Among all their festivals, the Serbs celebrate Christmas the most elaborately, with feasts and ceremonies, many of which come down from Pagan days. After supper, on Christmas eve, seeds and crumbs are scattered outside as a treat for the birds, which, they say, are also God's creatures. A young oak or baidnak always plays a conspicuous part in the Christmas festival and the ceremonies attending it are most picturesque. The Slava is also a most important festival. It is a family celebration and generally falls on the Feast Day of some great Saint. After a man's death, the same Slava is kept by his son. In some regions, people with the same Slava do not marry, for having the same Slava may mean that they are of the same stock. Of all people the Serbs are most scrupulous not to marry those who are nearly related to them.
While religion is so strongly a part of his daily life, the Serb is yet disinclined to engage in abstract religious discussions. This is strange since he is very fond of long political and historical arguments. An English traveler came upon two men engaged in a fisticuff fight. When he inquired the cause, he was told that the two had a disagreement about something that had happened at the Battle of Kossovo, five hundred years before.
Although there is less now than in former times of the unique and formal swearing of brotherhood between Serb and Serb, the feeling of brotherhood is still very strong. Travelers through the country sometimes come upon rude stones erected to soldiers who have died "for the glory and freedom of his brother Serbs."
What has been said about the men applies to a great extent to the women of Serbia. It must be admitted, however, that in the interior of the country woman is still reckoned inferior to man--the plaything of youth, the nurse of old age. But the modern Serbian woman is coming to the front. She is not strong-minded in the limited sense, not anxious, like her Russian kinswoman, to mix in politics, yet she is deeply interested in national affairs and in crises she is always ready to help. If she does not work as hard as the Montenegrin woman she still performs much heavy labor. The men of Serbia encourage her higher ambition. Of late years, many Serb women have gone abroad for training as teachers, or to engage in technical work. Not infrequently, their expenses have been paid wholly or in part by some brother or cousin whose own earnings were small.