The Lika Cap

Part of the traditional dress in Lika province is a red and black cap.  Here's a picture of a cap that I bought when I was in Gospić, looking through the archives.

Legend has it that the Lika cap is meant to be a symbol of the battle of Krbava Field in 1493 (September 9).  That battle pitted the army of the Ottoman Empire against the army from the Kingdom of Croatia.  The Ottomans successfully ambushed the Croatian army, surrounding them, and winning in a rout.  Legend says that after the crushing defeat, the female relatives of the slain roamed the battlefield and transformed their tragedy into the Lika cap.

The flat base of the cap is supposed to symbolize the Krbava valley where, in a clash of red and black the two armies fought.  The double interconnected, spiral rings are supposed to symbolize the fighting between the two armies.   The tassels flowing down from the cap are supposed to symbolize the grief, pain, and tears for the fallen soldiers.

According to a book on the Lika cap that I bought in Gospich (written by Tatjana Kolak and Dragica Rogić), the Lika cap is probably a variant of a red cap that used to be worn in the region.  Further, there are lots of variants of the hat, especially related to the stitching.  Sometimes these variants signaled one's social standing.  One that I found interesting was how the length of the tassel signaled religion.  Historically, the tassel was longer for Orthodox men than for Catholic men (for Catholics it was originally the length equal to four finger widths or what one could grab with their first).  However over the past 200 years that distinction stopped being important and the length became uniform.