In making a response to another site at Latvians Online Forum with regard to Jāņi, the Latvian “John’s Day Festival”, I received something of an education. This is as it should be. It is always interesting for me to come in contact with people of various opinions and levels of knowledge, and, no doubt, it is no less interesting for them to come in contact with mine. Together we create a space, a room, if you will, that over a period of time takes on a shape of its own.

The next Jānis Festival or Jāņu Vakars is only five months away. Some of us are already making preparations for the celebration. Perhaps readers would like to take part in this ‘preparation’ by seeking a greater breadth of understanding about the beliefs of their ancestors and not so few of their contemporaries.

Interestingly, Latvians know almost nothing about their God Jānis, least of all that Jānis is a God. This is nothing new to me, because my own lack of knowledge regarding Janis and the fact that no one who I asked knew to give me an answer that I found satisfactory got me into doing some research on the subject in the first place. Even so, when a folk festival, rural in its origin, loses its “natural” environment, and when most of the once rural celebrants become city dwellers, well, the change can be dramatic as well as a disaster. The disaster with regard to Jāņi Festival (‘John’s Day’ or ‘Jāņu diena’) is both dramatic and disastrous, especially when the transition involves yet further loss of understanding about the origins of the festival, about the God Jānis, and finds itself being renames to Līgo Festival or Solstice Celebration.

A number of factors are responsible for the state of ignorance about Jānis. The first and most obvious thing is that most people who speak both English and Latvian, myself including, have got into the habit of calling “John’s Day” as “St. John’s Day”, the latter associating “St.” with John the Baptist from the New Testament, a book held Holy by many Christians. Well, the habit plays into the hands of neo-Christianity, that group of the faithful who put John the Baptist in the position of being the “forerunner” of Jesus. Actually, nothing could be further from the truth. John, Johan, Ian, Ivan, Iannus, Jean, Jesus, Huan, Han, and many other cognates of the name Jānis once used to represent an important God in his own right. That God’s name is Jānis.

So, let us take start our discussion with my assertions above. I hope readers will respond with their own contributions by way of questions, observations, and contributions.

Unfortunately I have forgotten much of what I was told of the celebration of Jani. I do recall however that Jani was most certainly an old god - or at least that is the impression I always had. The one concept that to me clearly shows Janis standing as a god - was the belief that those that slept on Janis night would be cursed for the year (or something to that effect). This to me indicates that he certainly had a particular status - or power of some sort. Perhaps this could have been stated better - but my last participation in this celebration was around 30 years back. The songs were a tribute to the god that would visit - were they not?

I also recall that we were all part of his family that night. The hosts were his parents - the celebrants - his children. This may very well be a remnant of an earlier worship that more than likely was in practice throughout the year. This night was simply his sacred night.

I remember my first John’s fire barrels (Jāņu mucas) from Jūrmala, perhaps from around 1938-9. These were on poles by the edge of the sea, and formed to remind of the three-stars that symbolize Latvia. The middle barrel was higher than the two on the sides. There were some empty firework cartons about in the sand. After than, I remember John’s Day Eve on the farm. The fire barrel was as high as a telephone pole and about a hundred meters from the house. The neighbors came from all around. We had song wars, there was an accordion player, berry wine, and beer brewed from black bread crust, which we had apparently been gathering the year round. We all danced around the pole. Since my job on the farm was that of a cowherd, I made wreaths for my cows. The largest wreath went to the lead cow, Plūme, of my twenty-five cow herd. After that I remember John’s Day Eve being celebrated in refugee camps in Germany and in America. In those days we still remembered many of the words to the special John’s Day songs. I knew nothing about the origins of this tradition. No one seemed to know, but this was a very special Latvian festival—that we knew for sure.

In later years, my early memories caused me to try and find the origins of this festival. It got me interested in mythology, not only Latvian mythology, but from around the world. Little by little, I was beginning to piece things together. It helped not to be particularly attached to orthodox Christianity, though it certainly interested me, too, and I read many books about it. It was quite an eye opener, I mean, the mythology. I discovered that Jānis was not from Latvia alone. He was from all over Europe and, so it seemed, from even further away than that. I was especially taken by the discovery that apparently there used to be a brotherhood of Johns in France, the members of which considered themselves to be wolves. I could not figure that one out for a long time. But when a little more than a decade ago, I returned to Latvia, I discovered that my ‘pagasts’ used to have a saying that if you were on the road and met a wolf coming toward you, it was a good idea to go to the opposite side of the road that he was on, and then everything would be okay. It ran an instant bell. I recalled reading that the janissaries, crack troops of the Ottoman Empire once, when they retired, they returned to their home districts as inn keepers and guardians of travelers on the road.

So, that is how I met Jānis the wolf. That ought to do for now; more at some other time.

The below is a well known cradle song that begins with the words „Aijāžūžū, lāča bērni”. However, if one examines the words closely, they reveal a hidden, but nevertheless inescapable subliminal suggestion.

„Aijāžūžū” neatly fits in (anomatopeically) with „Halleluia”*, an exclamation of praise or thanks originating in what singers know as ululation, a use of the voice still used in many parts of the world, especially around the Mediterranean basin. Ululation also lends itself to what the Germans and Swiss call „yodeling”. The latter most likely originates with sheep and goat herds. Incidentally, the second half of the exlamation Halleluia, re, „luia” fits nicely with the word that we now pronounce „līgo”, though we have long lost the breaking voice that probably once came with it.

Here is an alternate reading of this well known cradle song:

Alle līgo, Jāņu bērni (children of Jānis),
Līgo, lī-ī-go,
Pekaināmi kājiņāmi (with furry little feet),
Līgo, lī-ī-go,
Pekaināmi kājiņāmi (with furry little feet),
Lī-ī-go.

Tēvs aizgāja zirgu zagti (your father went to steal a horse),
Līgo, lī-ī-go;
Māte ogu palasīti (your mother went to pick berries),
Lī-ī-go,
Māte ogu palasīti (your mother went to pick berries),
Lī-ī-go.

Tēvs pārnesa zirga kāju (your father brought home the leg of a horse),
Līgo, lī-ī-go,
Māte ogu vācelīti (your mother brought back a basked of berries),
Lī-ī-go,
Māte ogu vācelīti (your mother brought back a basked of berries),
Lī-ī-go.

Now some people may think this interpretation of the song as something of a sacriledge, yet it comes quite naturally if one thinks „wolf” instead of „bear” and substitutes „children of the wolf” in place of „children of the bear”. Now the bear is commonly referred to (in Russian) by the nickname Misha, while it is not so uncommon to refer to the wolf as Yan (John).

Can you find other subliminal meanings in the song? I probably do not know them all, but there are such.


* (Halleluia is a ululation that may be read in several ways. Halle may be read as Yalle, from which we come to the English word to yell. Alle=German for „all”. Halle may also stand for Holy or Holy+līgo. Latvians generally abbreviated the latter simply with „līgo”.)

This new song of yours is quite a stretch from the original cradle song.  You keep having to use a lot of imagination, ‘lending itself’, substitution, etc.  for the new song.

‘ Aijā, žūžū ‘ are sounds used to put a baby to sleep; the direct opposite of yodeling which is/was used by shepherds to call each other from one mountaintop to the next. 
(Latvians have shepherd songs specifically for this purpose also, usually written down as one long e-e-e-e or u-u-u-u with the vowel being sung over a 5-10 note riff)

Why would father go to steal a horses - not a latvian custom.
Why would father bring back a horse’s leg? - this sounds absolutely barbaric to me.

The last 2 verses of “Aijā, žūžū” mention both the wolf & bear:

“Kas vilkam, kas lacam meza kara supuliti? 
“Lieli viri izaugusi, nesupoti neakleti.”
(Who hung a cradle for the wolf or bear in the woods? 
and yet both grew up to be ‘big men’ without benefit of the rocking)

Nothing about your new song comes quite naturally to me, not as a lullaby, not as a midsummer festival ‘Janu dziesma’

First let us get past the suggestion that the mention of a horse’s leg in a folk poem is „absolutely barbaric”. Here is a folk verse that I have saved as an example of where the name „God” can well be substituted by the name of „Jānis”.

Pieguļnieki, bāleliņi,
Vai ir visi kumeliņi?
Es redzēju Jāņa suni,
Kumeļkāju valkājot.
Ltdz 6044

For those who do not read Latvian, here’s a rough translation: Guardians-herders of horses,/ Are all of the horses accounted for?/ I’ve seen the dog of Jānis/ dragging a foal’s leg about.

Just as some folk verses are rather erotic or „unclean” for some, not all verses are, so to speak, nice. They reflect a much profounder social and cultural life of our ancestors. As I mentioned in an above post, the wolf is an old companion of people whose land formerly was covered mostly by forest. Even today there are quite a few wolves near the area I live. I have not seen them, but my neighbors, people who have lived here all their lives, assure me that they are about. There are not a few swamps here, and it is a good place for wildlife to hide from „civilization”.

Wolves or „dogs of Jānis” (though later under the influence of neo-Christianity—„dogs of God”) earned their cultural role when they symbolized messengers of death. The boatman over the river Lethe, Charon, had the ears of a wolf. In the days when the Gods were many, the God Jānis was the Father of the Dead (Veļu tēvs). In short, he was also a Charon (?Jaron>Janon>Jan) and may have had the ears of a wolf. We may note that Lāčplēsis, bear jaw breaker—who rather willfully replaced Jānis—comes with the ears of a bear.

The lullaby—as I have written it—suggests several interpretations. 1. Since the last line of a song is often repeated, note that the mother goes looking for berries, and we are told of it 2x. This suggests that the mother is not just any mother, but perhaps the Sun, which used to be at the head of the Gods. It is the Sun that makes berries possible and ripens them. 2. The wolf of Jānis may reflect the male as not only violence prone, but also a thief. He may be the one who stole from the Sun her domain. There are plenty of folk verses that speak of men stealing their brides. In later days this “custom” was incorporated as part of wedding rituals, but the ritual originates in our era.

The ululation “līgo” is not necessarily limited to the Jānis festival, even though that is where—what is left of it—is found. The bear and the wolf used to be common in the lands of the Balts, and the lullaby reflects that. At the same time, the currently popular version has all the signs of an age that has forgotten the significance of the myths of the people; it has been “cleaned up” for blander tastes. The Jānis Eve festival was not for “fun”. Though fun and joy were part of it, it was a festival meant to rejoin the dead with the living into one community. That is why beer was drunk: it made a meeting between the parallel worlds more likely.

Let us end with a folk verse where it is possible to again substitute the name of God with Jānis. The verse makes more sense that way:

Kur es iešu, kur palikšu,
Ļaudis mani neierauga!
Tīšos linu palagos,
Līdīš’ Jāņu zemītē.
LD 4802

Translation: Where will I go, where will I stay,/ People cannot see me!/ I will cover myself with sheets of linen,/ I will crawl [down] into the land of John(s).

valkāt=wear...........not drag about.

Peter, I don’t know the language you speak day in or day out or what dictionaries you are consulting, but you obviously do not speak Latvian and have consulted a dictionary that has not given you all the uses of the word “vilkt”. “Vilkt” means to pull. You can pull a log, and you can pull on a jacket, and you can “valkāt”, i.e., wear a jacket, and you may “kumeļkāju valkājot”, i.e., pull the leg of a foal about, not to mention that you “valkā” shoes, I hope.

Nu ko tu te kauc, chaliit, vai kaads tev uzkaapis uz varzhaciim?

[size=3]I see, peter B, that you are trying to pull a human leg instead of a foal’s. Happy wolfing, corns including.

We are talking here about Jānis as a Latvian God, what he was in the past and what is being made of him today.

It is not yet clear what the tourist industry is trying to make of Jānis Eve celebration. I have met people who say it is strictly a family affair. This of course reflects the inward turning of the family, the nuclear family or extended family at best. In former days though it was a celebration that involved the entire community, and in that sense it had something in common with the American Thanksgiving Day celebration, which, too, has become a family affair. However, Thanksgiving is focused on eating a turkey, cranberry sauce, and sweet potatoes, whereas the Jānis Eve celebration is centered on the bonfire, beer, keraway cheese, the outdoors, and “ballīte” (the last loosely translating into having a ball.) The outdoors is, of course, a carryover from our ancestors, for whom the church meant the forest or a clearing in the forest.

There are also those, mostly in the entertainment industry, who are trying to take advantage of an official holiday and make a few lats by organizing a concert. One such popular musician is Raimonds Pauls, commonly referred to as “maestro”. His concerts are hugely popular. I remember reading somewhere that he expressed the opinion that Jānis Day is done for and that no revival of it as such is possible. Unfortunately, I cannot recall the source of this information, but most likely it was in some newspaper or journal. In any case, that is one direction for the festival to go--if the past sixty years or so are an indication: entertainment, feel-good, a Munich beerfest in summertime.

But times change, and it seems that we are in a time of change. While I am all for globalization, it seems that it favors business rather than culture. No doubt, culture can benefit from globalization as well, except we are in the habit of thinking that it is for those with the money and organizations that already are large. For example, it is obvious that the neo-Christians wish to rename Jānis Day (Jāņu Vakars un/vai Diena) as Summer Solstice or Grass Festival, in short, anything but Jāņu Diena. On the other hand, Latvians as a whole seem ever more like a people barely hanging on to something that resembles a seperate identity. The latter is one reason why I am suggesting for Jānis a spiritual revival, and herewith my arguments. Your contributions are welcome.

[size=3]I see, peter B, that you are trying to pull a human leg instead of a foal’s. Happy wolfing, corns including.

Tas ir viegli ar taveejo, aazim ir chetras kaajas.

Beidz aakstiitie ar to Jaanja dievu, taada nav.

Jandzs - you are mixing up so much, and substituting left & right with no understanding of what you are doing.  It is a real porridge.

In a previous post you say “ Here is a folk verse that I have saved as an example of where the name „God” can well be substituted by the name of „Jānis”.

Foe the original verse, see http://www.liis.lv/latval/Valoda/Teksts/2nodalja/Citati/2.htm

P.Smits analizes some dainas as a basis to understanding our history.

“Vilks senuo latviešu ganāmiem pulkiem bijis bīstams kustuonis un pie visām tautām ir bijusi māņticība, ka piesaukta nelaime drīz vien piepilduoties, it kā viņa kā kāda saprātīga būtne tiktu aicināta. Tālāku bīstami un kaitigi kustuoņi ir vispārīgi tikuši turēti par svētiem un svētus priekšmetus ļaudis baidījušies saukt pie vārda. Tā arī ir sapruotams, ka senie latvieši ir izvairījušies minēt vilka vārdu. Pēc vecu laužu nuostāstiem viņu parasti saukuši vai nu par ujāku (nuo izsaukuma ujā), vai arī par mežuonu, t. i. meža zvēru.

Tautas dziesmās vilkam vēl sastuopam palamas: Juris, spigacis, ruds, pelēks un Dieva suns

Grietiņa meitiņa, dzen kazas kūtī,
Spigacis raugās caur lazdu krūmu. 29421.

Ruds pelēks attecēja
Pie manām aitiņām;
Es parādu kucenam -
Ruds pelēks eglienē.  29428.

Svētdien gani nedzeniet
Tāļajās ganībās:
Svētdien Dievis baznīcā.
Dieva suņi medībās. 29441.

Pieguļnieki bāleliņi,
Vai ir visi kumeliņi?
Es redzēju Dieva suni
Kumeļ’ kāju valkājuot.  30166.

What Smits is saying, is that the wolf was something to be feared to the point of not even mentioning it by name; if you mentioned ir by name, you might actually be calling up the thing feared.  (Jo velnu piemin, velns klat!)
So various pseudonyms were given the name “vilks” (also “chuska” and other feared creatures).  What you see in the dainas are not “wolf as companion” as you keep repeating, but rather a warning to one and all that a wolf is in the vicinity - have you counted your horses or goats to make sure a wolf has not carried one off? 

You have studied some, it is true.  I suspect you have not really understood what is that you studied.

Janis, is not a God. Give it up. You have successfully convinced yourself, but who else is going to believe such nonsense?

For a description of interaction between black bears and wolves see:

http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:_QyFMGncB5MJ:www.bear.org/Black/Articles/Interaction_of_Wolves_and_Black.html+Bears+and+wolves&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2

The following is part of a long article about myths, stories, and rituals about bears:

Re http://src-h.slav.hokudai.ac.jp/publictn/acta/20/asi20-001-janhunen.pdf

Here are a couple of brief excerpts. The author of the article is Juha Janhunen.

...„In [a] Tangun myth, a mother bear is transformed into a woman, who becomes the maternal ancestor of humans. In a variant of this motif, a woman marries a male bear and is herself transformed into a mother bear. In the following Sakhalin Ainu tale, a woman is abducted by a bear. The woman is at first reluctant to follow the bear, but later she is not willing to return to the human world....

Woman marries a bear (Sakhalin Ainu)
Two sisters and two brothers live together. The elder sister is the wife of the elder brother. One day, when the men are away, the elder sister meets a stranger, who drugs her with his tobacco and rapes her. Agreeing to marry him, she prepares special food and refuses to sleep with her husband. The next day, wearing her best clothes, she offers the food to the stranger in the forest, and both go away in the shape of bears.”

If the Latvian lullaby in a former post is to be accepted as it is sung at present, it strongly hints at the mother bear being more than a bear in her inner being. The first of the above examples mentions that she could be the maternal ancestor of humans. This is a common motif in ancient myth. Artemis, the virgin Goddess—an Earth Goddess par excellence--is seen naked by the hunter Acteon. She instantly transfigures the hunter into a stag and his dogs, not being able to see their master’s inner self, tear him to pieces. Incidentally, the Greeks celebrated Artemis on the 13th of August, which—after a long period of anxiety of not knowing what to do with Mary (who in the days of arch-Christians was Artemis’s double) and wanting to do away with Artemis—the Roman church made over into Mary’s day of “assumption” into heaven. Something like that happened also to John the Baptist—he was told to take second place to Jesus. In the days when tradition ruled, the changes probably would not have held up for long. But the written word was able to create fictions, which the illiterate common man accepted, because he and she could not read—yet.

Incidentally, it is obvious that research in folk verses done in the first half of the 20th century needs to be radically updated. We can no longer afford to look at Jānis myopically, but need to taka a panoramic view. When we do so, we get a much better sense of what we are losing by not taking such an approach.

The name “sun” today is a word that comes mostly in male gender. However, this was not always so. The old English word for the sun is Sonne, which is feminine gender. Die Sonne is feminine gender in German. Saule among the Latvians, too, is feminine gender. The English Sun is an obvious and wilfull switch in gender.

Originally the Sun was the Creatrix. She created the great forests that anciently covered the Earth from one sea to the other. Ancient legends tell that the first human beings came from trees. This is where the Latvians, too, came from. Men thought of themselves as coming out of the oak tree; women liked to think they came from the linden tree. Some forest people believed their “grandparents” were bears or wolves or some other animal. The people expressed their belief of their origins in what today we know as a “totem” animal.

Life in the forests was not an easy life, which is why people preferred to live along the banks of rivers and lakes. The early people filled their stomachs and kept alive by fishing, hunting, and gathering acorns and roots. They probably lived in tents-like dwellings made of animal skins.

An interesting question to ask is what did early human beings call themselves? Since the Europeans people believe that they once had a common place of origin, it is likely that they all called themselves by the same name.

One name that readily comes to mind is the word “gens”. A huge number of names derive from “gens” (gene, genetics, gentile, genocide, etc.). Moreover, all we need to do is insert the wovel a in place of e and we get the word “gans”. To check on the variety of names that derive from this word just go to the internet search button. But the g in “gens” may also slip-slide and is pronounced j or y in another dialect. So think of the many more names that can be derived in this way. “Gens”, “gans”, and “jans”, etc. came not only from among the trees in the forest, but from trees who were raised and cared for by the Sun, feminine gender. The Latvians still have a number of folk songs in which the Sun snips the tree tops as her last act of the day.

Most likely proto-Baltic people used the words “gens” or “jans” to describe their collective self. The latter word is of course whence the name “Jānis”, a child and son of the Sun. The femine equivalent would be the name Jane, or Jean, or Joan, etc. Why and how Jānis became a God that is a more complex question, but except for prejudices to the contrary the answer is accessible enough.

would you stop this nonsense, John is of hebrew origin