Great video, some suggestions: - Inuit Mythology - Aboriginal Australian Mythology - Indo-European Mythology (as a whole and how they all intertwine) -Slavic folktales (Edit: Slavic Paganism in general)
As someone from Sweden I too would like to see this. Nordic mythology has been done to death and there are so many brief explanations of it. But Sami paganism is something I realrly ever hear about.
As a Latvian, who has grown up being taught a lot about Latvian mythology I just wanna say this seems to be very Lithuania centric. Purely Latvian mythology is different in some ways, but nevertheless this was a really good video about a mythology that should be talked about more
Yeah, this does seem to be Lithuanian centric, I can confirm as Lithuanian. Though makes sense, since we held onto paganism for longest. While I know that Lithuanian and Latvian Gods and Deities are similar, there are some very crucial differences.
Good intro to Baltic mythology. But anyone who'll watch it should note, that it is more Lithuania centric. There is differences between Prussian, Lithuanian and Latvian groups. Livonian and Estonian also differs. Also there is Dievturi and Druwis and other movements, wich follows old ways. In Latvia it's heavily intertwined with folk traditions and folk movements, so there is no big need to create separate religion. Also to create religions and religious dogmas, and doctrines - it goes against Baltic worldview. Also this is the main reason, why there are such variety in beliefs and why there is no central organisation or dogmas to represent old Baltic beliefs.
As a Latvian who's deeply into Baltic myths I'm happily surprised by this rendition. In some places it is a bit of a mash between Lithuanian and Latvian beliefs (Māra is only mentioned in Latvia, Giltine is only mentioned in Lithuania. They might be related though) it's a great look into the wast craziness that is the baltic myth. Thank you!
@@va6632 not necessarily. Sure they might share some similarities, however Māra is unique with her aspects as a cow goddess (some folk tales depicting her with cow legs), goddess of mills or goddess of healing. If we are looking for an equivalent to Žemyna for Latvians it would have to be Zemes māte (mother of the earth), which is connected to Māra only in Dievturi theology, not in any historic source. Though it is an interesting fact that another name for Giltine in lithuanian myths is Maras. Just something to think about considering that Māra is depicted as leading parents of an orphan away (to die) 😉.
@@creatingkinok In Latvia there's the Dievturi (which translates as those who hold Dievs), however, their theology is influenced a lot by Christianity (even though they will deny it). For example, they hold that Dievs, Māra, and Laima is an expression of a greater God of Gods. From my personal research into the mythology, Baltic paganism was nothing like that. In Lithuania there's Romuva who, in my opinion, more closely hold the old beliefs alive.
@UCRIJl45S_V7FKPEi0P3Y6NA I do not know so much about Lithuanian myths, this is very insightful. However, I would still hold that Māra is closer to a goddess of death than goddess of earth (even though these two often mix and match).
Omgs! The feelings I've got when I saw one of my fave youtube channels posting video covering subject about my homeland! Thank you! Greetings from Lithuania! 🇱🇹
From Latvia here and happy to see someone talking about the vast Baltic mythology. We have some deities that are similar, but there are also differences. In Latvian, the three main deities that are sometimes depicted together are Dievs, Laima, and Māra. Our mythology is very rich and beautiful
It was the Dievturi in 20th century who in their reconatruction of the old pagan religion made Dievs, Māra and Laima in the supreme trinity - probably to make it more structured, simple to understand and more like christianity.
My favourite Latvian mythological deity is the Vadātāja. She's basically either an old woman dressed in white, or a faceless woman carrying a torch or a light, or just a feeling, and her goal is to make people get lost in the woods.
Vadātāja is the LGBT, it's the archetype of 'false guidance by a person of authority' at work. The torch she carries could be interpreted as false wisdom or false goodness, and its false because the intent is not shown as her face is covered. And people under her spell get lost - arrive at place of dubious benefit.
That sounds a lot like Will-o-the-wisps which makes sense since the area is generally marshy. It's a real, studied phenomenon that spawns from the anaerobic conditions of swamp sludge.
In the same vein as this I'd love to see a video on Finnish/Karelian mythology i.e. Kalevala. Which you might know provided Tolkien with significant inspiration for the LOTR universe.
YES! As a finn i have to say though that Kalevala touches mostly on karelian and eastern finnic mythos, written by a christian (Elias Lönnrot) Finnic paganism has a lot more to offer, for example the duality of basically everything (for example left handed women born in winter would be tought to be closer to the spirits than right handed men born in summer), tonttu's, the forest folk, practises like knocking on a tree before cutting it down to let the spirit get away, metsänpeitto and etiäinen. Not to mention the rich and wonderful shamanistic religion of the Sámi people further up north
As a Slav, so as close to Baltic as one can get without actually being Baltic (we have such a fascinating shared history, pity it's also so violent), thank you so much for this. The Baltic people deserve recognition.
As a fellow Slav, I'm fascinated by the similarities in our languages/culture and their Baltic counterparts. I'd love to see a future video on Slavic mythology, it's rarely talked about but it's very interesting!
All the nordics and finland are very connected to. I recommend you guys the channel Norse magic and belief. Watch the videos about baltic and slavic and so on. bless
Hi! I’m Latvian and seeing you cover the topic of our gods pleasantly surprised me. I think you would find it interesting that most of our pagan traditions never dissolved when christianity came. We are taught in our families and in school about what the old pagan symbols mean and how to celebrate the pagan holidays. The summer solstice is equivalently important as Christmas here in Latvia- people worship the gods, light fires, dress in folk outfits, make flower crowns and sing folk songs until sunrise. And it is important to note that even Christmas isn’t considered a very christian holiday (besides for really devoted christians, which there isn’t many here), we take part in pagan traditions like “ iet ķekatās” which doesn’t have a translation but is basically dressing up as different mythical characters and going door to door while pulling a log with you to symbolise the return of sun and light after the dark period of winter. And easter isn’t celebrated in a christian way either. Some people even go to church in the morning on easter but after that they go to a pagan celebration of easter where people, again, wear folk outfits, sing and dance and take part in pagan traditions such as egg rolling competitions and making prophesies for the future. I guess christianity never really broke our people down as much as you’d think, because the spirit of our pagan gods still lives on in the people hundreds of years after the crusades. A great film about our pagan past is ”The Pagan King”. The ring that is depicted in the film as the “ring that united baltic people” is still worn by many and is the most popular ring here, some people have it as their wedding ring or even pass it down for generations as a symbol of where they came from. So I guess we really are the last pagans to be conformed to christianity because most of us never accepted the christian god and never will.
@Faroe My Internet is acting up, so it didn't send the messages. Christianity promotes nature, and it isn't a desert God, its the true God, and Christianity is for all peoples. Also, my ancestors have always been Christian.
@@latgalitis8305 Do not underestimate that desert. Christianity is by far not the only religion invented there. Judaism, Islam just to mention most recent ones. It seems that's a national kind of sports to invent various religions for those desert people. And then, look at the paintings and sculptures in Christian church and think twice how they're supposed to look like knowing what region they are coming from. Nope, that's not those guys from the New Testament.
I always find the commonality of “monster or evil being that terrorizes naughty kids” in mythology absolutely hilarious, like since the dawn of time parents have just been like: “you better do your work or *insert monster* will get you!”
As a Lithuanian, I knew a lot of these myths, but never really thought about them. I'm quite interested in the Nordic myths and Greek myths, but this gives me a lot to think about. The similarity is uncanny. I'm inspired to find out more about Baltic mythology now. Really interested to find out more about the thought processes of our ancestors - how are there so many similarities in ancient beliefs across Europe at least. Maybe there has been more connection than previously believed or they come more from the primeval ooze, thus the similarities and small differences would be a natural process of evolution of thought and culture. Anyway - amazing video, subscribed and rang the bell.
The book Of gods and Men by Algirdas Greimas is specifically about lithuanian mythology, and also you still have the Paganism Romūva which is very alive in your country. My husband is from Kuršėnai so when I met him I immersed myself in all of your history which is why i know. Although, I think if you can get your hands on the lithuanian version of that book, it would be better than the English translation that I've had to read
I'd recommend recommend channel Survive the Jive for explaining the similarities between different branches of European paganism and how they stem from the same source
It is believed that many europeans share single language - proto-indo-european and it is possible that this language had contained some sources and myths for the further development of religion that took place.
only the beginning and setting between these myths are similar. PIE myth is just the initial setting with the different mythos of greek, balts, germans, celts, slavs, hindus, etc developing differently from there. But Yes they tell a story. The kurgan hyphotesis creator (Gimbutas) and other arqueologists (Heyerdahl and his Jakten på Odin) have the theory that they tell the story about the yamana creation. In nord myth there is Æsir and Vanir and in hindu myth there is Asur and Vanar, in greek myth they call Vanir the titans and Gaea and Æsir the Olympians and Zeus. The Vanir represent the pre proto-indo-european people of Old europa that were agricultural and static and had beliefs of earth, nature, forest, fertility, agricultural goddess. The Æsir reprent the PIE that were nomadic, herding people with belief on Dyeus Pater the Sky father a warrior figure. The PIE invaded the natives in the Ukrainian basin, won the conflict and took their women (creating yamana culture). The existing earth goddess matriarcal tribe was conquered by the patriarchal warrior tribe (Olympians overthrow the existing titans) that's why Freya existed before Odin and Aphroditte before Zeus. That's why the Æsir marry the female fertility goddesses of the Vanir. So Yamana culture mixes the pre existing mother earth fertility goddess culture with the sky father warrior king culture creating the PIE myth which is the fusion of both pantheons. That's why the PIE had no words for agriculture related things before yamana culture. Herding nomads of the steppe don't farm. Only after conquest and assimilation of both the farm and herding people the PIE myth became what we know of. Odin and the sky father can also be interpreted as a PIE king and the Æsir as the king's embodiment of the nomadic proto indo european peoples that followed him and the Vanir as the embodiment of the pre existing people that fought and were conquered. DNA shows that PIE had only female DNA from the pre existing agricultural people which means conflic and war and the success in conquest by the nomads who took the women of the defeated people for themselves
Not surprising. The speakers of the original Indo-European language(s) were steppes nomads living from the Ukraine all the way to Korea. Each of the groups were confederations of multiple tribes, with multiple ethnicities, with the controlling tribe being the source of the language. So it makes sense that as each drifted away from the other groups over time, each group's mythology would also drift and acquire variations on the original myths with some coming from the non-Indo-European members of the different confederations.
@@nadirjofas3140 Koreans. I didn't mean that the steppes nomads were in Korea, just up to the border, where ever that may have been at the time. The Chinese mention two nomad groups on their border at the time, the Xiongnu and the Yuezhi. The Yuezhi were later driven off by the Xiongnu and formed the Kushan empire extending from modern day Afghanistan, Pakistan, and northwest India. They spoke an Indo-European language. The Xiongnu haven't been conclusively identified with any later groups, but scholars speculate they were related to the later Mongols.
Thank you from Latvia. :) Although you mainly focused on Lithuanian deities there are lots of similarities. Also I got to learn something new about our neighbours.
I was pleasantly surprised to see a lot of this content. But, if I could politely assert- Baltic beliefs are similar to one another, but different enough to be significant across the region. Samogitia, Prussia, Lietuva, Latvia, and to a partial extent Estonia, all have distinctive mythologies and pantheons of their own. I'd also like to share that Lithuanian is considered to be the closest currently spoken language to the parent language of all indo-european languages; it's a very fascinating linguistic rabbit hole to go down! Some more facts about Lithuanian beliefs: Dievas isn't only an old man, he does have several forms and and his title changes dependent on said form, as a warrior and a king is Andajus, for example. Mara is not a part of the pantheon; her counterpart, notably in revivalist Romuva as mentioned in the video, is Zemyna. Velinas was also not viewed as evil, until the Chrisitianzation and subsequent appropriation of existing beliefs; it was more like Hades in Greek mythology: his job is to keep an eye on things but he's not actively out to get you by any means. Would very much enjoy a followup video with more looks into the different variations of regional mythology! Thank you for making and sharing about our history!
Ok well said yet each nation has a blasphemous fallen angel for most nations . that god is like the next blasphemous fallen one claiming they created the heaven and earth. Thanks to Jesus and John 14 : 28. And his SACRAFICES to wake us all up and thanks to the Lord's prayer . respect that we became the host of the fallen ones ghost for the love of our creator loves what IT created. Love us enough to format our DNA with nature to over come the seed of genesis 6:4 give thanks in Jesus name and keep him in your ❤
@@vikinggamer7727 only the beginning and setting between these myths are similar. PIE myth is just the initial setting with the different mythos of greek, balts, germans, celts, slavs, hindus, etc developing differently from there. But Yes they tell a story. The kurgan hyphotesis creator (Gimbutas) and other arqueologists (Heyerdahl and his Jakten på Odin) have the theory that they tell the story about the yamana creation. In nord myth there is Æsir and Vanir and in hindu myth there is Asur and Vanar, in greek myth they call Vanir the titans and Gaea and Æsir the Olympians and Zeus. The Vanir represent the pre proto-indo-european people of Old europa that were agricultural and static and had beliefs of earth, nature, forest, fertility, agricultural goddess. The Æsir reprent the PIE that were nomadic, herding people with belief on Dyeus Pater the Sky father a warrior figure. The PIE invaded the natives in the Ukrainian basin, won the conflict and took their women (creating yamana culture). The existing earth goddess matriarcal tribe was conquered by the patriarchal warrior tribe (Olympians overthrow the existing titans) that's why Freya existed before Odin and Aphroditte before Zeus. That's why the Æsir marry the female fertility goddesses of the Vanir. So Yamana culture mixes the pre existing mother earth fertility goddess culture with the sky father warrior king culture creating the PIE myth which is the fusion of both pantheons.
As a brazilian I would love to see someone talk about our folclore! Even though its not really a religion (as it is more just a combination of legends and creatures), it is really interesting and the only people I’ve seen talking about it that aren’t from brazil, are somewhat misinformed and have a more children’s storybook feel to them, that makes the legends more innocent then they seem and aren’t really good educational sources. It would be really nice to see someone like you talk about it, with actual research and care put into it, making it interesting and atmospherical.
We didn't require a religion before the two Abrahamic ones went viral. Only after their advent and conquest that all the remaining faiths had to organize themselves into the so called brackets or categories of religion.
So much of what we have from Germanic, Baltic, Slavic and other pagan/"barbarian" cultures is really inter-connected. It would be fascinating to see someone go into how they evolved from a presumed ancient collective!
only the beginning and setting between these myths are similar. PIE myth is just the initial setting with the different mythos of greek, balts, germans, celts, slavs, hindus, etc developing differently from there. But Yes they tell a story. The kurgan hyphotesis creator (Gimbutas) and other arqueologists (Heyerdahl and his Jakten på Odin) have the theory that they tell the story about the yamana creation. In nord myth there is Æsir and Vanir and in hindu myth there is Asur and Vanar, in greek myth they call Vanir the titans and Gaea and Æsir the Olympians and Zeus. The Vanir represent the pre proto-indo-european people of Old europa that were agricultural and static and had beliefs of earth, nature, forest, fertility, agricultural goddess. The Æsir reprent the PIE that were nomadic, herding people with belief on Dyeus Pater the Sky father a warrior figure. The PIE invaded the natives in the Ukrainian basin, won the conflict and took their women (creating yamana culture). The existing earth goddess matriarcal tribe was conquered by the patriarchal warrior tribe (Olympians overthrow the existing titans) that's why Freya existed before Odin and Aphroditte before Zeus. That's why the Æsir marry the female fertility goddesses of the Vanir. So Yamana culture mixes the pre existing mother earth fertility goddess culture with the sky father warrior king culture creating the PIE myth which is the fusion of both pantheons. That's why the PIE had no words for agriculture related things before yamana culture. Herding nomads of the steppe don't farm. Only after conquest and assimilation of both the farm and herding people the PIE myth became what we know of. Odin and the sky father can also be interpreted as a PIE king and the Æsir as the king's embodiment of the nomadic proto indo european peoples that followed him and the Vanir as the embodiment of the pre existing people that fought and were conquered. DNA shows that PIE had only female DNA from the pre existing agricultural people which means conflic and war and the success in conquest by the nomads who took the women of the defeated people for themselves.
One thing I noticed with the sun and moon archetypes is that the sun is portrayed as feminine and the moon as masculine. It’s very uncommon to see it portrayed like that, usually the sun is masculine and the moon feminine. I would really love to know why they chose it to be like that. Also, I would love to see Australian Aboriginal mythology explored!
Baltic paganism was closely related with matriarhy, and the Sun was portraid mostly as a blond beautiful girl working in the fields, or just ordinary working woman. Yes, it is quite interesting, how different it is from the other cultures.
I guess that's also reflected in the words for "sun" and "moon", or maybe the words' gender is reflected in the pantheon. In Greek and the Romance languages "sun" is masculine and "moon" is feminine, but in German and the Baltic languages the opposite is true.
@@Caerulis he said “This (about Baltic paganism) should definitely be a series. Old Slavic folktales are an interesting topic” that implies he thinks Baltic people r Slavic
@@Kosovar_Chicken "this" refers to the video's second title "Obscure Mythology" thus implying that he wants more videos on obscure mythology, like a series. Other people in the comments are wishing for this as well and are giving suggestions ;)
Lithuania is a beautiful country; The thing i love most about Lithuania is how much they appreciate nature. nowadays its very hard to get unspoiled nature, But in Lithuania its not. wonderful
You mentioned at the beginning that Estonia also is part of the Baltic countries, but you did not mention that the Estonian language (and consequently also mythology) is not Baltic. Lithuanian and Latvian are the Baltic languages, Estonian belongs to the Finnic branch of the Uralic language family (not Indo-European).
+ image used for humans when describing the myth of creation was an image of Setos, a Finnougric tribe. Nevertheless, an impressive and aesthetic video.
We have people called the Seto still in Estonia. Actually it is a bit sad that everything here in this video sounded foreign to me as an Estonian. I guess we have different paganism roots here. Such as Taara and the old devil. Our santa* used to be a goat-man who came to beat up(chase after) the children. Something like that.
@@Qornv If this video were about the mythology and paganism of the Baltic region, then it should also say something about Estonian mythology. But there was nothing about Estonian mythology here, only Lithuanian and Latvian. Myths and religion are often more similar among peoples who speak a similar language, rather than geographical neighbors.
Greetings from Latvia, even though this video was more focused on the Lithuanian ancestral religion. We are also trying to revive our traditional beliefs and I have friends who are active in the Dievturība movement (Latvian version of Romuva). Interesting video, cheers mate.
Amazing video. I'd like to point out (as an Estonian) that our baltic pagan deities, creatures and beliefs aren’t the same for all of the countries. Estonian language and mythology is closer to the Finnish while Latvian and Lithuanian languages and mythologies are closer to each other and all of our mythologies have their own distinct characteristics. I think it would be interesting to learn about native North-American mythology and Northern Asian mythologies (Siberia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan etc).
Being born Lithuanian and having lived my life in the UK as a Christian, I have a large disconnect with my culture and a video like yours makes me feel closer to my roots, thanks for this :)
It'd be really cool if you talked about the Bön religion of Tibet and the influence it has had on Tibetan Buddhism and vice versa. Great video by the way!
As a Skyrim fan, seeing Mara represented in actual mythology is amazing. I would love to see you research Thelema and Aleister Crowley's work. Huge fan from South Africa, thank you endlessly for the informative content.
🌻as a young person I read some/few of the DAINA’s (ancient Latvian oral traditional sayings of the female lineage of the people). There have been a million such “oral sayings” collected by Krisjans Barons in the very late 1800’s. These had been passed down generation to generation by the female voice orally : by voice/chant generation to generation by the females of the group as an oral matrifocal tradition. A written alphabet was created only in the 1700’s by a German missionary. As I read the DAINA’s (in my youth) I noticed a dominant “female voice” an oral female voice of the people and was told the culture was matrifocal = the million collected quatraine poetry writings were the voices of the women over 1,000 years. It was of a verbal - non-written people, I read. So “the voice” of the people was the “female voice” as was heard thru the daily life presented via the quatraines = a sort of living radio. The information in this you-tube presentation is male/Yang/father focused, not at all as presented in the DAINA’s that i read. It misrepresents the importance of Saule = the life giving essence of the female sun married to the male Meness=moon. The sun is female therefore life giving the moon is male = opposite of western lore. Dievas (the sky god) only came on the scene when invaders came. That’s my understanding of it.🦅🌻
As a Latvian I just sent a link to this video to a bunch of my friends, they will appreciate this. Also would like if you talked more about the various Mother deities. Meža Māte - Mother of Forests, Vēja Māte - Mother of Winds, Zemes Māte - Mother of Earth and etcetera.
I, for one, would love to see a bit more First Nation/Inuit Mythology..their culture is so.. pragmatic..I think it definitely deserves a closer examination.
Being from Lithuania, I really like how people from other countries struggle with our words :D and this video couldint came at the better time, when I started do more research on my countries mythology for my LARP character :D
The whole Balto-Slavic superfamily of languages is super interesting, but you Baltics deserve so much more recognition than you're getting. Peace, brother!
Dude I'm just studying about Lithuanian history and culture right now, so the timing of this video couldn't have been better. Regards to you from Latin America, and have fun with your character!
@@onsight1318 don't forget that the names were absolutely butchered (which is normal for non native speakers) in the video, it's largely the butchering that makes it sound like that
Great video, hochelaga. I'm from baltics myself and find your pronunciation quite nice. Thank you for including baltic myths, they are usually overlooked due to norse myths.
I'd love to see a new video on Turkic Paganism, or Tengrism. It's been very difficult to gather enough information to really feel like I've learned anything beyond the basic. I'd love to make it happen!
similarities to Finnic mythology/vocabulary: -Perkūnas ~ Perkele (a god that became a curse/a devil after the introduction of Christianity) -Dievas ~ taivas/taevas 'sky' -the morning star (aušrinė) could be related to Finnish aurinko 'sun'
Comparative mythology. Finnish mythology shares a lot with Slavic mythologies because of the way people migrated to the Ural mountains but they definitely have some stark differences, too. I really hope he talks about the Kalevala at some point.
So that's what "perkele" is supposed to mean? :D Most Finns don't seem to know, they just say it for everything, like we English say the word "fuck" as a catch-all.
@@Kainlarsen it probably doesn't translate directly and I could be wrong but from what I understand it's kinda like when we say "damn it" or "God damn it"?
@@tlow6974 It's interesting how we have the "eye" here in Greece too. We call it "μάτι" -which exactly means "eye" in greek. People here use it as a superstitious folklore symbol, let's say, to ward off evil intent and bad luck. I have never heard where it comes from though -looks like nobody knows. So I have no idea if the Turks got it from us, or the other way around. It will be extremely interesting to learn more about it!
I'm literally sitting in Latvia in a log cabin with forests all around me and drinking kvass (would love to have some potatoes too :D) and yes, I still pay my respects to our gods and keep the old traditions of my ancestors alive. I feel personally attacked, but I love it! The begging made me laugh so hard that I spilled my kvass. Thank you for this
I dont know if its necessarily obscure, but I've always found irish mythology to be particularly interesting, and I think a video on it would be really cool
It's pretty popular, but more for the romantic depictions of faeries and stuff, not so much the actual pre-christian mythology so I hope he eventually covers the different cycles and maybe eventually Welsh mythology, too. They can all look really similar at first glance but where they differ is really fun to discuss imo.
This was a really wepp made video, interesting to finally see someone talking about our mythology, I do want to mention though that Latvian and Lithuanian mythologies do differ quite a bit, in names of gods and spirits, as well as in how they were described, as an example Velns (Velnias in Lithuanian) was often depicted as a fool, tricked by simple men in the Latvian mythology, besides that there's a lot there to be discovered further, like how dragons were depicted, as an example
As an Hindu all i can say is these names and archetypes sound astoundingly familiar like any Hindu God, and the concept of 'Dievas' is extremely similar to that of 'Brahma' from the idea of him being a formless concept personified by a old man to his role in creation and being the ultimate reality. 'Aitvaras' as you explained sounds a lot like 'Avatar' which literally means taking 'a different form'. Its really crazy how 2 different parts of world were basically one in spirit and culture, a long ago.
Another interesting fact is that lithuanian and latvian languages are the only languages spoken in EU wich originate from sanskrit plus they are one of the oldest languages in the world and yes Atvaras is a spirit wich can bring you luck or misfortune also speaking from my personal perspective i am happy that we maniged to save a lot of our old belief traditions and integrate them in to the christian way of life and i personaly still feel connected to our old gods it makes me sad that my nation is now forced to be in a religion wich was brought to us by sword….
@@SquidAssassin421 They dont originate from Sanskrit. They just share a common source - Proto-Indo-European. Like how humans and chimps share a common ancestor as opposed to humans being descended from chimps.
@@SquidAssassin421 Stop spreading pseudo-historical/linguistic nonsense. Are the baltic languages similar to sanskrit? Yes. Both languages retain many proto-indo-european archaisisms, but lithuanian (or baltic languages in general) are NOT descended from Sanskrit.
Wonderful introduction! Well, for myself, I have always thought Turkic mythology before Islam is always underestimated. Like Altaic Turkic mythology or shamanic beliefs of central Asia.
At roughly 3:13 the connection between “dievas” and the Greek “theos” is not etymologically correct. The proto indo European root of Dievas, Deus, etc. became “Zeus” in Greek. It’s a common misconception that “theos” and “deus” are related.
They both mean god. So the relation seems correct. Even Zeus seems more like another word for god instead of a personnal name. T easily converts to D and vice versa between cultures all around the world for more than a few words.
as a lithuanian i'm super grateful that you decided to make this video, it's really well made most lithuanians are quite proud of the syncretism with christianity and a lot of pagan traditions are celebrated on catholic feast days also a note about Raganos, that's the plural of Ragana which simply translates as witch so there are many witches not just one :)
Thank you for shedding light on my peoples ancient beliefs! Very little has survived the many armies that have marched through my country. It seems that you have focused more on the Lithuanian side, but everything was more or less similar to my Latvian traditions. Fun fact: Many of the names for the gods and creatures are just translations, for example Perkunas or in Latvian Pērkons is also used to refer to the weather event - thunder.
9:48 the bonfire tradition is still alive in finland with a similar idea to drive away witches, though it is done at the summer solstice and not in the winter. In many regions it is also done during easter. Nowadays the bonfires are mostly lit just for the hell of it and for cooking sausages for example.
It's so sweet to see people on the internet talk about Baltic paganism, because it's not very recognized among other pagan religions 😊 Thank you and greetings from Lithuania! 🇱🇹
Such a lovely surprise to see my cultural heritage represented on one of my favourite history YT channels! I'd like to also add that in Latvian mythology we refer to the different nature spirits as 'mothers'. E.g. it could be mother of soil or wind, but also a specific forest, river, type of crop, etc.
As you said in the video you could make an entire video covering the similarities between all pre-Christian religions(as seen for the common theme of thunder gods)
One of my best friends growing up was a Neo Romuva pagan trying to reclaim his ancestors lost history and culture from generations of Christianity and germaninization. I believe in the one God fervently but sometimes in his name late at night I light a candle at a shrine leave some amber and mead as an offering and pray that his old gods protect him. Miss you bro
This is such a gorgeous belief system, with incredible takes on common mythological concepts. The idea of the most supreme being in existance choosing not to rule with an iron fist but to simply wander his creation... beautiful.
History of Christianity here is meme by itself. Long story short they got baptized, sold or surrendered some land to church and... went to villages to perform old rituals. Rince and repeat. So Ligo (Summer solstice) is national holiday to this day. to the point where if a child is born this day he is named Janis or Jana like 90% of the time.
And Midsummer's St. John of the Bible, and Janus of Rome. Tanist kings. The hinge in the Wheel of the Year, looking back and forward. Oak - duir, the tree of June, the oak door turning on it's hinge, closing the past and opening the future. Oak and Holly tanist kings.
Great video! My picks for another video on religions could include Orisa-Ifa (Yoruba religion), Berber religion, any Khoisan religion, Polynesian religion, Tegriism, Filipino mythology, Navajo religion, or Taino religion. Those would be my top picks. Keep on making these! I would also love to see you make videos on syncretic religious traditions.
I absolutely love the obscure topics you discuss on this channel. There's so many fascinating things out there I'd never heard of till your videos. Your narration is really engaging, but also quite soothing when using these videos as a sleep aid . Cheers
Great video! I am eager to see the next topic in the series so here's a suggestion: I've been wondering a lot about indigenous American mythologies. The Aztec/Mayan/and other obscure mythologies I don't even know the name of are very unfamiliar to most people(me included).
Comparative Religion and Etymology is an absorbing area of inquiry. Syncretism is arguably the most important view of their relationship to each other. "Daeus Pater", meaning "Heavenly Father",is the root of Zeus, Jupiter,Deity,and countless other names and words,and "Earth Mother" is as common as the primordial deities. This is all,to my mind,a very important area of study,even for Atheists,if only for the great insights it offers into the human psyche and how we work.
I‘d love to watch a video on the russian legend of the city of Kitezh made by you as your videos always preserve this kind of magical vibe surrounding these topics
This is a Lithuanian and Latvian video. In Estonia people did not really have a pantheon of gods, we believed forest spirits and creatures. The one exception being Uku/Ukko the skyfather. Also in the western isles they believed in Taara/Taarapita who is regarded as the interpretation of Thor.
there were tons of gods, as evidenced by the much better preserved finnish mythology. the names of the gods are just forgotten. also, we dont have enough info on taara to say anything on him, but we know they werent exclusive to the isles
@@kraanz because lithuania is the only pure balt descended nation (as in retained proto balt culture the most). Latvia was deviated by ugaritic and slavic influence and Old Prussia was destroyed by german colonizers. Lithuania holds the most of the balt people's language and folklore. Balt being the proto balt people that settled around modern day kaliningrad from the Ukraynian basin going through modern day Belarus in ancient times after scythian invasions. In the proto indo european spread of kurgan hyphotesis. They dislocated together with the proto slav people that stayed to their south. At the time the balts were modern day Lithuania, Latvia, Kaliningrad, Poland, Belarus and most of eastern Russia reaching even Moscow but the slavs assimilated most of the scythians and expanded north-east while the proto germanic peoples that dislocated from the ukrainian basin at about the same time of the proto balto-slavic people expanded from central europe to the north and a little to the east. The balts were therefore agroed by both germanic and slavic peoples in ancient times until their territories in through the classical period were only of Old Prussia, Lithuania and Latvia. In medieval times Old Prussia was conquered and their baltic heritage erased. Now there is only Latvia which in part received much influence from outside and Lithuania which did not hence why lithuanian is the closest (or most conservative as linguistics say) to the proto indo european language.
@@luana.desousa6398 Yes, let's completely ignore that the Lithuanians were quite... Polish-ized, and willingly. Let's let them keep their delusions of being "pure Balts" and even "the only Balts" ;] Btw, don't get me wrong, I love them, but it's a bit ridiculous. And it also doesn't address my point of "why tf is Lithuanian territory called Ruthenia here. If anything, what would later become the territory/concept of Ruthenia was in fact Lithuania around that time" okay perhaps a bit later. It's a bit like calling Sweden Estonia. I will admit I am in a bit pissy mood right now since I drove through those very same lands to Lviv and back and haven't slept for 2 days ;]
My grandparents were loose followers of dievturiba or they were dievturiba. Basically Latvians attempt at learning about the old religion of the Baltics through songs or poems past down through time. Dianas I believe they are called. It would be awesome to see this further explored. Being an English speaker it is fairly difficult to find information on the subject. Also as you said it’s slightly obscured by the mix with Christianity. My mother still recalls celebrating various holidays such as the solstices etc… that are also then overplayed with various saints. Jani also being Johns or st johns etc… yet celebrated in the woods leaping over a fire etc… on the summer solstice.
Dainas, not Dianas, they have nothing in common with the Roman goddess of hunt. Also, dievturība was pretty much made-up, with extremely loose ties to the actual pagan beliefs. Very, very few people practiced dievturība, but I guess it helped keep a sense of nationality in exile, as in your Gran's case. Then again, she taught you extremely little, so maybe not.
Obscure Mythologies really should be a series!!! My personal interests are the Slavic pagan mythologies and how different they are from region to region or country to country.
This was an interesting video. I agree with a lot of comments absolut this being a series. Personally i am quite interested in Shintoism and Japanese mythology.
6:25 What's really interesting is how this description of Velinas actually resembles more the description given for Odin, in the Norse mythology. First, there is the "one-eyed" similarity, and also in the norse Poetic Eddas it is written that one of the many nicknames of Odin is "the trickster god", because he many times tricks and manipulates people, in order to achieve his goals (without that meaning that he is portrayed as an evil god -he doesn't. Quite the contrary, he is often portrayed as a kind, forgiving god, and also one that rewards good actions and people). Also, the whole lore of Odin is placed around him learning of the seer's prophecy, and Velinas is also a prophet-god (quite different as an attribute, but you can see some connection between them). Now, it isn't written that he is responsible for all the world's woes😂, and neither is he a god of the underworld, nor does he hide from any other god chasing him😂, but these similarities are fascinating. It almost looks like as if Velinas is a compilation of both Odin and Loki, in some way.
I was wondering about that. How was the Baltic relation with Scandinavian and Germanic people? It might be that it was a bad relationship, so they took the image of Odin and made it into a bad god. Kind of how the image and name of evil became linked with religions of the middle east in Christianity.
@@jorenbosmans8065 Baltics are the closest territory for viking raids. There also findings of nordic trade and settlements so when you mix up a not so stellar relationship, poor understanding of each other language and some telephone style tale telling frome one tribe to another and you get some weird cross cultural mash ups.
@@jorenbosmans8065 My tip would rather be that all of those mythologies have the same origin, rather then ancient Baltic people being petty and making one of the main gods of another religion an evil one. After all, Perkunas seems to be a very big deal and a good god, even though he is very similar to Thor and Tyr
At least in Lithuanian mythology it's Velnias that Perkūnas chases. His name is also the word for devil. Not really an actual god and not related to Odin.
@@jorenbosmans8065 not everyone thinks that Velias is bad character. A mischievous maybe is a better word. Also when Christianity merged with Baltic paganism during last millennia Velnias was merged with Devil thus blurring original concepts.
I'd love to see a video on polynesian mythology. Finding information of it online is a challenge, and it is mostly spread through oral communication as opposed to being written down.
My name comes from Mayan mythology. Vucub-caquix, the seven macaw who pretended to the Sun, was overthrown by the Hero Twins. The Spanish burned every mesoamerican book they found. History, culture, myths, everything we know comes from less than two dozen books to survive. But we've able to reconstruct certain things through Spanish documentation of the time. It'd be cool to see a video on that and spread the culture of my ancestors :)
This channel is such a discovery. I love coming home after a horrid day at work and just relax watching this. I would like a lesson on more obscure Slavic mythology myths too. Or the pantheon, despite Slavic mythology being one of the more well known ones.
i used to frequently play this game called "tree of saviour" and it was based off of baltic mythology and ever since then, ive been absolutely intrigued by it. im really glad i found this video, it gives a whole new dimension to my interest.
Go to nordvpn.com/hochelaga or use code hochelaga to get a 2-year plan plus a bonus gift with a huge discount.
no
Ok... it pays to be sceptical... but after I recommend Baltic mythology, THIS VIDEO COMES OUT NEXT?!?
Do you know about the Chaoskampf phenomenon? If you have, I think that would be an interesting topic to dive into. One I would definitely watch.
Beliefs of the indigenous Taino people of Japan; various tribes of the Amazon basin
How about Zoroastrianism?
This should be a series! "Obscure mythologies" just sounds right and there is more than enough material
Yes sir! This would be such a sick series!!
It's instant success.
I make your words mine!
yes please!!!
this is awesome.
interesting how "dievas" seems so obviously indo-european as a principal deity.
Great video, some suggestions:
- Inuit Mythology
- Aboriginal Australian Mythology
- Indo-European Mythology (as a whole and how they all intertwine)
-Slavic folktales (Edit: Slavic Paganism in general)
Agree, the dreamtimes are fascinating.
Slavic paganism in general
@@CurseOfTheCursedEgg Yeah that would be better.
Iberian/lusitanian too ❤️
yes!
I would love to see Sami paganism featured on this channel, great work!
And I would love to see Lithuanian patriotic and folk songs featured on your channel
Ayo, love your music videos, Ingen!
unban me from your server already ffs!
And we would love to see baltic songs on your channel.
As someone from Sweden I too would like to see this. Nordic mythology has been done to death and there are so many brief explanations of it. But Sami paganism is something I realrly ever hear about.
As a Latvian, who has grown up being taught a lot about Latvian mythology I just wanna say this seems to be very Lithuania centric. Purely Latvian mythology is different in some ways, but nevertheless this was a really good video about a mythology that should be talked about more
Yep, I'm Latvian and hadn't heard most of what was in this video.
Yeah, this does seem to be Lithuanian centric, I can confirm as Lithuanian. Though makes sense, since we held onto paganism for longest. While I know that Lithuanian and Latvian Gods and Deities are similar, there are some very crucial differences.
Can you please point me in the direction to find out more about the true Latvian mythology x
Well duh. We were the last pagans. What did you expect
There are more lithuanians than latvians so i suppose there is just more info to use for a video
Good intro to Baltic mythology. But anyone who'll watch it should note, that it is more Lithuania centric. There is differences between Prussian, Lithuanian and Latvian groups. Livonian and Estonian also differs. Also there is Dievturi and Druwis and other movements, wich follows old ways. In Latvia it's heavily intertwined with folk traditions and folk movements, so there is no big need to create separate religion. Also to create religions and religious dogmas, and doctrines - it goes against Baltic worldview. Also this is the main reason, why there are such variety in beliefs and why there is no central organisation or dogmas to represent old Baltic beliefs.
As a Latvian who's deeply into Baltic myths I'm happily surprised by this rendition. In some places it is a bit of a mash between Lithuanian and Latvian beliefs (Māra is only mentioned in Latvia, Giltine is only mentioned in Lithuania. They might be related though) it's a great look into the wast craziness that is the baltic myth. Thank you!
Mara=Žemyna in Lithuanian beliefs
@@va6632 not necessarily. Sure they might share some similarities, however Māra is unique with her aspects as a cow goddess (some folk tales depicting her with cow legs), goddess of mills or goddess of healing. If we are looking for an equivalent to Žemyna for Latvians it would have to be Zemes māte (mother of the earth), which is connected to Māra only in Dievturi theology, not in any historic source.
Though it is an interesting fact that another name for Giltine in lithuanian myths is Maras. Just something to think about considering that Māra is depicted as leading parents of an orphan away (to die) 😉.
Any neo pagan movements?
@@creatingkinok In Latvia there's the Dievturi (which translates as those who hold Dievs), however, their theology is influenced a lot by Christianity (even though they will deny it). For example, they hold that Dievs, Māra, and Laima is an expression of a greater God of Gods. From my personal research into the mythology, Baltic paganism was nothing like that. In Lithuania there's Romuva who, in my opinion, more closely hold the old beliefs alive.
@UCRIJl45S_V7FKPEi0P3Y6NA I do not know so much about Lithuanian myths, this is very insightful. However, I would still hold that Māra is closer to a goddess of death than goddess of earth (even though these two often mix and match).
Omgs! The feelings I've got when I saw one of my fave youtube channels posting video covering subject about my homeland! Thank you! Greetings from Lithuania! 🇱🇹
išties :)
lithuania is so cool
Editing is evolving so fast, good job with this one! Really enjoyable!
From Latvia here and happy to see someone talking about the vast Baltic mythology. We have some deities that are similar, but there are also differences. In Latvian, the three main deities that are sometimes depicted together are Dievs, Laima, and Māra. Our mythology is very rich and beautiful
It was the Dievturi in 20th century who in their reconatruction of the old pagan religion made Dievs, Māra and Laima in the supreme trinity - probably to make it more structured, simple to understand and more like christianity.
sveiki paldies, ka izlabojāt mūs, bēgļus, latviešus!!!
My favourite Latvian mythological deity is the Vadātāja. She's basically either an old woman dressed in white, or a faceless woman carrying a torch or a light, or just a feeling, and her goal is to make people get lost in the woods.
Vadātāja is the Goddess of taxi drivers.
Vadātāja is the LGBT, it's the archetype of 'false guidance by a person of authority' at work. The torch she carries could be interpreted as false wisdom or false goodness, and its false because the intent is not shown as her face is covered. And people under her spell get lost - arrive at place of dubious benefit.
@@baltakaza lol, labs =D
tas esmu es, ja runa iet par babītes mežu
That sounds a lot like Will-o-the-wisps which makes sense since the area is generally marshy. It's a real, studied phenomenon that spawns from the anaerobic conditions of swamp sludge.
In the same vein as this I'd love to see a video on Finnish/Karelian mythology i.e. Kalevala. Which you might know provided Tolkien with significant inspiration for the LOTR universe.
Estonia has links to kaleva and kalevala too, definitely worth exploring for this series
I'm Estonian and I agree. Here we mostly used to worship Finnic gods instead of Baltic
YES! As a finn i have to say though that Kalevala touches mostly on karelian and eastern finnic mythos, written by a christian (Elias Lönnrot)
Finnic paganism has a lot more to offer, for example the duality of basically everything (for example left handed women born in winter would be tought to be closer to the spirits than right handed men born in summer), tonttu's, the forest folk, practises like knocking on a tree before cutting it down to let the spirit get away, metsänpeitto and etiäinen.
Not to mention the rich and wonderful shamanistic religion of the Sámi people further up north
As a Slav, so as close to Baltic as one can get without actually being Baltic (we have such a fascinating shared history, pity it's also so violent), thank you so much for this. The Baltic people deserve recognition.
As a fellow Slav, I'm fascinated by the similarities in our languages/culture and their Baltic counterparts. I'd love to see a future video on Slavic mythology, it's rarely talked about but it's very interesting!
All the nordics and finland are very connected to. I recommend you guys the channel Norse magic and belief. Watch the videos about baltic and slavic and so on. bless
They all emerged from the Nordic mythology guys....
@@sokol7215 proof?
Which country you're from?
Hi! I’m Latvian and seeing you cover the topic of our gods pleasantly surprised me.
I think you would find it interesting that most of our pagan traditions never dissolved when christianity came. We are taught in our families and in school about what the old pagan symbols mean and how to celebrate the pagan holidays. The summer solstice is equivalently important as Christmas here in Latvia- people worship the gods, light fires, dress in folk outfits, make flower crowns and sing folk songs until sunrise. And it is important to note that even Christmas isn’t considered a very christian holiday (besides for really devoted christians, which there isn’t many here), we take part in pagan traditions like “ iet ķekatās” which doesn’t have a translation but is basically dressing up as different mythical characters and going door to door while pulling a log with you to symbolise the return of sun and light after the dark period of winter. And easter isn’t celebrated in a christian way either. Some people even go to church in the morning on easter but after that they go to a pagan celebration of easter where people, again, wear folk outfits, sing and dance and take part in pagan traditions such as egg rolling competitions and making prophesies for the future.
I guess christianity never really broke our people down as much as you’d think, because the spirit of our pagan gods still lives on in the people hundreds of years after the crusades.
A great film about our pagan past is ”The Pagan King”. The ring that is depicted in the film as the “ring that united baltic people” is still worn by many and is the most popular ring here, some people have it as their wedding ring or even pass it down for generations as a symbol of where they came from. So I guess we really are the last pagans to be conformed to christianity because most of us never accepted the christian god and never will.
Lol nah, as a latgallian we have Been Christian even before the crusades, and we have accepted the true god
Lol nah, as a latgallian we have Been Christian even before the crusades, and we have accepted the true god
@Faroe My Internet is acting up, so it didn't send the messages. Christianity promotes nature, and it isn't a desert God, its the true God, and Christianity is for all peoples. Also, my ancestors have always been Christian.
@@latgalitis8305 lol
@@latgalitis8305 Do not underestimate that desert. Christianity is by far not the only religion invented there. Judaism, Islam just to mention most recent ones. It seems that's a national kind of sports to invent various religions for those desert people.
And then, look at the paintings and sculptures in Christian church and think twice how they're supposed to look like knowing what region they are coming from. Nope, that's not those guys from the New Testament.
I always find the commonality of “monster or evil being that terrorizes naughty kids” in mythology absolutely hilarious, like since the dawn of time parents have just been like: “you better do your work or *insert monster* will get you!”
As a Lithuanian, I knew a lot of these myths, but never really thought about them. I'm quite interested in the Nordic myths and Greek myths, but this gives me a lot to think about. The similarity is uncanny. I'm inspired to find out more about Baltic mythology now. Really interested to find out more about the thought processes of our ancestors - how are there so many similarities in ancient beliefs across Europe at least. Maybe there has been more connection than previously believed or they come more from the primeval ooze, thus the similarities and small differences would be a natural process of evolution of thought and culture.
Anyway - amazing video, subscribed and rang the bell.
The book Of gods and Men by Algirdas Greimas is specifically about lithuanian mythology, and also you still have the Paganism Romūva which is very alive in your country. My husband is from Kuršėnai so when I met him I immersed myself in all of your history which is why i know. Although, I think if you can get your hands on the lithuanian version of that book, it would be better than the English translation that I've had to read
I'd recommend recommend channel Survive the Jive for explaining the similarities between different branches of European paganism and how they stem from the same source
It is believed that many europeans share single language - proto-indo-european and it is possible that this language had contained some sources and myths for the further development of religion that took place.
only the beginning and setting between these myths are similar. PIE myth is just the initial setting with the different mythos of greek, balts, germans, celts, slavs, hindus, etc developing differently from there. But Yes they tell a story. The kurgan hyphotesis creator (Gimbutas) and other arqueologists (Heyerdahl and his Jakten på Odin) have the theory that they tell the story about the yamana creation. In nord myth there is Æsir and Vanir and in hindu myth there is Asur and Vanar, in greek myth they call Vanir the titans and Gaea and Æsir the Olympians and Zeus. The Vanir represent the pre proto-indo-european people of Old europa that were agricultural and static and had beliefs of earth, nature, forest, fertility, agricultural goddess. The Æsir reprent the PIE that were nomadic, herding people with belief on Dyeus Pater the Sky father a warrior figure. The PIE invaded the natives in the Ukrainian basin, won the conflict and took their women (creating yamana culture). The existing earth goddess matriarcal tribe was conquered by the patriarchal warrior tribe (Olympians overthrow the existing titans) that's why Freya existed before Odin and Aphroditte before Zeus. That's why the Æsir marry the female fertility goddesses of the Vanir. So Yamana culture mixes the pre existing mother earth fertility goddess culture with the sky father warrior king culture creating the PIE myth which is the fusion of both pantheons. That's why the PIE had no words for agriculture related things before yamana culture. Herding nomads of the steppe don't farm. Only after conquest and assimilation of both the farm and herding people the PIE myth became what we know of. Odin and the sky father can also be interpreted as a PIE king and the Æsir as the king's embodiment of the nomadic proto indo european peoples that followed him and the Vanir as the embodiment of the pre existing people that fought and were conquered. DNA shows that PIE had only female DNA from the pre existing agricultural people which means conflic and war and the success in conquest by the nomads who took the women of the defeated people for themselves
I like this mythology. It's undoubtably Indo-European, but it also feels unique in ways such as humanity coming into being by accident.
very indo-european
Not surprising. The speakers of the original Indo-European language(s) were steppes nomads living from the Ukraine all the way to Korea. Each of the groups were confederations of multiple tribes, with multiple ethnicities, with the controlling tribe being the source of the language. So it makes sense that as each drifted away from the other groups over time, each group's mythology would also drift and acquire variations on the original myths with some coming from the non-Indo-European members of the different confederations.
@@malavoy1 What groups lived in korea.
@@nadirjofas3140 Koreans. I didn't mean that the steppes nomads were in Korea, just up to the border, where ever that may have been at the time. The Chinese mention two nomad groups on their border at the time, the Xiongnu and the Yuezhi. The Yuezhi were later driven off by the Xiongnu and formed the Kushan empire extending from modern day Afghanistan, Pakistan, and northwest India. They spoke an Indo-European language. The Xiongnu haven't been conclusively identified with any later groups, but scholars speculate they were related to the later Mongols.
@@malavoy1 That's far from Korea.
Thank you from Latvia. :) Although you mainly focused on Lithuanian deities there are lots of similarities. Also I got to learn something new about our neighbours.
Didn't expect you to cover the Baltic mythology, but I gotta say - I'm very glad you did it so well!
Greetings from Latvia! 🇱🇻
I was pleasantly surprised to see a lot of this content. But, if I could politely assert- Baltic beliefs are similar to one another, but different enough to be significant across the region. Samogitia, Prussia, Lietuva, Latvia, and to a partial extent Estonia, all have distinctive mythologies and pantheons of their own. I'd also like to share that Lithuanian is considered to be the closest currently spoken language to the parent language of all indo-european languages; it's a very fascinating linguistic rabbit hole to go down! Some more facts about Lithuanian beliefs: Dievas isn't only an old man, he does have several forms and and his title changes dependent on said form, as a warrior and a king is Andajus, for example. Mara is not a part of the pantheon; her counterpart, notably in revivalist Romuva as mentioned in the video, is Zemyna. Velinas was also not viewed as evil, until the Chrisitianzation and subsequent appropriation of existing beliefs; it was more like Hades in Greek mythology: his job is to keep an eye on things but he's not actively out to get you by any means. Would very much enjoy a followup video with more looks into the different variations of regional mythology! Thank you for making and sharing about our history!
I think Lithuanian is considered *closest to* the parent language of Indo-European languages, not *the* parent language.
I wonder is there ever a book or anything telling the whole story of these mythologies or are they just descriptions of deities
Ok well said yet each nation has a blasphemous fallen angel for most nations . that god is like the next blasphemous fallen one claiming they created the heaven and earth. Thanks to Jesus and John 14 : 28. And his SACRAFICES to wake us all up and thanks to the Lord's prayer . respect that we became the host of the fallen ones ghost for the love of our creator loves what IT created. Love us enough to format our DNA with nature to over come the seed of genesis 6:4 give thanks in Jesus name and keep him in your ❤
@@dimithetree you are correct! I did not phrase it well. Thank you for the correction
@@vikinggamer7727 only the beginning and setting between these myths are similar. PIE myth is just the initial setting with the different mythos of greek, balts, germans, celts, slavs, hindus, etc developing differently from there. But Yes they tell a story. The kurgan hyphotesis creator (Gimbutas) and other arqueologists (Heyerdahl and his Jakten på Odin) have the theory that they tell the story about the yamana creation. In nord myth there is Æsir and Vanir and in hindu myth there is Asur and Vanar, in greek myth they call Vanir the titans and Gaea and Æsir the Olympians and Zeus. The Vanir represent the pre proto-indo-european people of Old europa that were agricultural and static and had beliefs of earth, nature, forest, fertility, agricultural goddess. The Æsir reprent the PIE that were nomadic, herding people with belief on Dyeus Pater the Sky father a warrior figure. The PIE invaded the natives in the Ukrainian basin, won the conflict and took their women (creating yamana culture). The existing earth goddess matriarcal tribe was conquered by the patriarchal warrior tribe (Olympians overthrow the existing titans) that's why Freya existed before Odin and Aphroditte before Zeus. That's why the Æsir marry the female fertility goddesses of the Vanir. So Yamana culture mixes the pre existing mother earth fertility goddess culture with the sky father warrior king culture creating the PIE myth which is the fusion of both pantheons.
As a brazilian I would love to see someone talk about our folclore! Even though its not really a religion (as it is more just a combination of legends and creatures), it is really interesting and the only people I’ve seen talking about it that aren’t from brazil, are somewhat misinformed and have a more children’s storybook feel to them, that makes the legends more innocent then they seem and aren’t really good educational sources. It would be really nice to see someone like you talk about it, with actual research and care put into it, making it interesting and atmospherical.
We didn't require a religion before the two Abrahamic ones went viral. Only after their advent and conquest that all the remaining faiths had to organize themselves into the so called brackets or categories of religion.
Maybe a video about Indo-European mythology in general? Like how a lot of these different mythologies are connected
yeah some stories and dieties are really similar in the baltic, nordic and german or alpine region
So much of what we have from Germanic, Baltic, Slavic and other pagan/"barbarian" cultures is really inter-connected. It would be fascinating to see someone go into how they evolved from a presumed ancient collective!
@@mateuszjokiel2813 watch the Survive the Jive channel if you haven't already
only the beginning and setting between these myths are similar. PIE myth is just the initial setting with the different mythos of greek, balts, germans, celts, slavs, hindus, etc developing differently from there. But Yes they tell a story. The kurgan hyphotesis creator (Gimbutas) and other arqueologists (Heyerdahl and his Jakten på Odin) have the theory that they tell the story about the yamana creation. In nord myth there is Æsir and Vanir and in hindu myth there is Asur and Vanar, in greek myth they call Vanir the titans and Gaea and Æsir the Olympians and Zeus. The Vanir represent the pre proto-indo-european people of Old europa that were agricultural and static and had beliefs of earth, nature, forest, fertility, agricultural goddess. The Æsir reprent the PIE that were nomadic, herding people with belief on Dyeus Pater the Sky father a warrior figure. The PIE invaded the natives in the Ukrainian basin, won the conflict and took their women (creating yamana culture). The existing earth goddess matriarcal tribe was conquered by the patriarchal warrior tribe (Olympians overthrow the existing titans) that's why Freya existed before Odin and Aphroditte before Zeus. That's why the Æsir marry the female fertility goddesses of the Vanir. So Yamana culture mixes the pre existing mother earth fertility goddess culture with the sky father warrior king culture creating the PIE myth which is the fusion of both pantheons. That's why the PIE had no words for agriculture related things before yamana culture. Herding nomads of the steppe don't farm. Only after conquest and assimilation of both the farm and herding people the PIE myth became what we know of. Odin and the sky father can also be interpreted as a PIE king and the Æsir as the king's embodiment of the nomadic proto indo european peoples that followed him and the Vanir as the embodiment of the pre existing people that fought and were conquered. DNA shows that PIE had only female DNA from the pre existing agricultural people which means conflic and war and the success in conquest by the nomads who took the women of the defeated people for themselves.
One thing I noticed with the sun and moon archetypes is that the sun is portrayed as feminine and the moon as masculine. It’s very uncommon to see it portrayed like that, usually the sun is masculine and the moon feminine. I would really love to know why they chose it to be like that. Also, I would love to see Australian Aboriginal mythology explored!
Baltic paganism was closely related with matriarhy, and the Sun was portraid mostly as a blond beautiful girl working in the fields, or just ordinary working woman. Yes, it is quite interesting, how different it is from the other cultures.
In our khasi mythology , the sun is feminine and the moon is masculine. Didn't know that it's kinda rare .
@@chainsaw6306 me too 🤷🏼♀️😊
I guess that's also reflected in the words for "sun" and "moon", or maybe the words' gender is reflected in the pantheon. In Greek and the Romance languages "sun" is masculine and "moon" is feminine, but in German and the Baltic languages the opposite is true.
In Lithuanian language Sun is a feminine word while Moon is a masculine one, so this could be the reason why
This should definitively be a series. Old Slavic folktales are an interesting topic
Balts aren’t Slavic man
@@Kosovar_Chicken Perhaps he is suggesting Old Slavic folktales?..
@@Caerulis he said “This (about Baltic paganism) should definitely be a series. Old Slavic folktales are an interesting topic” that implies he thinks Baltic people r Slavic
@@Kosovar_Chicken "this" refers to the video's second title "Obscure Mythology" thus implying that he wants more videos on obscure mythology, like a series. Other people in the comments are wishing for this as well and are giving suggestions ;)
@@Kosovar_Chicken Baltic and Slavic mythology are intertwined and at one point they were a same people
I think the different mythologies of the Uralic peoples (Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian, Sámi etc.) could be interesting to look into :)
Lithuania is a beautiful country; The thing i love most about Lithuania is how much they appreciate nature. nowadays its very hard to get unspoiled nature, But in Lithuania its not. wonderful
Hello to my fellow baltics
Im from Estonia
You mentioned at the beginning that Estonia also is part of the Baltic countries, but you did not mention that the Estonian language (and consequently also mythology) is not Baltic. Lithuanian and Latvian are the Baltic languages, Estonian belongs to the Finnic branch of the Uralic language family (not Indo-European).
+ image used for humans when describing the myth of creation was an image of Setos, a Finnougric tribe. Nevertheless, an impressive and aesthetic video.
We have people called the Seto still in Estonia. Actually it is a bit sad that everything here in this video sounded foreign to me as an Estonian. I guess we have different paganism roots here. Such as Taara and the old devil. Our santa* used to be a goat-man who came to beat up(chase after) the children. Something like that.
How is that relevant to the video ? Baltic region is not the same as Baltic languages.
@@Qornv If this video were about the mythology and paganism of the Baltic region, then it should also say something about Estonian mythology. But there was nothing about Estonian mythology here, only Lithuanian and Latvian. Myths and religion are often more similar among peoples who speak a similar language, rather than geographical neighbors.
@@Qornv Baltic paganism did not exist in Estonia, we had completely different pagan belief systems...
Greetings from Latvia, even though this video was more focused on the Lithuanian ancestral religion. We are also trying to revive our traditional beliefs and I have friends who are active in the Dievturība movement (Latvian version of Romuva). Interesting video, cheers mate.
Amazing video. I'd like to point out (as an Estonian) that our baltic pagan deities, creatures and beliefs aren’t the same for all of the countries. Estonian language and mythology is closer to the Finnish while Latvian and Lithuanian languages and mythologies are closer to each other and all of our mythologies have their own distinct characteristics.
I think it would be interesting to learn about native North-American mythology and Northern Asian mythologies (Siberia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan etc).
Estonians aren't even Baltic people and had nothing to do with Baltic paganism.
Would love to learn more of my Estonian heritage’s mythology and mysticism if you would @kkaljakad
Being born Lithuanian and having lived my life in the UK as a Christian, I have a large disconnect with my culture and a video like yours makes me feel closer to my roots, thanks for this :)
ewwww this bro is baltic and hes left the ancestral lands, boo him
I'm looking forward to more of these obscure mythology videos
It'd be really cool if you talked about the Bön religion of Tibet and the influence it has had on Tibetan Buddhism and vice versa. Great video by the way!
As a Skyrim fan, seeing Mara represented in actual mythology is amazing. I would love to see you research Thelema and Aleister Crowley's work. Huge fan from South Africa, thank you endlessly for the informative content.
Huge Skyrim fan too, and 1/4 Lithuanian but I'd never known about Mara (or any of this stuff really) before this video.
One of The Companions guild member in Skyrim is named after the Lithuanian word for wolf "Vilkas".
@@Fankas2000 sexy
Teliavelis is like Zenithar of TES.
🌻as a young person I read some/few of the DAINA’s (ancient Latvian oral traditional sayings of the female lineage of the people). There have been a million such “oral sayings” collected by Krisjans Barons in the very late 1800’s. These had been passed down generation to generation by the female voice orally : by voice/chant generation to generation by the females of the group as an oral matrifocal tradition. A written alphabet was created only in the 1700’s by a German missionary. As I read the DAINA’s (in my youth) I noticed a dominant “female voice” an oral female voice of the people and was told the culture was matrifocal = the million collected quatraine poetry writings were the voices of the women over 1,000 years. It was of a verbal - non-written people, I read. So “the voice” of the people was the “female voice” as was heard thru the daily life presented via the quatraines = a sort of living radio. The information in this you-tube presentation is male/Yang/father focused, not at all as presented in the DAINA’s that i read. It misrepresents the importance of Saule = the life giving essence of the female sun married to the male Meness=moon. The sun is female therefore life giving the moon is male = opposite of western lore. Dievas (the sky god) only came on the scene when invaders came. That’s my understanding of it.🦅🌻
As a Latvian I just sent a link to this video to a bunch of my friends, they will appreciate this. Also would like if you talked more about the various Mother deities. Meža Māte - Mother of Forests, Vēja Māte - Mother of Winds, Zemes Māte - Mother of Earth and etcetera.
I, for one, would love to see a bit more First Nation/Inuit Mythology..their culture is so.. pragmatic..I think it definitely deserves a closer examination.
No
Being from Lithuania, I really like how people from other countries struggle with our words :D and this video couldint came at the better time, when I started do more research on my countries mythology for my LARP character :D
same with latvian just makes you feel unique and cool in a way
The whole Balto-Slavic superfamily of languages is super interesting, but you Baltics deserve so much more recognition than you're getting. Peace, brother!
Dude I'm just studying about Lithuanian history and culture right now, so the timing of this video couldn't have been better. Regards to you from Latin America, and have fun with your character!
They actually sound very Sanskrit-ish, all these names could easily pass as name of a Hindu deivta
@@onsight1318 don't forget that the names were absolutely butchered (which is normal for non native speakers) in the video, it's largely the butchering that makes it sound like that
"As a punishment Menuo is cut up into pieces"
That certainly is one way to punish an unfaithful husband
Got the Bobbitt treatment lol.
🤣🤣🤣🤣
The fac that Menuo had no one to be unfaithful with so he chose their daughter😭
Great video, hochelaga. I'm from baltics myself and find your pronunciation quite nice. Thank you for including baltic myths, they are usually overlooked due to norse myths.
I'd love to see a new video on Turkic Paganism, or Tengrism. It's been very difficult to gather enough information to really feel like I've learned anything beyond the basic. I'd love to make it happen!
FYI: Raganos is plural, Ragana is singular but well done for trying Lithuanian is a hard hard language
And it should Laumė/s instead
@@chlanchalashas the names were a mix from Latvian and Lithuanian, makes sense why he said Laima and not laumė.
@@dovydasgedvilas9165 Laima and Laumė are not the same. Laima is a goddess and Laumė is mythical creature
@@dovydasgedvilas9165 So Laumė is a woodland farie en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauma while Laima is the goddess of good luck. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laima
similarities to Finnic mythology/vocabulary:
-Perkūnas ~ Perkele (a god that became a curse/a devil after the introduction of Christianity)
-Dievas ~ taivas/taevas 'sky'
-the morning star (aušrinė) could be related to Finnish aurinko 'sun'
Comparative mythology. Finnish mythology shares a lot with Slavic mythologies because of the way people migrated to the Ural mountains but they definitely have some stark differences, too. I really hope he talks about the Kalevala at some point.
So that's what "perkele" is supposed to mean? :D
Most Finns don't seem to know, they just say it for everything, like we English say the word "fuck" as a catch-all.
@@Kainlarsen it probably doesn't translate directly and I could be wrong but from what I understand it's kinda like when we say "damn it" or "God damn it"?
Morning star sounds closer to the PIE word for dawn which gave us such goddesses as Eoster, for example. Just a guess though
so perkele was NOT an expletive once?
I would love to see any content related to Tengrism or Turkish Mythology. They never teach us any of that sadly
ah yes please! I mean everyone knows the "eye" but no one really knows more about all that stuff outside of turkey or in general
Tengrii/Turkic mythology would be awesome
@@tlow6974 It's interesting how we have the "eye" here in Greece too. We call it "μάτι" -which exactly means "eye" in greek. People here use it as a superstitious folklore symbol, let's say, to ward off evil intent and bad luck. I have never heard where it comes from though -looks like nobody knows. So I have no idea if the Turks got it from us, or the other way around. It will be extremely interesting to learn more about it!
They never teach you any of that because it is an Asian thing. Not Anatolian/Mediterranean.
100% this.
7 words that explain the essence very simply ( Nothing is more constant than eternal change)
I'm literally sitting in Latvia in a log cabin with forests all around me and drinking kvass (would love to have some potatoes too :D) and yes, I still pay my respects to our gods and keep the old traditions of my ancestors alive. I feel personally attacked, but I love it! The begging made me laugh so hard that I spilled my kvass. Thank you for this
I dont know if its necessarily obscure, but I've always found irish mythology to be particularly interesting, and I think a video on it would be really cool
It's pretty popular, but more for the romantic depictions of faeries and stuff, not so much the actual pre-christian mythology so I hope he eventually covers the different cycles and maybe eventually Welsh mythology, too. They can all look really similar at first glance but where they differ is really fun to discuss imo.
When I subscribed, I did not expect my traditional beliefs to be covered. You are awesome for doing a video on baltic mythology. Thank you!
Obscure mythology! Incredible! If you can maintain this a series I would be forever grateful! I often rewatch your videos in full for inspiration.
This was a really wepp made video, interesting to finally see someone talking about our mythology, I do want to mention though that Latvian and Lithuanian mythologies do differ quite a bit, in names of gods and spirits, as well as in how they were described, as an example Velns (Velnias in Lithuanian) was often depicted as a fool, tricked by simple men in the Latvian mythology, besides that there's a lot there to be discovered further, like how dragons were depicted, as an example
That was a very intelligent and sly way of putting that ad into the video.
As a lithuanian I was very happy to see you talk about Baltic Paganism ! I think these new series will definitely get the recognition it deserves!
As an Hindu all i can say is these names and archetypes sound astoundingly familiar like any Hindu God, and the concept of 'Dievas' is extremely similar to that of 'Brahma' from the idea of him being a formless concept personified by a old man to his role in creation and being the ultimate reality. 'Aitvaras' as you explained sounds a lot like 'Avatar' which literally means taking 'a different form'. Its really crazy how 2 different parts of world were basically one in spirit and culture, a long ago.
Indo European
It's Indo European all over again
Another interesting fact is that lithuanian and latvian languages are the only languages spoken in EU wich originate from sanskrit plus they are one of the oldest languages in the world and yes Atvaras is a spirit wich can bring you luck or misfortune also speaking from my personal perspective i am happy that we maniged to save a lot of our old belief traditions and integrate them in to the christian way of life and i personaly still feel connected to our old gods it makes me sad that my nation is now forced to be in a religion wich was brought to us by sword….
@@SquidAssassin421 They dont originate from Sanskrit. They just share a common source - Proto-Indo-European. Like how humans and chimps share a common ancestor as opposed to humans being descended from chimps.
@@SquidAssassin421 Stop spreading pseudo-historical/linguistic nonsense. Are the baltic languages similar to sanskrit? Yes. Both languages retain many proto-indo-european archaisisms, but lithuanian (or baltic languages in general) are NOT descended from Sanskrit.
You should study the Inuit/Eskimo religions. Youll be blown away
I second Inuit religions or any circumpolar people, for that matter
5:43 Albert Bierstadt! Love his artwork, classy taste in background sir hochelaga.
My stepfather is Lithuanian and I can't wait to show this to him.
Thanks for the great work!
Bro's family has been Christian for 600 years now and you want to show him this 🙏🙏🙏
Wonderful introduction! Well, for myself, I have always thought Turkic mythology before Islam is always underestimated. Like Altaic Turkic mythology or shamanic beliefs of central Asia.
Turkic all the way
At roughly 3:13 the connection between “dievas” and the Greek “theos” is not etymologically correct. The proto indo European root of Dievas, Deus, etc. became “Zeus” in Greek. It’s a common misconception that “theos” and “deus” are related.
They both mean god. So the relation seems correct.
Even Zeus seems more like another word for god instead of a personnal name.
T easily converts to D and vice versa between cultures all around the world for more than a few words.
Wrong. It corresponds to both Zeus and theos.
@@TheUnkow no and you need to Google the meaning of the word Zeus...it means shining
Zeus - Deus Pater - Jupiter. Dz/j. It's an etymology and linguistics thing.
As an estonian i am extremely happy for this video
I like to see people making videos about lesser known mythologies, not just popular ones. We need more videos like this one.
as a lithuanian i'm super grateful that you decided to make this video, it's really well made
most lithuanians are quite proud of the syncretism with christianity and a lot of pagan traditions are celebrated on catholic feast days
also a note about Raganos, that's the plural of Ragana which simply translates as witch so there are many witches not just one :)
Thank you for shedding light on my peoples ancient beliefs! Very little has survived the many armies that have marched through my country.
It seems that you have focused more on the Lithuanian side, but everything was more or less similar to my Latvian traditions.
Fun fact: Many of the names for the gods and creatures are just translations, for example Perkunas or in Latvian Pērkons is also used to refer to the weather event - thunder.
Hello neighbor !
Im an Estonian
Congratulations on getting a channel sponsor. Proud of your growth. And how you slid them into the narration was really smooth 🙂
9:48 the bonfire tradition is still alive in finland with a similar idea to drive away witches, though it is done at the summer solstice and not in the winter. In many regions it is also done during easter. Nowadays the bonfires are mostly lit just for the hell of it and for cooking sausages for example.
Your videos are great!
Small suggestion:
- Pre-Christian mythologies in Iberian Peninsula (some people say they are related with Celtic mythologies)
I'd love a video on Slavic paganism
I'd love to hear you talk more about Slavic or some other less known mythology!
Would love to see videos on either Slavic or Celtic mythology!
It's so sweet to see people on the internet talk about Baltic paganism, because it's not very recognized among other pagan religions 😊 Thank you and greetings from Lithuania! 🇱🇹
I LOVE THIS! I'm often kept up at night wondering what whole cultures are like that I know nothing about. Thank you for the education!!
i would honestly like to see you do a video on how religions/cults used substances and psychedelics during services
Such a lovely surprise to see my cultural heritage represented on one of my favourite history YT channels!
I'd like to also add that in Latvian mythology we refer to the different nature spirits as 'mothers'. E.g. it could be mother of soil or wind, but also a specific forest, river, type of crop, etc.
As you said in the video you could make an entire video covering the similarities between all pre-Christian religions(as seen for the common theme of thunder gods)
I agree, a video on this topic would be brilliant.
Monkey brain fears angry sky. Though it is weird most have a specific god for that.
@@ding1466 Angry sky is an interesting way of describing thunder lmao
One of my best friends growing up was a Neo Romuva pagan trying to reclaim his ancestors lost history and culture from generations of Christianity and germaninization. I believe in the one God fervently but sometimes in his name late at night I light a candle at a shrine leave some amber and mead as an offering and pray that his old gods protect him.
Miss you bro
This is such a gorgeous belief system, with incredible takes on common mythological concepts. The idea of the most supreme being in existance choosing not to rule with an iron fist but to simply wander his creation... beautiful.
Baltic Paganism sounds like the greatest religious crossover of all time.
History of Christianity here is meme by itself. Long story short they got baptized, sold or surrendered some land to church and... went to villages to perform old rituals. Rince and repeat. So Ligo (Summer solstice) is national holiday to this day. to the point where if a child is born this day he is named Janis or Jana like 90% of the time.
@@vjaceslavsavsjaniks6431 and Jaan in Estonia (male name)
And Midsummer's St. John of the Bible, and Janus of Rome. Tanist kings. The hinge in the Wheel of the Year, looking back and forward. Oak - duir, the tree of June, the oak door turning on it's hinge, closing the past and opening the future. Oak and Holly tanist kings.
baltics became my new favourite ancient/medieval civ for the next week
Great video! My picks for another video on religions could include Orisa-Ifa (Yoruba religion), Berber religion, any Khoisan religion, Polynesian religion, Tegriism, Filipino mythology, Navajo religion, or Taino religion. Those would be my top picks. Keep on making these! I would also love to see you make videos on syncretic religious traditions.
I absolutely love the obscure topics you discuss on this channel. There's so many fascinating things out there I'd never heard of till your videos. Your narration is really engaging, but also quite soothing when using these videos as a sleep aid . Cheers
i’ve always been fascinated with sami and finnish mythology. especially how they viewed the northern lights
Can you cover Balkan Paganism or Tengrism next please? Thank you, love your work!! Keep it up
Great video!
I am eager to see the next topic in the series so here's a suggestion:
I've been wondering a lot about indigenous American mythologies. The Aztec/Mayan/and other obscure mythologies I don't even know the name of are very unfamiliar to most people(me included).
You should have more subscribers, your videos are always so well researched and entretaining! Keep it up!
Comparative Religion and Etymology is an absorbing area of inquiry. Syncretism is arguably the most important view of their relationship to each other. "Daeus Pater", meaning "Heavenly Father",is the root of Zeus, Jupiter,Deity,and countless other names and words,and "Earth Mother" is as common as the primordial deities. This is all,to my mind,a very important area of study,even for Atheists,if only for the great insights it offers into the human psyche and how we work.
This is the type of videos I watch in my mid-2021 phase; aka my Mythology, Religion, History and Geography phase
I suggest you make more of these
I‘d love to watch a video on the russian legend of the city of Kitezh made by you as your videos always preserve this kind of magical vibe surrounding these topics
This is a Lithuanian and Latvian video. In Estonia people did not really have a pantheon of gods, we believed forest spirits and creatures. The one exception being Uku/Ukko the skyfather. Also in the western isles they believed in Taara/Taarapita who is regarded as the interpretation of Thor.
there were tons of gods, as evidenced by the much better preserved finnish mythology. the names of the gods are just forgotten. also, we dont have enough info on taara to say anything on him, but we know they werent exclusive to the isles
It's not Latvian and Lithuanian. This purely about Lithuanian gods.
@@kraanz because lithuania is the only pure balt descended nation (as in retained proto balt culture the most). Latvia was deviated by ugaritic and slavic influence and Old Prussia was destroyed by german colonizers. Lithuania holds the most of the balt people's language and folklore. Balt being the proto balt people that settled around modern day kaliningrad from the Ukraynian basin going through modern day Belarus in ancient times after scythian invasions. In the proto indo european spread of kurgan hyphotesis. They dislocated together with the proto slav people that stayed to their south. At the time the balts were modern day Lithuania, Latvia, Kaliningrad, Poland, Belarus and most of eastern Russia reaching even Moscow but the slavs assimilated most of the scythians and expanded north-east while the proto germanic peoples that dislocated from the ukrainian basin at about the same time of the proto balto-slavic people expanded from central europe to the north and a little to the east. The balts were therefore agroed by both germanic and slavic peoples in ancient times until their territories in through the classical period were only of Old Prussia, Lithuania and Latvia. In medieval times Old Prussia was conquered and their baltic heritage erased. Now there is only Latvia which in part received much influence from outside and Lithuania which did not hence why lithuanian is the closest (or most conservative as linguistics say) to the proto indo european language.
@@luana.desousa6398 Yes, let's completely ignore that the Lithuanians were quite... Polish-ized, and willingly. Let's let them keep their delusions of being "pure Balts" and even "the only Balts" ;]
Btw, don't get me wrong, I love them, but it's a bit ridiculous.
And it also doesn't address my point of "why tf is Lithuanian territory called Ruthenia here. If anything, what would later become the territory/concept of Ruthenia was in fact Lithuania around that time" okay perhaps a bit later. It's a bit like calling Sweden Estonia.
I will admit I am in a bit pissy mood right now since I drove through those very same lands to Lviv and back and haven't slept for 2 days ;]
In book "Mida rahva mälestustes pidada " by Jakob Hurt, in this book Jakob speak about eatonian gods and what we belive.
My grandparents were loose followers of dievturiba or they were dievturiba. Basically Latvians attempt at learning about the old religion of the Baltics through songs or poems past down through time. Dianas I believe they are called. It would be awesome to see this further explored.
Being an English speaker it is fairly difficult to find information on the subject. Also as you said it’s slightly obscured by the mix with Christianity. My mother still recalls celebrating various holidays such as the solstices etc… that are also then overplayed with various saints. Jani also being Johns or st johns etc… yet celebrated in the woods leaping over a fire etc… on the summer solstice.
Dainas, not Dianas, they have nothing in common with the Roman goddess of hunt. Also, dievturība was pretty much made-up, with extremely loose ties to the actual pagan beliefs. Very, very few people practiced dievturība, but I guess it helped keep a sense of nationality in exile, as in your Gran's case. Then again, she taught you extremely little, so maybe not.
@@kraanz wdym loosely, Dievturība is wholly based on the Dainas, you're just parroting something you heard someone say
@@esotericulmanist8331 Kopš kura laika dainām ir kaut kāds sakars ar ticību? Dievturība ir izzīsta no pirksta un neviens viņu nepraktizē.
Amazing video, I hope Romuva gets more recognition over time! It is a very beautiful faith. And I suggest a video about brazilian folktales!
Obscure Mythologies really should be a series!!!
My personal interests are the Slavic pagan mythologies and how different they are from region to region or country to country.
You should make a series out of different sects of paganism
This was an interesting video. I agree with a lot of comments absolut this being a series. Personally i am quite interested in Shintoism and Japanese mythology.
6:25 What's really interesting is how this description of Velinas actually resembles more the description given for Odin, in the Norse mythology. First, there is the "one-eyed" similarity, and also in the norse Poetic Eddas it is written that one of the many nicknames of Odin is "the trickster god", because he many times tricks and manipulates people, in order to achieve his goals (without that meaning that he is portrayed as an evil god -he doesn't. Quite the contrary, he is often portrayed as a kind, forgiving god, and also one that rewards good actions and people). Also, the whole lore of Odin is placed around him learning of the seer's prophecy, and Velinas is also a prophet-god (quite different as an attribute, but you can see some connection between them). Now, it isn't written that he is responsible for all the world's woes😂, and neither is he a god of the underworld, nor does he hide from any other god chasing him😂, but these similarities are fascinating. It almost looks like as if Velinas is a compilation of both Odin and Loki, in some way.
I was wondering about that. How was the Baltic relation with Scandinavian and Germanic people? It might be that it was a bad relationship, so they took the image of Odin and made it into a bad god. Kind of how the image and name of evil became linked with religions of the middle east in Christianity.
@@jorenbosmans8065 Baltics are the closest territory for viking raids. There also findings of nordic trade and settlements so when you mix up a not so stellar relationship, poor understanding of each other language and some telephone style tale telling frome one tribe to another and you get some weird cross cultural mash ups.
@@jorenbosmans8065 My tip would rather be that all of those mythologies have the same origin, rather then ancient Baltic people being petty and making one of the main gods of another religion an evil one. After all, Perkunas seems to be a very big deal and a good god, even though he is very similar to Thor and Tyr
At least in Lithuanian mythology it's Velnias that Perkūnas chases. His name is also the word for devil. Not really an actual god and not related to Odin.
@@jorenbosmans8065 not everyone thinks that Velias is bad character. A mischievous maybe is a better word. Also when Christianity merged with Baltic paganism during last millennia Velnias was merged with Devil thus blurring original concepts.
I'd love to see a video on polynesian mythology. Finding information of it online is a challenge, and it is mostly spread through oral communication as opposed to being written down.
My name comes from Mayan mythology. Vucub-caquix, the seven macaw who pretended to the Sun, was overthrown by the Hero Twins.
The Spanish burned every mesoamerican book they found. History, culture, myths, everything we know comes from less than two dozen books to survive. But we've able to reconstruct certain things through Spanish documentation of the time.
It'd be cool to see a video on that and spread the culture of my ancestors :)
This channel is such a discovery. I love coming home after a horrid day at work and just relax watching this. I would like a lesson on more obscure Slavic mythology myths too. Or the pantheon, despite Slavic mythology being one of the more well known ones.
I'm proud of my Baltic pagan ancestors
As a Lithuanian I've always been interested in our ancient beliefs and mythology. Thank you for making this interesting video
A wonderful and beautiful retelling of the old myths, thank you.
i used to frequently play this game called "tree of saviour" and it was based off of baltic mythology and ever since then, ive been absolutely intrigued by it. im really glad i found this video, it gives a whole new dimension to my interest.