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Religion and Mythology of the Ancestors of the Baltic Nations
Assimilation of local people by the immigrants resulted in a rather compact culture with a specific religion and mythology. According to Gimbutiene [2], female deities of the Balts originate from the peaceful Nemunas and Narva cultures; they are characterized by their chtonic nature, close relation with water, earth and the Moon and have life-generating powers. Male divinities show predominantly the elements of the war-oriented Indo-European culture. They represent fire, light, thunder and heavenly bodies.
Together with the Indoeuropean invasion, desacralization of the world was taking place. If earlier all nearby trees and waters were populated by spirits, and the dead were buried near the habitation sites, now the after-world turns into an abstract "lagoon" or "heavens" and is located somewhere far away, už devyniu upiu (across nine rivers), už devyniu kalnu (over nine mountains) or underground. The surrounding world is set free for human activity, since the world of the dead becomes set off first by a stone circle of the burial mound, then by a gravestone and, finally, by a cemetery wall.
It is quite probable that at that time (2000-1500 B.C.) the Pamarians and other Baltic ancestors already had a rich mythology and cosmological views. However, the culture of the local farmers and hunters has affected to some extent the mythology of the cattle-breeding immigrants. The agricultural aspect of the Pamarian culture is evident in pottery ornaments (Fig. 4) found in excavations of the Nida settlement dated 1700-1500 B.C. and described by Rimantiene [13]. Nida pottery decorations are very close in type to the drawings of the Dnieper farmer culture dated 2000-4000 B.C. and interpreted by Rybakov [7]. According to him, the horizontal lines drawn on pot necks represent unlimited supplies of the heavenly waters. The clusters of vertical or oblique lines falling down from the horizontal lines depict rain which waters the fields and nourishes the crops and animals. Under the rain are the men standing with upraised hands in a position of worship or ecstasy.
Water is of exceptional importance in the cosmological myths of many nations, among them also in the oldest Lithuanian tales and folk-songs, a large collection of which has been recorded and is housed in the folklore archives (see [18, 19]). According to those tales, in the beginning there were darkness and chaos: land was mixed with water. In vast expanses of chaos wandered the God, who commenced dividing the universe into the separate elements: water, earth, air and fire. Almost all Lithuanian legends feature two divinities, the highest god and, assisting him, the younger god, in some legends called his brother, in others, velnias (a devil). Water seems to be the first element which was isolated from chaos and formed lagoons. By orders of the highest god, the younger god dived many times to the bottom of the lagoon and brought to the surface the seeds from which the earth grew.
Along with roofed poles, symbolic
representation of the Sun, Moon, stars and other celestial phenomena
can also be identified in folk-art artifacts of wood and crochet pieces
(Fig. 7). The same archetypes have ben preserved throughout millennia,
which is confirmed by grave finds of amber, bronze and iron artifacts
and also ornaments and crochet works used in the attire of the dead.
Of particular interest is the cyclic repetition of the three phases of
the Moon alongside other symbols, observed in the Baltic woven
patterned sashes. These sashes were used to girdle an infant at
christening or an adult on certain occasions when the individual was
extending the best wishes for the other member of the community. The
sash symbolizes the continuous flow of time and offers wishes for a
long life. This interpretation is strongly supported by the well-known
Latvian Mara's sash (Fig. 9) which was made in the 18th century. It has
49 different symbols, which correspond to the number of the phases of
the Moon in a year, thus is some kind of the lunar calendar [10][28].
In this calendar the year starts with the spring, i.e. with the
beginning of the new life cycle of nature. The main holidays of the
year are denoted by special signs. A Lithuanian version of such a sash
exists, with 12 symbols. The sequence of symbols in a sash in
Lithuanian is called _raštas_. The same word is used to denote the idea
of "writing". Therefore, the ornament of a sash can also be understood
as the remains of a pictographic writing which might have been used
long ago [11][29].
Along with the symbols of heavenly bodies and atmospheric phenomena,
more complicated geometric patterns, cosmograms, are observed in woven
sashes and also on the decorated Easter eggs (Fig. 10). In the centre
of such a composition sometimes we see a square, the sacral space,
one's own village or the native farm-stead. At times the square is
stroked, which symbolizes the sowed land. In the Lithuanian folk songs
this sacral space is called as _tevelio dvaras_ (daddy's mannor). From
the central square, four perpendicular arms, drawn in the form of a
tree, stretch out to the four directions of the world, as a sort of
projection of the World-Tree onto the horizontal plane. Square corners
point to the other four directions which, in the Baltic area,
correspond to the extreme azimuths of sunrise and sunset on the days of
the solstice. [13][27]
Another cosmogram, also associated with the Sun's journey across the
sky, is called _žirgeliai_ (the stallions). It is a triangle whose
sides have bent extentions at the top. The origin of this symbol is
related to the gable decorations of a Lithuanian house where the bent
extentions closely resemble horseheads (Fig. 12). These are the
mythical twin horses, _Ašvieniai_, that draw the Sun's charriot across
the sky all the day long. In this the Baltic mythology shows a striking
coincidence with the Indo-Aryan Vedic imagery (Aswins). This means that
_žirgeliai_ may be a 3000-year old relic. When used in ornaments, this
symbol may mean the world roof, i.e. the sky.
exceprt from:
COSMOLOGY OF THE ANCIENT BALTS
Vytautas Straižys and Libertas Klimka
Institute of Theoretical Physics and Astronomy, Gostauto 12, Vilnius 2600, Lithuania
Vilnius Pedagogical University Studentu 39, Vilnius 2600, Lithuania
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