Finger and magic

Thumb of the right hand in Bosnian magic is called the strongest finger and that’s why it is used in numerous exorcist rituals, for example, when a mother wants to remove the effect of spellbound eyes, she would wet her right thumb with the saliva from her mouth and she would then stroke the child’s forehead uttering this basma:

Cast a spell, got him hooked,
with my formula it recedes,
if god wills, amen!

At the end of the ritual she touches the heel on her right foot three times with the thumb, with this she is signalling, ritually, the departure of evil.    

Similarly, in love magic a woman which wants to tie her man down with passion and lust will take a sugar cube and a new sowing needle. First she stabs her right thumb with the needle and places a drop of blood on the sugar cube. She then stabs the thumb of her left leg, then the thumb of her left hand and in the end the thumb of her right leg. Each time she places a drop of blood on the sugar cube, the sugar cube will be placed into the husband’s coffee for him to drink. Ritually the process of intersection is actually an allusion to overlapping or crossing of two bodies, two hearts and two souls. The spell is based on the belief in the great love power from the blood of female fingers (thumbs), which can stimulate passion and intimate closeness of partners.

Magical influence of other fingers is not negligible, for example, the pinkie on the right hand is especially lucky when it comes to commerce. According to one famous craftsman from Sarajevo, Ćamil K. it is known that there are customers versed in the secrets of magic and they’re using certain ritual actions in order to lower prices of items. They touch the desired item three times, in secret, with the pinkie of their right hand. If we wet the tip of our middle finger with saliva and with it we stroke our partners lips we will stimulate desire and passion, etc.

In the Land of Blood and Honey

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Plot Summary: Set against the backdrop of the Bosnian War that tore the Balkan region apart in the 1990s, "In the Land of Blood and Honey" tells the story of Danijel (Goran Kostić) and Ajla (Zana Marjanović), two people from different sides of a brutal ethnic conflict. Danijel, a soldier fighting for the Serbs, and Ajla, a Bosniak's girl, held captive in the camp he oversees, knew each other before the war, and could have found love with each other. But as the armed conflict takes hold of their lives, their relationship grows darker, their motives and connection to one another ambiguous, their allegiances uncertain. "In the Land of Blood and Honey" portrays the incredible emotional, moral and physical toll that the war exerts both on individuals and people as a whole, and the terrible consequences that stem from the lack of political will to intervene in a society stricken with conflict.