One of the most powerful female demons of the old Mesopotamia was Labartu, the daughter of god Anu, who as legends claim lived alongside mountains, deserts and swamps. Her appearance, as the old records in cuneiform claim, was cold imperturbable and cruel, her hair unkempt, a lion's face and naked breasts. She attacked local livestock out of the thicket as a habit and she would rip their bodies with her long claws. She was especially prone to attacking pregnant women and small children. Her greatest pleasure was, as legends claim, to cause miscarriage in women. With the advent of Islam the name of that demon was changed into Umma Sibjan and the belief in her arrived in Bosnia during the Ottoman period.
According to belief Sibjan caused a disease in children which is called in Bosnia sibiluk and is manifested by a lot of crying, slight and temporary paralysis of the child's body, loss of appetite, anaemia, insomnia,... Against her attack various prophylactic measures were undertaken like leaving a fish bone, a clove of garlic and a snake stone next to the child. If an attack by this demon took place the child would be treated by magical methods, the mother would carry the child along with a sugar cube under a chestnut tree, whose roots stretch on the earth's surface, and there she runs the child three times underneath it. If she is unable to find such a tree she carries the child to a house that the child never visited and runs the child three times underneath the beams of the house.
The fear of negative influence by Sibjan on the mother and the child caused dozens of taboos that the young mother needs to follow during the first 40 days of pregnancy: she shouldn't leave the house after midnight, she needs to carry a scarf on her head covering every single hair on her head, she mustn't wash clothes, etc.
According to belief Sibjan caused a disease in children which is called in Bosnia sibiluk and is manifested by a lot of crying, slight and temporary paralysis of the child's body, loss of appetite, anaemia, insomnia,... Against her attack various prophylactic measures were undertaken like leaving a fish bone, a clove of garlic and a snake stone next to the child. If an attack by this demon took place the child would be treated by magical methods, the mother would carry the child along with a sugar cube under a chestnut tree, whose roots stretch on the earth's surface, and there she runs the child three times underneath it. If she is unable to find such a tree she carries the child to a house that the child never visited and runs the child three times underneath the beams of the house.
The fear of negative influence by Sibjan on the mother and the child caused dozens of taboos that the young mother needs to follow during the first 40 days of pregnancy: she shouldn't leave the house after midnight, she needs to carry a scarf on her head covering every single hair on her head, she mustn't wash clothes, etc.
