Travels in Southeastern Europe

The burden of the Balkans / by M. Edith Durham.

Igo THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS. thing to do, I advised the Bishop at once, that a priest might be sent. The old women and the little sister waited by the corpse, and no priest came. I sent again. Finally, after fruitless waiting, to his sister's distress he was buried priestless. I had been anxious not to add to the troubles of these poor people by trampling on their religious prejudices, and had mismanaged the affair hopelessly. The explanation was volunteered at once. 'When you sent for a priest you forgot to tell the Bishop you would pay for him.' Alas! it was true. On a third and revised message a priest was forthcoming, who read the correct prayers. He was drunk, but that was a matter of detail. Every Saturday there was a little crowd up at the church, in front of which is a stone table, where folk commemorated their dead by eating boiled wheat, handfuls of which they offered to the passersby, for here the funeral feast does not, as in Servia, take place on the grave. But the people, for the most part, took little apparent interestinchurchgoing. I suggested to such of our patients as could walk that they might go to church, but they never did, nor did any priest visit them. It was not till Lent that the power of the Church appeared. Sunday, February 2I, was the last day of Carnival. This is usually celebrated by a good deal of gaiety and dressing-up, but this year, naturally, there were no rejoicings. The two correct things to do were to wash your head and to eat 'komad.' My landlady appeared
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About this Item

Title
The burden of the Balkans / by M. Edith Durham.
Author
Durham, Mary Edith, 1863-1944.
Canvas
Page 190
Publication
London :: Nelson,
[1905]
Subject terms
Eastern question (Balkan)
Balkan Peninsula -- Description and travel.

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https://name.umdl.umich.edu/ans3900.0001.001
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https://quod.lib.umich.edu/b/bosnia/ans3900.0001.001/197

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"The burden of the Balkans / by M. Edith Durham." In the digital collection Travels in Southeastern Europe. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/ans3900.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed April 30, 2025.
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