What do you know about the baltic paganism?
>>1374047
Tree huggers that plant saplings when somebody dies or is born or on special occasions.
They really like their snakes
>>1374047
Most of it is nothing more than fanfic written in late 19th-early 20th centuries.
t. lithuanian
>>1374132
This. The pagans in all areas of Europe list and had their records pretty thoroughly destroyed.
Modern "reconstructions" of these religions are the hardest one could possibly tip their fedora.
>>1374047
Quite a lot as a matter of fact, but not as much as I'd like to.
If you have some basic questions, I might be able to help out with those on the spot. For complicated questions on cosmology/genesis, paralels with other indo-european pantheons, etc. I would need to look into literature and most of it is only in paper back at home in Lithuania.
Basic facts:
>Most of the stuff we have on this subject was written by Teutonic Knights or Polish/Polonised chroniclers during the middle period of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Both of these sources are highly suspicious, Order was trying to depict Baltic paganism as a boogeyman that would attract attention, donations and volunteers from the rest of Europe, while later chroniclers were mostly trying to depict them as a mixture between ignorant/noble savage. But just the fact that it was mostly propaganda, it doesn't mean that they weren't right about some things
>Baltic paganism was exterminated in Prussia first, then in Courland/Livonia (modern Latvia), it remained as a powerful force in Lithuania and Samogitia until early 15th century. Grand Duchy of Lithuania was the last 'pagan' state in Europe. Even after nobility took baptism, worship in rural areas continued until mid-17th century iirc (or at least there were priests who complained about heathens continuing to feed grass snakes)
>Modern revived Romuva and Baltic paganism for the most part is New Age tier bullshit, BUT some of the things they do are very close to what most likely actually happened during ceremonies, etc. This is because of relatively late introduction of Christianity many of the superstitions/traditions lived on orally and some 'wisemen' who continued to heal village folk, etc. died/were stopped from passing their knowledge on during the Soviet period.
Ok, I am away to lecture, but if anyone has any questions, I'll be back in a few hours if the thread will be still alive.
Not much is known because these pagans didn't have their own writing system, so everything that's knows about their paganism comes from foreign, Christian sources. Like German crusaders or Kievan Rus chronicles. Everything else is pretty much oral history.
>>1374164
What the fuck did they even believe in?
>>1374161
Not Finnic paganism though. A ton of old knowledge has been archived and is available online. Everything from spells, to knowledge of beings, to heroic stories and gods.
http://skvr.fi/in-english#%257B%2522content%2522%253A%2522in-english%2522%257D
Guy in video is the last poem singer alive in a thousands of years old line. The woman is his apprentrice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE-TJFDKSTQ
>>1374168
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Lithuanian_mythological_figures#Names_by_written_sources
>>1374168
Peasants believed in your regular generic pantheist gods.
Don't know about the warrior caste, since they thoroughly Christianized themselves before anyone got the idea to write their beliefs down, but it's probably nothing too radically different from other pagan warrior gods.
>>1374047
What do you mean by baltic paganism?
Do you mean Maausk, or Taarausk or Romuva or etc?
>>1374056
What this guy said. Most forms of paganism highly revolve around the worship of plants, fire and nature which is why they are called nature religions. Baltic paganism itself would have been closely related to Germanic/Slavic paganism insofar that their gods primarily were worshiped in nature rather than in temples/sanctuaries.
>>1374047
I took part in a hiis ritual, which is an estonian pagan ceremony at a forest shrine.
I have estonian heritage but havent really learned much about its history before the 18th c
