Baltic mythology
Under Baltic mythology pre-Christian is generally mythology of Latvians , Lithuanians and Prussians summarized.
Given the considerable differences between Prussian , Latvian and Lithuanian mythology - almost nothing is known about the myths of the Prussians - this is a radical generalization. It would therefore be more appropriate to speak of Baltic mythologies , just as one speaks of Baltic languages in the plural. Or one speaks of Baltic mythology only in relation to a historical stage in which the ancestors can still be viewed as a relatively homogeneous people, for whom an (ancient) Baltic language is also reconstructed.
The salient common feature is polytheism with a multitude of mythical beings of various rank and a strong presence of the deceased; Numerous close relationships with the pre-Christian myths of other Indo-European peoples have been scientifically proven, in particular with the myths of the Slavs , Teutons and Celts .
Both in Latvia and Lithuania there are state-recognized traditional ( neo-pagan ) religious communities (left Dievturi , left Romuva ), which see their roots primarily in the pre-Christian traditions of their own people, but see themselves as related and are usually very open for the comparative Baltic and Indo-European research of ethnologists and etymologists .
Sources and Methods
Sources of the Baltic mythology are various folklore texts. Although these have largely been collected and set down in writing, little research has been done in comparison with the sources of larger religious communities.
In Latvian there are especially the very numerous Dainas . A Daina usually consists of four lines, with each line having eight, rarely five to six syllables. The most important collection of such dainas are Latvju dainas from Krišjānis barons . Due to the brevity of these songs, their epic content is not very pronounced. Due to their quantity (approx. 2 million) and variety, they show a very detailed and comprehensive picture of the nature-loving life, the archaic ideas, customs and festivals of the Latvian tribes.
The Lithuanian dainos are significantly longer; they also have ballad-like elements.
Further sources in both Latvian and Lithuanian are fairy tales, sagas and legends, also place names and religious terms, which are accessible to an etymological analysis.
Written traditions begin with a brief comment about Aestiorum gentes at the latest with Tacitus (Germania 45), where it is reported that they worship the mother of the gods and carry statues of wild boars with them as symbols of their cult. With older sources, one is not sure whether they are actually Baltic tribes.
Finally, from archaeological finds, e.g. B. grave goods , posture and orientation at burial, type of burial on mythical ideas.
The isolated research in the west and east has led to the development of two different schools of Baltic mythology. In the German and English-speaking countries, the western school of emigrants is (still) better known and represented in standard works. Above all, Haralds Biezais ' descriptions of the Baltic religion should be mentioned here , which are based only on Latvian material and can therefore only be named Latvian religion.
When reconstructing and describing essential features of Baltic mythologies, one must be aware that a period of at least three thousand years is affected, which hardly remained without far-reaching changes. In addition, it is pointed out that members of different classes set different priorities in the myths and the practice of religion. Gintaras Beresnevičius emphasizes the difference between the official religion and myths of the state-supporting priests and warriors, which had definitely developed into a reconstructable system, compared to the less systematic ideas of the peasants.
Essentials of Baltic mythology
Ancestors, souls, spirits
In contrast to the dogmatic Christian body-and-soul dualism, the Balts have varying ideas about this. The soul is able to leave the body during sleep, for example in the form of a bee or a mouse. The spirits of the deceased, Lithuanian vėlės , Latvian veļi , can initially continue to exist in the vicinity of their clan after death . In addition or in chronological order, reincarnation in trees, especially in sacred groves, was believed. Linden trees are generally associated with deceased women, while men mostly appear as oaks. Furthermore, there was a belief in reincarnation in newborns, possibly after living in animals and plants. Stork and waterfowl can be seen as soul animals, traces of which are almost only preserved in fairy tales. The deceased can actively participate in the dreams of the bereaved if they have needs or are unburied after an accident. The souls of the deceased are present at the burial and receive the new dead. Contact with the dead is made at certain deadlines after death, as well as at certain calendar festivals . There are many legends about ghost seers who can see the dead. There are also ways to temporarily acquire this ability by looking through a dog's ears or through a knothole in the board.
Ideas of the afterlife
There are different, competing concepts of the afterlife :
- The forest or a holy grove as a place of residence of the dead in trees - under Christian influence, ideas that came close to the purgatory came from this.
- A pasture behind a water barrier where the dead were thought to be cattle. This idea can be developed in many Indo-European branches and is likely to be of Indo-European origin.
- An afterlife in the land of migratory birds, lit. dausos , in which one can walk along the Milky Way , lit. paukščių takas 'bird path '.
The stars are also linked to life, a falling star appears when a person dies, a new star illuminates at birth.
There are also different ideas about the ruler of the world of the dead. Usually lit. velnias , lett.velns , the later devil of Christianity in appearance. The localization of the afterlife in heaven under the rule of the heaven god lit. dievas , lett. dievs , apr. something should have happened later and was suitable to make the God of Christians out of this figure.
The gods and goddesses of Baltic mythology
- lett. Dievs , lit. Dievas - sky god
- lett. Dieva dēli , lit. Dievo sūneliai - sons of Dievas
- lett. Saule , lit. Saulė - sun goddess
- lett. Saules meita , lit. Saulytė - sun daughter
- lett. Pērkons , lit. Perkūnas , apr . Parkuns - god of thunder
- lett. Zemes māte , lit. Žemyna - earth goddess
- lett. Mēness , lit. Mėnulis - moon god
- lit. Aušrinė - goddess of dawn and love
- lett. Auseklis - god / goddess of the morning star
- lett. Laima , lit. Laimė - goddess of fate
- lett. Velns , lit. Velinas , apr. Patollos - god of death
- lit. Gabija - goddess of the hearth fire
- lit. Austėja - goddess of bees
The list can be expanded significantly to include figures that have been named once, whose function and name are uncertain. Dozens of mātes continue to appear in Latvian , mothers of forest, water, animals, etc.
Other essentials of Baltic mythology
As Lat. Lauma , lit. Laumė are female fairies in the Baltic States, often in the form of long-haired, naked women who live near waters and forests. This figure is lit./lett with the goddess of fate Laima and the witches . Ragana has been mixed.
Lit. Caucasus , apr. Cawx, or Barstukken, are earth spirits, similar to the Pushkait , trolls, goblins. Becoming visible brings happiness.
Up to modern times, the Baltic snake cult is attested, which took on superstitious forms after Christianization.
See also
literature
- Jonas Balys, Haralds Biezais: Baltic mythology. In: Hans Wilhelm Haussig , Jonas Balys (Hrsg.): Gods and Myths in Old Europe (= Dictionary of Mythology . Department 1: The ancient civilized peoples. Volume 2). Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1973, ISBN 3-12-909820-8 , pp. 373-454 ( online )
- Hans Bertuleit: The religious system of the old Prussians with Lithuanian-Latvian parallels , in: Report of the meeting of the Altertumsgesellschaft Prussia, issue 25, Königsberg 1924.
- Haralds Biezais : Baltic religion . In: Åke V. Ström, Haralds Biezais (ed.): Germanic and Baltic religion . The Religions of Mankind Volume 19/1, Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1975, pp. 311–383.
- Haralds Biezais: Baltikum, I. Baltic Religion , in: Theologische Realenzyklopädie Bd. 8, De Gruyter, Berlin 1980, pp. 138-145. ( available on Google Books)
- Haralds Biezais, Sigma Ankrava: Baltic Religion , in: Lindsay Jones (ed.): Encyclopedia of Religion , 2nd ed., Vol. 2, Macmillan / Thomson Gale 2005, pp. 756–762.
- Haralds Biezais: The Baltic Iconography , Brill, Leiden 1985.
- H. Frischbier: Witches and Spells , Berlin 1870 / Hanover 1970.
- Wilhelm Gaerte: Popular beliefs and customs in East Prussia , Würzburg 1956.
- Marija Gimbutas : The Balts - People in the Baltic Sea Region , Herbig 1963, ISBN 3-7766-1266-5 .
- Wilhelm Mannhardt: Letto-Prussian doctrine of gods , Latvian-Literary Society, Riga 1936.
- Pranas Meškauskas: Folk customs in Lithuanian family life : (confinement, baptism, wedding and burial of the Prussian Lithuanians) , Lituania, Tilsit 1936, DNB 570574773 , ( dissertation Uni Leipzig 1936).
- Nikolai Mikhailov: Baltic and Slavic Mythology , Madrid 1998. ISBN 84-87863-63-9 .
- Norbertas Vėlius : Baltų religijos ir mitologijos šaltiniai , Vilnius 1996ff. ISBN 5-420-01579-X (so far four volumes, which bring all known historical sources on the Baltic religion and mythology in the original language and Lithuanian translation - mostly in excerpts and with comments).
- Vykintas Vaitkevičius: Studies into the Balts' Sacred Places (PDF; 12.1 MB), Lithuanian Institute of History, BAR International Series 1228, Oxford 2004.
- E. Wolter: Perkunastempel and Lithuanian sacrificial and deiven stones , in: Mitteilungen der Lit.-liter.Gesellschaft 4 (1899).
