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".