The phenomenon of the evil eye and apotropaic motives in Serbian traditional embroidery: looking for relevant approach to the study of ethnomuseological heritage

Abstract

The article makes a combining analysis of two types of sources which reflect the Serbian traditional culture and history. The first is represented by ethnographic narrative observations of the second part of the 19th – early 20th century and another one by museum artefacts of the same period. This approach demonstrates the existence of a close connection between the ornamental embroidery, as a product of preindustrial era home needlework, with magic belief system which prevailed in that period, in particularly with belief in the evil eye. Placing the museum artifacts in the cultural-anthropological context provides a deeper understanding of the nature of their origin, which in turn contributes to the articulation of their value as an ethnomuseological heritage.