Ancestral memory and how a site becomes holy, a thread.

Blagaj is one of the holy sites of Bosnian Islam. Despite the opposition from adherents of Arab Islam every year thousands gather and worship there in rituals which although adjusted for their new faith and a new God

seem to send a watcher anywhere but in Arabia, where their current faith originated from. What is the origin of it?

The Green cave at which the holy site is located was a home for humans since they first inhabited the region. For millennia they were born,

raised, lived and died in and around it. The connection to the land and ancestral home was so strong that even when they abandoned the cave and built homes of their own in the valley below the sanctity of the site was preserved. Archeological records indicate continuous and

regular sacrifices at the green cave site all the way until the Roman period. The Illyrian tribesmen would sacrifice 7 boys and girls every 7 years to ensure the blessing of the Gods upon themselves. Remains of many pre-adolescents were found scattered around the site.

During the Roman period the worship of Pan takes over the traditional beliefs and subsumes them in their own rituals. The sacrifices change from people to animals, wine and other products but continue. The Slavic migration brought many changes to the region but the worship at the

Green cave site continued uninterrupted. The invaders themselves embraced the power of the site and the need to worship it. Christianization brought no changes either. In fact the presence of these sites seems to have inspired continuous divergence from church tradition and

prevalence of local heresies, all marked with worship in the nature and communion at these holy sites.

Islam may have brought the end of Bosnian Christianity but it could not destroy the spirit ingrained into the people. The locals adjusted, as they always have and subsumed the

new religion to the ancestor worship that they unknowingly continue to this very day. The same spirits of the home worshipped for hundred thousand years continue receiving unknowing worship and granting their blessings despite the changes to both culture and religion of the

people descended from them. It is worth remembering that within us each is a part of our ancestors soul, that we are a product of countless generations that have struggled and fought to reach to us. To honor them is to honor ourselves.