Birdseye Views of Far Lands

by James T. Nichols

The Servians are a race of peasant farmers, eighty per cent of the people being tillers of the soil. Most of the farms, however, are very small. The average farm is less than twenty acres. Servia perhaps leads the world in home owners according to population. Nine-tenths of the farmers own their farms. This is largely due to laws and old customs. The law allows a man a minimum farm of five acres with a team of oxen and farming implements and no one can take these from him for debt no matter how just may be his claim. Another law requires everyone to contribute a certain quantity of corn or wheat each year to a municipal institution to be lent in time of need or for seed to anyone and at a very moderate rate of interest.

Another old custom among the Servians is for the entire community to go and help any man, who may be unfortunate, harvest his grain. This is made a great day and singing and laughing can be heard all day long in the fields, and in the evening they have certain religious ceremonies which end in a feast with music and dancing. These are great events for the young folks. It is a custom among the girls for those who are open for engagement to wear a red feather in their hair. Of late years the farmers have an organization that is not unlike the grange that we used to have in this country. Through this they get better markets for what they have to sell and lower prices for what they have to buy. Many who read these lines can call to mind some of the great times that people used to have in the meetings and great days in granger times.

The Servians have some queer customs in regard to death and funerals. Almost every Servian prepares boards with which to make his own coffin and keeps them in a dry place ready for use when he dies. Old women save up money and sew it in their dresses, to be used to pay their funeral expenses. If a farmer is able to afford it he generally keeps a barrel of whisky in his cellar, to be drunk at his funeral.

When the body of a dead person is in the house no one eats anything and the floors are not swept. After the funeral the floors are swept and the broom thrown away. For a day after one dies a little bread and a glass of wine are kept in the room with the dead body. They believe the soul tarries awhile and might want to eat and drink. They also believe that the soul lingers on earth forty days after death, visiting old familiar places and on the fortieth day ascends to heaven.

On the day of a funeral an animal, likely a sheep, but never a goat, is killed at the grave in the presence of one holding a wax candle. This animal is then roasted and those attending the funeral have a feast, the guests each bringing something to eat with the roast. Women never sing or wear flowers or jewelry during the first year of mourning.

European civilization owes much to the Servians. For hundreds of years these people have fought to save Europe from invasion. They have been the bulwark of Christendom against the unspeakable Turk and his religion. The bitter trials and hardships of the Servians have made them brave, heroic and self-sacrificing. This is especially true of the women as the following incident among many will show.

After all the hardships of the Balkan War, when diseases and suffering were everywhere; when the land had been left uncultivated and hunger stalked across the country and the women in both town and country had toiled unceasingly; after all these days of misery, when Austria was mentioned to a peasant woman she declared that she was ready for fresh sacrifices. Being reminded of what it would mean to have war again she said: "What matters the leaves and twigs that fall, provided the tree remains standing."

There has been a very bitter feeling in Servia against the Austrians since 1908. In that year Austria had trampled under foot her sacred treaties and by brute force annexed Bosnia and Herzegovnia, Servia's neighbors, and had threatened the very existence of Servia herself. In the streets of Belgrade, their capital city, on that occasion there was a vast demonstration held almost in silence and every Servian pledged to do or die at his country's call. They well knew that a conflict was coming. In that war they had done a noble part but when it came to the settlement Austria practically refused to allow Servia an Adriatic port and other advantages she had justly earned.

From that day until the world war broke out, Austria backed and assisted by German secret agents, tried to stir up Albania and Bulgaria against Servia. Turkey too was only waiting for a chance to plunder this country. But worst of all and greatest of all, Servia had the audacity to block the Kaiser's Berlin to Bagdad railway scheme which was to go through Belgrade.