Fire Rite touched by Perkunas

Fire Rite touched by Perkunas

Wednesday, July 24, 2024

Euphemisms and misunderstandings

A euphemism is defined as bwing the substitution of word that is considered to be too strong or unpleasant for a mild or pleasant expression. Lithuanian language, like many other languages of the world, use eupemisms to describe their deities. There are two main reasons for this and further complexities make it difficult to ascertain the genuosousness of the deity or the details of the pantheon. Firstly, it was considered to be inappropriate and disrespectful to use the proper name of the deity. It is assumed that it was an unspoken rule that it was forbidden to speakk the deity's name and so euphemisms were used. As an example, the Christian God known as the YHVH and the unpronouncable name of God, became Jehovah and was known by many other names. The mighty God Perkunas of the Lithuanians was known as Dundulis, Divitks, etc. Secondly, the eupenisms used to describe a deity and also changes with the dialect spoken and regional influences so it truly can be difficult to accurately name a deity of our ancestors all we can do is establish a relationship with the energy of the deity and realise that the name is of litte importance. The names of the Lithuanian pantheon were mainly documented in many of the folktales, which I tend to give credance as ;egitamite. The other written accounts of the deities who made up the Lithuanian pantheon were made by foreigners who didn't speak the language or understand its nuances. Therefore many of the names of the deities were either mispelt or misunderstood. It was not clear whether it was an observation of a deity or a spirit and many names were highly debated with some people claiming that they were fabrications. The conclusion of this post is still "on going" as I attempt to distinguish between euphemism and misunderstanding to better understand the deities of the Lithuanian pantheon.