterland about fairies -tall and pale-skinned women with animal hooves which leave triangles instead of hoof prints. The prehistoric vulvoid triangle motif co-refers to the folkloric supernatural krivopete (crooked-feet women) with feet turned Il. 11 inwards at a 180° angle as God's punishment 4 , found in narratives from the Slovenian-Italian border area. Sometimes this female principle is represented by wild, incestuous and wise women -primordial shepherdesses, farmers, guardians of treasure, washerwomen, spinners, healers and teachers, but also by child kidnappers, adulterers and sinners -as a reinterpretation of the teriomorphic, sometimes three-faced Terra Magna, represented by three matrons in ancient times (Kropej, 2008, 106-111;Golež Kaučič, 2018, 236-240;Ivančič Kutin, 2018, 24-25, 35-46, 48, 51, 107-122). Certain unusual and real endemic creatures are also possible starting points for certain deities and supernatural beingsfor example, seen remains of the Aprotoceratops dinosaur for the ancient mythical griffin; survived prehistoric Latimeria fish, some giant fish (sturgeon or hellfish) or a strayed seal for the Scottish folklore Nessy (Everton, 2018); the North African and middle eastern horned viper (Cerastes cerastes) called kerast for ancient goddesses, such as the Semitic Astoreth/Ishtar and Egyptian Isis, folklorized in the Illyrian cattle-goddess Tur/Tir who was worshiped as Bosnian saint Tirinica since the last century (Anzotika); the rough-scaled viper (Atheris hispida) called vlasasta zmija (hairy snake); the Southasian Paradise flying/tree snake (Chrysopelea paradisi) called leteća zmija (flying snake) and various lizards for dragons. Mythical Il. 12 -nikada-ne-napadaju-prve-mnogo-vise-ljudi-na-balkanuumre-od-ujeda-pcela/71164, 5.11.2020-nikada-ne-napadaju-prve-mnogo-vise-ljudi-na-balkanuumre-od-ujeda-pcela/71164, 5.11. -Wenzel, M. (1965. Ukrasni motivi na stećcima / Ornamental Motifs on Tombstones from Medieval Bosnia andSorrounding Regions. Sarajevo: Veselin Masleša, p. 285 -Pekom, https://pekom.hr/?p=2137. 4.11.2020. hybrids, composed of parts of two or multiple living beings (Visković, 1996, 132) with their own symbolic meanings (Kuvač Levačić, 2012, 774), developed from the historical presentations of powerful, unknown and mysterious nature. Were these wondrous floral hybrid, animal hybrid, floral-animal, floral-anthropomorphic, animal-anthropomorphic and floral-animal-anthropomorphic entities just an illusion of human imagination, reinterpreting nature through myths? Or were these entities, at certain points in time, representations of a given transitional species?
With gene splicing of present scientific hybrids, it is now possible to cross divisions not only of species and genus but even between plants and animals. Contemporary genetic theory views animals, including human beings, less as individuals or representatives of species than as repositories of hereditary information. As we examine new ways of thinking about animals, it is best not to forget the older ones. These traditional perspectives are intimately linked to cultural values and practices that we have developed over millennia (Sax, 2001, x).

Conclusion
By jettisoning the old and embracing the new belief systems, the Man consigned the mythical world of uncultivated nature to wild, dangerous, female and therefore alien areas, taken by male heroes, demigods and saints. The supernatural beings from Croatian and other South Slavic folklore narratives are remarkably connected to ancient and pre-Christian Slavic deities, as well as their folklore modifications. Archaic and also popular conceptions about them were mostly built on observable natural features of some real species which frightened pre-scientific people. The mythical animals therefore became dual-natured agents of Satan (Le Goff, 1998, 429), separating people from God. The process closes full circle when the apocalyptic animals -symbols of chaos, cosmic evil and dehumanization -turned into symbols of divine justice on account of punishing sinners (Kuvač-Levačić, 2012, 777, 785, 788), such as the image of actually useful bats stigmatized into causative agents of the COVID-19 pandemic virus.
Traditions develop in an organic way, which is a bit like the evolution of living organisms. Like many species of animals and plants, traditions are vanishing. To define a kind of animal strictly in terms of biology is too narrow, too technical, and too restrictive […]. If we define each sort of animal as a tradition, our definition includes all of these and more […]. To preserve an animal as a tradition, we must know it intimately, we must be familiar with the lore that has grown up around the creature since time immemorial (Sax, 2001, xi). Due to evolution, but also the unreasonable attitude of the Man towards nature, it is a fact that more plant and animal species have been extinct than actually exist today. It is crucial to bring them back in our memory through the agency of multispecies anthropology and ethnology (Kirksey, 2014, 2), as precondition for redemption, for the sustainability of vital biodiversity.