Tradicijsko planinsko stočarstvo na Velebitu i bunjevačka etnogeneza
Traditional Mountain Cattle Breeding on the Mountain of Velebit and Ethnogenesis of Bunjevci

Summary/Abstract: On the mountain of Velebit, which is the longest and biggest mountain in Croatia, several different types of cattle breeding were practiced up to the second half of the 20th century, but in ethnological writings this area is commonly found as the area typically known for the transhumanic type of cattle-breeding. The author of this article contrasts this type of cattle breeding, which was, on the mountain of Velebit, practiced by the shepherds from the neighboring region of Bukovica, with the type of cattle breeding practiced by local population of Bunjevci, from the region of Velebitsko Podgorje. The people of Bukovica have practiced the typical type of transhumanic cattle breeding. The owners of the flocks (sheep, mostly) live in the permanent dwellings from small-scale agriculture, while their flocks are, both during the summer and winter, tended by the shepherds on the pastures. Furthermore, up until recently, they had not collected hay for the winter, so the cattle had to travel to warmer regions by the sea to seek winter pastures. The precise timings of the departure to the mountains, the period spent on it, and the return to the village in the Bokanjačko blato near the town of Zadar, were traditionally well determined. That type of cattle breeding, typical for the farmers in the Bukovica region was known as the Velebit type of cattle-breeding. However, one source from the year 1846 describes another type of cattle breeding found in the region of Velebitsko Podgorje. Generally, they had three different permanent dwellings: one (winter village) near the sea, the second one ( a village inhabited from spring until autumn, where they would work on their fields and collect hay) situated on approximately 800 m above sea level, and the third one situated just under the high peaks of the Velebit mountain (inhabited only by the shepherds). In spring, all the villagers, together with their household itinerary, their cattle and poultry, their cats and dogs and their village priest, would leave their winter village for the near-by summer village, situated on a plain at around 800 meters above sea level. Their summerhouses were situated there and there they would plant their gardens and fields, and mill the corn on the mill on the spring, which has dried out in the meantime. In July, their whole attention was focused on preparing the hay, which was, according to the opinion of the inhabitants of Velebitsko Podgorje, more important than work on the fields. During high summer, the shepherds would take the flocks to the near-by mountain pastures, where they had their dwellings, stanovi. They would not only spent their summers there, but they would also make all the dairy products there, including cheese. Then they would return to the summer village and with their co-villagers organize the return to the winter village. This is a typical example of the type of cattle-breeding called Alpine cattle-breeding, not only because different organization of life, but also because some other elements (sheep are not dominant cattle, women had an important role in the shepherds dwellings - stanovi, on the Island of Krk, situated near-by, the word for pasture was alpa, the fields were dug using a hoe, etc.). In the last ten years, there was an increasing number of data on similarly organised life style, coming from different regions. The best documented ones described the life in the village of Bitelić, situated at the foot of the mountain Dinara (Alaupović-Gjeldum:2001), where people to this day live very similarly as the people from Podgorje, but similar data were also found in the region of Imotska krajina and the western region of Herzegovina. The place name podi (the floors), which on the Velebit mountain is used as the name of the region in which they worked on the fields during the summer, can also be found in the Eastern regions, all the way to Podgorica in Montenegro. However, these place names are, in majority of the cases, found in the regions inhabited by Bunjevci or a population culturally related to them, so we can maybe consider the Bunjevci as the carriers of this non-Dinaric type of cattle-breeding in the Dinaric mountains. According to the detailed ethnological research by Milana Černelić (1997), the beginnings of the formation of Bunjevci Croats could be found in the region of so-called Red Croatia. That is a region south of the river of Neretva, towards Albania, which was, according to the sources from the 11th and 12th century, inhabited by Croats, and called in the writings of Dukljanin, Red Croatia. This was the region were, according to the author of the research, the southern branch of the ikavian Croats merged with the older Romanic, and partly, Albanian population, thus resulting in the formation of Bunjevci as a separate ethnic group. The valid data from the mountain of Velebit and Dinara suggest a possibility that the pre-Indo-European population ñ the carriers of the Alpine type of cattle breeding was present in the Dinaric Mountains, there underwent Indoeuropaisation and Romanisation, but preserved the old type of cattle breeding. In the eastern regions, in the central Balkan, another type of cattle breeding, transhumanic, was also existent and contained its typical elements, but was also present in several variants, and also possibly inherited from the older population (Morlaci) which was Romanised during the Roman rule in this region, but which differed from the first one. During the historically confirmed migrations during the middle ages, which were initiated by the Turkish occupation of the region, the Morlacs carried with themselves the newly accepted eastern (Orthodox) Christianity, ijekavian dialect and the transhumanic type of cattle breeding and were mixed, almost to the point of non-recognition, with the older Alpine Vlachs which we know as Bunjevci.

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