What is Baltic Paganism? | Obscure Mythologies
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I’m sure you’ll be familiar with Greek or Norse mythology, But what about Baltic mythology. Ever heard of the storm god Perkunas who hunts the forests of Latvia in search of his one eyed rival Velinas? Or how about the supreme deity Dievas and how he accidently formed humanity out of his saliva?
Introducing Baltic paganism, an obscure mythology from the frozen forests of Northern Europe. It’s a folklore full of dark gods and magic, one that survived well into the Middle Ages, before the late arrival of Christianity.
There's so much that I couldn't include in the final cut of this video. Especially more on the history of the Baltics, and the story of Eglė, the Queen of Snakes. I have clips where I discuss these topics, one day I might share them with you all.
The channel hit 360k subscribers recently. Wow! I feel like this is all becoming rather official. Thank you all :)
H.
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Chapters:
00:00 Intro
00:49 I. The Baltics
02:22 II. The Pantheon
07:37 NordVPN
08:39 III. Mythical Beasts
09:53 IV. Romuva
11:01 Outro
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Sources and further reading:
Lithuanian Mythology - Wiki
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithuan...
Lithuanian Philosophy: Persons and Ideas. Lithuanian Philosophical Studies, II. edited by Jurate Baranova
web.archive.org/web/200709280...
List of all the Baltic Gods:
www.godchecker.com/lithuanian...
Baltic mythology | gods & folklore of Lithuania & Latvia:
travelnhistory.com/legends/ba...
Baltica Archaelogia:
web.archive.org/web/201203250...
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Music:
Intro - Epic of Gilgamesh in Sumerian by Peter Pringle
www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUcTs...
Elf Meditation Preview by Kevin MacLeod
Link: incompetech.filmmusic.io/song...
License: creativecommons.org/licenses/b...
Ancient Rite by Kevin MacLeod Link: incompetech.filmmusic.io/song...
License: creativecommons.org/licenses/b...
Moorland by Kevin MacLeod
Link: incompetech.filmmusic.io/song...
License: creativecommons.org/licenses/b...
This is the Way it Ends - CO.AG
th-cam.com/channels/cav.html...
The Ulgonsah Witches: Will It End - CO.AG
th-cam.com/channels/cav.html...
Outro - Peaceful Ambient Music by CO.AG
th-cam.com/channels/cav.html...
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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.
Holy shit. Im Latvian and Baltic mythology is rarely talked about. I love your stuff and you talking about baltic mythology is just Fantastic.
Same! Though I was hoping to see some more information about the latvian side of the mythology as it's different... Even though I'm happy to see this topic brought up.
I'm not Latvian or Baltic but I was definitely excited to see him talk about the mythologies, too. I studied them (albeit briefly) in college and I really love comparative mythology.. I think it can really show how pantheon and beliefs evolved and migrated across the world. I really hope he does some deep dives and expands on other lesser known pantheons!!
i was so suprised seeing this video. love it so much when people talk about it but would have also loved to see the latvian side of this mithology (and names of the deities as they arent the same everywhere, rather just similar)
Hey question are their names the same in Latvian?
@@garstead Nope, only similar. And we have different deities too. You can tell the source was lithuanian, by how every word ended with -as. I assume he found a good source of lithuanian origin and based most of the video off it.
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
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
@@dimitrijearsenijevic5597 Yeah that would be better.
Iberian/lusitanian too ❤️
yes!
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?
@@kinok5927 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).
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!”
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
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?
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
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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.
Editing is evolving so fast, good job with this one! Really enjoyable!
As an Irish person, it'd be really cool if you made a video on old Irish Celtic mythology at some point. It's really diverse and is full of interesting tales.
For sure
i hope a celtic mythology video will focus on other celtic cultures like cornish and scottish myths bc they're even more obscure and frankly underrepresented
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.
I think the different mythologies of the Uralic peoples (Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian, Sámi etc.) could be interesting to look into :)
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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!
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...
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'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!
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.
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! 🇱🇻
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
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
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
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, 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 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
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.
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.
"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😭
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
A correction?: Most of this mythology isn't in Estonia, we have stronger ties to Finnish mythology with stories more about Giants, spirits and weird.. creatures. We have the largest collection of folklore in the world, yet no real deities, besides few mentions and speculations.
Otherwise, fun stuff!
Estonians aren't baltic ethnically, they are Finno-ugric. They are baltic regionally.
Isn't Latvian collection the largest one?
@@antonmumu9227 "Baltic regionally" doesn't really have much meaning either.
I'm looking forward to more of these obscure mythology videos
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
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.
A wonderful and beautiful retelling of the old myths, thank you.
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.
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.
Your videos are great!
Small suggestion:
- Pre-Christian mythologies in Iberian Peninsula (some people say they are related with Celtic mythologies)
So glad I found your channel. Your narration is mesmerizing. Beautifully done!
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 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.
My stepfather is Lithuanian and I can't wait to show this to him.
Thanks for the great work!
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 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.
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.
Hey, Hochelaga! These videos just keeps getting better and better, I've recently watched your other videos about bible mythologies and I love them! May I suggest you cover the mythology of our country next? I live in the Philippines and the folklore here is amazing! sadly, not that many tales are told nowadays to children here. I love the scary mythological creatures here like the "aswang", "manananggal", "tikbalang", and many others. I hope you take a look at them if you have time! God bless! In the meantime, I'll watch some of your past videos.
Amazing video! Loving these Obscure Mythologies!
Suggestion for another video: Anatolian Mythology
As a Slavic lady interested in mythology in general, I've been looking for some reliable sources about our mythology and there is basically none available since we had spoken heritage mainly. It was expected that our stories will be passed on to next generation verbally. After all, Slava means 'a word' or 'ear' or 'to hear' among other things insinuating that Slavs were just a bunch of people who understood each other. That's why our word for Germans (Njemci) means 'a mute' (nijem=njemac, a person we can't communicate with). We moved so far west (obviously other direction too) we eventually got to a place where people spoke other languages and we couldn't understand them. So we didn't write our shit down and we stopped understanding eachother with centuries passing so I need a Slavic edition of this. Thanks and if you read all of this go have a beer, you earned it.
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
You should have more subscribers, your videos are always so well researched and entretaining! Keep it up!
Loved this video! Would love this to become a series! Perhaps next something tropical like an amazonian tribe or the opposite, Inuit mythology?
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!
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 :)
I would love to see a video on Dacian mythology. It's filled with interesting creatures and secrets that are still unknown to us. Many writers have thusly taken inspiration from it when writing fantasy.
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 mythology! Incredible! If you can maintain this a series I would be forever grateful! I often rewatch your videos in full for inspiration.
I'd love a video on Slavic paganism
Can you cover Balkan Paganism or Tengrism next please? Thank you, love your work!! Keep it up
Amazing video!
The way you introduced the ad made me giggle 🤭 haha .
I also love how you narrate, Spanish is my first language but I loved that you pronounce every word so clearly that I could understand everything without subtitles.
Congratulations on getting a channel sponsor. Proud of your growth. And how you slid them into the narration was really smooth 🙂
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
This series is so excitingly fascinating! It would be great to learn more about Ainu folklore and religion 😄
Thank you for this overview. I very much enjoyed it and look forward to your future endeavors.
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
I have no idea about mythologies except I am really into them. Post about any one and I'd happily watch it till the end. Thanks!
I think Karelian mythology could be a very good choice for another video in this Obscure Mythologies series. It is one of the sources for the Kalevala (the Finnish national poem based on Finnish and Karelian mythologies). Actually, both Finnish and Karelian mythologies are good topics to be explored in the series.
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.
Really loved this! It’s hard to find anything about the roots of my country without it being screwed by Christian accounts of what it was like. As for another “underrated” mythos, it seems like a lot people overlook and pretty much never talk about how amazing ancient African mythologies are. Would love to see something about those!
Legit shrieked when this video was recommended to me! I rarely see my Baltic Lithuanian heritage talked about, so thank you for making such a great video. 🥰
You should study the Inuit/Eskimo religions. Youll be blown away
I second Inuit religions or any circumpolar people, for that matter
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.
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.
I am really fascinated by Finno-Ugric beliefs/paganism and I found that Estonian and Finnish paganism as fellow cultural kin also share a lot of religious overlap for being the closest of kin, I guess. Regardless not much is spoken about their religion and it would be very neat to hear more people speak about them.
For those interested Antti Palosaari on TH-cam makes cool content about Finnish mythology
Would love to see videos on either Slavic or Celtic mythology!
I'd love to hear you talk more about Slavic or some other less known mythology!
I like to see people making videos about lesser known mythologies, not just popular ones. We need more videos like this one.
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).
Great video as always. Since you asked, I recently came across a snippet of Irish mythology recently, and it sounded interesting, so that might be an interesting to investigate in a future video. Either way, can't wait for the next one!
I think ancient japanese mythology and pre-columbian America would be very interesting topics. Great video!
seconded on pre-Columbian America ;)
5:43 Albert Bierstadt! Love his artwork, classy taste in background sir hochelaga.
baltics became my new favourite ancient/medieval civ for the next week
Hello to my fellow baltics
Im from Estonia
I don't think you've done it yet but I'd love a video on Estonian Paganism. I've been studying it for a while but there's not much info out there. From what I gather, it's essentially where Norse myth stemmed from.
i’ve always been fascinated with sami and finnish mythology. especially how they viewed the northern lights
that sponsor segue was smooth af! love this channel.