Senovės baltų laidojimo papročių atspindžiai XIX a. lenkų literatūroje

ENMany written sources mention funeral rites of the Balts. Frequent references are made to the cremation because this type of burial seemed typically pagan, barbarian and therefore deserving to be condemned. The first author to mention this kind of burial extensively was the traveller Wulfstan (about 890). It is not only the researchers that have been drawing from the sources of Baltic religion and mythology. Such materials have also been useful to the authors of different times. In the 19th century several Polish poets described the cremation burial rite as one of the most distinctive marks for ancient Lithuanians. The author analyses this rite on the basis of Jagiellonida czyli Zjednoczenie Litwy z Polską (1817) by Dyzma Bończa Tomaszewski, Tabakiera (1817-18) by Tomasz Zan, Grażyna. Powieść litewska (1822) by Adam Mickiewicz, Pojata córka Lezdejki albo Litwini w XIV wieku (1826) by Feliks Bernatowicz, and Józef Ignacy Kraszewski’s Witolorauda (1840). Some other useful books include: Maria Reutt’s Dwaj bracia (1913) and Pogrzeb Kiejstuta (1925) by Władysław Zahorski. The burial rite was divided into four stages: 1. From the death to the moment of lighting the pyre (the choice of a place for the pyre; the choice of wood to build a pyre; horse-racing; the transport of the body to the place of cremation; the arrangement of the body on the pyre). 2. Cremation (the burning of people, animals and objects that accompanied the deceased; lamentations; priests’ duties during the burial). 3. The collection of the cremated bones and placing them in the grave. 4. The rites following the ceremony (the funeral wake). All the burial elements according to archaeological and ethnological findings are described. The largest attention is paid to the symbolism of particular trees, animals, objects and activities and their relation to death and the afterlife world.