divinity who dies by burning to be reborn, comparing it in this respect with Attis, Osiris, Adonis, and Sandan. He also proposes that the crosses made from the thicker end of the log may have originated from idols representing deities comparable with the Roman Lares, the cruciform having developed from an anthropomorphic shape of the idols. The badnjak is preferably cut from an oak, which was the most respected tree in the old Slavic religion, associated with the supreme god Perun. Archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans was a guest in a Serbian highlander family in the region of Krivošije, Montenegrin Littoral. Analyzing the practices, he concluded that the badnjak customs were connected with ancestor worship. The lighting of the log on the ognjište could be seen as a solemn annual rekindling of the sacred hearth fire, regarded as the center of the family life and the seat of the ancestors. The belief that ancestral spirits dwell in the domestic hearth was attested among Slavic and other peoples. Fire worship in the old Slavic religion was mostly transformed into the cult of domestic fire, and thus joined with ancestor worship. A trace of sacrifice to the fire is the coin thrown into it by the polaznik after the ritual of making sparks fly from the badnjak. Fire from the domestic hearth was under no circumstances given out of the house on Christmas Eve, not even to a neighbor whose fire had gone out. The reason for this prohibition, according to Čajkanović, was the belief that the Eve is a time when the ancestral spirits, guardians of the family's happiness and prosperity, are especially active in this world. Christmas Eve dinner is a feast prepared in their honor, and they join the family at it. They gather on the straw spread over the floor, and on the hearth. These spirits could be removed from the family if any piece of their fire were taken away by an outsider. In people's words, fire should not be given lest the luck be taken away from the house, or for better crops, or because of bees. Referring to the latter explanation, Čajkanović argues that, in the old religion of the Serbs, the bees were regarded as pure and sacred insects, in whom ancestral spirits could dwell. The same explanation, "because of bees", is also given for the aforementioned custom of putting a piece of the badnjak'''s