19/08/2023
THE LAST PAGANS OF EUROPE
CONCEPTS IN BALTIC FOLK CULTURE
The Beauty and Limitation of Language
I remember the confusion of a Lithuanian ceramicist at a press conference in the United States when his work was referred to as “pagan ceramics,” which, of course, it was. But to him it was Žemaitian first, maybe Lithuanian second, and traditional above all. For he had crafted and ornamented his ceramics in a way that had been practiced in his particular region of western Lithuania for over 1,200 years.
And, yes, they were “pagan,” he said, in as much as he was making ancient magical jars to hold seeds through winter. To preserve sacred honey. Forming ceramics that were marked by cultural sigils his ancient forbearers had used.
We didn’t use the term “pagan” that often either, when I was a young man being taught older amber and folk traditions. It’s not that we had a problem with the word. It’s just that we tended to use the words “tradition” and “traditional” in its place. Traditional Latvian, Lithuanian, or Estonian.
But neither did one want the awful and shattering history of the Northern/Baltic Crusade, which was sent by the Church to forcibly convert the last “pagans” of Europe (the infamous “worshippers of green leafy things and rivers”) to ever be disregarded or forgotten.
So somehow the identity of the word “pagan” still had to be claimed culturally, even if it was considered to be but a starting point for communicating with other cultures. Cultures who were just beginning to even see the Eastern Baltic with its rich traditions and ancient languages.
Don’t you love all the assumptions a word can have?
According to folk tradition, the Polish princess Jadwiga, who was offered in marriage to the powerful Lithuanian noble, the Grand Duke Jogaila, a man who would combine the thrones of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania with Poland to create one of the largest and most tolerant empires in European history, made her maids disguise her so that she could see her future husband naked.
The bodies of “pagans,” the Polish court had rumored, were, like animals, completely covered by hair.
The Lithuanian nobles who came to the wedding, on the other hand, were actually quite pleased to be called “pagans.” But they thought of the word in a whole different sense. They considered themselves to be the last inheritors of the great non-Christian Romans. The ones who were the builders of roads, the creators of schools of learning, and the stewards of complex economies. The great organizers of armies and valiant knights. The unifiers of tribes, nations, and cultures.
And, well then, you have the people of the land who just go on regardless of terms. Not the “last” of anything really, but the continuity of it all.
PICTURED: Beginning of the 20th century (pagan) horse tack buckle. Of a double headed animal for power and protection. Bronze. Traditional. From the border region of Latvia and Lithuania. Found in a bucket in a barn during spring cleaning on a really hot day.
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Text by Sean McLaughlin
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