Lietuvių dievų tarpusavio santykiai

LTLietuvių dievų santykių problema neišvengiamai spręstina, mėginant imtis lietuvių panteono klausimo. Ji juolab subrendusi, nes Norberto Vėliaus monografija, nagrinėjanti lietuvių Velnią, Nijolės Laurinkienės - Perkūną, Jono Balio, Algirdo Juliaus Greimo, iš dalies Marijos Gimbutienės darbai, pagrįsti empirine medžiaga, ganėtinai apibendrino kai kurių dievų funkcijas ir konkrečias jų sąsajas su kitais dievais. Remiantis mitologijos tyrinėjimais, galima pradėti ieškoti bendro sąsajų lauko, t. y. imtis lietuvių panteono rekonstrukcijos; o pirmiausia - nustatyti giminystės ir kitus santykius. Šis straipsnis - tik ilgo darbo pradžia, ir vis dėlto manytume, kad jame pateiksimos rekonstrukcijos, viena vertus, duos apibendrintą mitologijos tyrinėjimų vaizdą, antra - pasiūlys tam tikrą kelią, kuriuo galėtų sukti lietuvių panteono rekonstrukcija. Išsyk reikia pasakyti, jog „panteono rekonstrukcija" neįmanoma, tegalime šiek tiek panagrinėti jo sandaros ypatumus, kažką suvokti apie kai kurių dievų tarpusavio santykius, dievų genezę ir pan. Bet ir tas „kažko suvokimas" nėra nei metų, nei dešimtmečio darbas, tai tiesiog ilgas ieškojimo vyksmas. [Iš straipsnio, p. 176]

ENThe article considers mutual relations of four fundamental Lithuanian gods and outlines the issue of pantheon structurization. Fundamental Lithuanian gods found in folklore are God (God of heaven and daylight, God creator), Thunderer (god of thunder and lightning, guardian of war), Devil (an opposing figure to God and especially to Thunderer, related with animals, the deceased and the chthonic world) and Witch (a womanly being linked with heaven and the earth who has relations with both Thunderer and Devil). These folklore divinities described in the sources of the 13- 14th centuries likely correspond to the euphemistic names of gods: Andaj / Nonadej would correspond to God, Thunderer /Diviriksas (derived from Dievų rikis, i.e. the "leader" of gods) is the same folklore Thunderer, the place of Devil in the sources is preoccupied by the first smith Teliavelis, who forged the Sun and threw it to the sky (note: here it is stressed that in the Lithuanian folklore Devil is linked with black smith's work; he is the father of blacksmithing). The fourth person of pantheon is goddess; here the folklore Witch would correspond to Žvorūna / Medeina, the roots of which go either to beasts or hunting. Without any doubt, this is the Lithuanian equivalent of Artemis /Diana. In Lithuanian pantheon, the twinning of God and Devil is perceived to allow the implication that a certain primary God might hide behind it.The analysis of Lithuanian folklore (a fairy-tail "Eglė the queen of grass-snakes", AT 425 M) permits noticing certain castration motives of a primary god (cf. the Hittite myths of Anu and Kumarbis and the Greek myth of Urano-Krono). To some Lithuanian gods, behind the euphemistic names of which one might discover a somewhat archaic and original god, castrated cocks are donated and this ritual might imply some mythological realities. According to the author, the trinomial analysis of social and mythological organization of Indo-Europeans proposed by Georges Dumezil in case of Lithuanian pantheon exists only partially. The truth is that the pantheon might be analysed by means of binary oppositions (e. g. the Lithuanian controversial couple God-Devil) by taking the trinomial approach (e. g. God-Thunderer-Devil) as well as applying the tetranomial structure (God-Thunderer-Devil-Witch) and even hexanomial or twelvenomial. None of these structural reconstructions need to be overvalued, since here we face religious and mythological phenomena, while their expression at the same time might be very different and polyhedral. The fact that we are exploring the pantheon and find, say, binomial or trinomial structures does not suggest that the pantheon structure is restricted to this. [From the publication p. 469-470]