peter B, it is amazing how much you know what the rest of the world does not know. With your 1177 posts, you have no doubt a book there. Would you consider self-publishing it? From my point of view (and no doubt many others), the trouble with your kind of knowledge. however, is that it is supernatural, while the rest of still live within the limits of our nature given intelligence.

RE: “… 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. ...”

The gender of the SUN has nothing to do with “obvious and wilfull switch in gender...” Language just doesn’t evolve with wilfull switches.

In northern climates (moderate temperatures, 4 separate & distinct seasons, agricultural lands) the sun is what allows the agriculture to happen.  The angle of the Earth + the Sun allow for a growing season and the cultures within that belt, around the globe, see the Sun as a nurturer, feminine aspect of their lives.

In equatorial climates, (hot climates, 2 separate seasons- dry or wet, nomadic cultures) the sun burns heavily and is considered fierce - a destroyer of crops, hence a male aspect of their lives.

Jandz, you gotta stop guessing and assuming.  The phrases you use - ‘comes to mind...’ or ‘most likely...’ don’t lend any credence to your argument.

Wikepedia: “Etymology is the study of the history of words — when they entered a language, from what source, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.” If you don’t believe Wikepedia, ask any etymologist.

You may also notice how secular politicians and preachers of religion change not only the meaning of words, but the meaning of traditions, and their wilfullness is all too obvious.

The old Europe, in fact the entire world, was covered by forests not so many centuries ago. Agriculture follows the destruction of the forests. What happened with forests then can be seen in what is happening today in the Amazon and many other places of the world (Latvia including). Therefore, no, the reason why the Sun is in many places of male gender now is not because people feared it, but because its heat is a show of its anger with what an aggressive and violent civilization has done to nature. Men indeed have covered their violent tracks by wilfully changing the Sun’s gender.

The fact that the Sun is a Latvian Goddess and of feminine gender (again, if you do not believe me, ask the former president of Latvia V. Viķe-Freiberga who has done a lot of work with folk poems that have to do with the sun as well as the Sun) shows that the words of the folk poem “Ai Jānīti, Dieva dēls” are a wilfull substitution of the name “Dievs” for “Saule”. Midsummer solstice has nothing to do with God, but everything with the Sun and her son Jānis.

Var jau teikt “Saulis”, ja tu gribi..................un “ Meenese”.

Un ja nezin latviešu valodu un nav pašlepnuma, var ari teikt “davai”!

Un ja nezin latviešu valodu un nav pašlepnuma, var ari teikt “davai”!

pashcienja

There are many interesting sites at YouTube that show the “fearsome” wolf howling. Notice the howl breaking as in a yodel. Here is one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=937A1ELVyUs
In former days, herders in mountainous areas took their sheep and goats into the mountains. Wolves roamed and howled there as well. The yodel and līgo may derive from herders (gani-jāņi) imitating the call of the wolf.

Not many years ago a French moviemakers made a sensationalist type of movie about a brotherhood of the wolf. The sensationalist content is of little interest to us, except that the first name of leader of the brotherhood is Jean. Click your search buttons.

However, it is time we return to Latvian folk songs/verses. One of the posts above submits the following folk verse as evidence of the dangerousness of wolves.

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

This verse recalls a time when the Latvians are under German and Christian domination, not to say occupation. Here we have words such “svētdiena”, “Dievis”, “Dieva suņi”. The process of changing content to suit the invaders is self-evident. A much older version more likely read like this: “Dievainē gani [aitas, govis, etc.] nedzeniet/ Tālajās ganībās:/ Dievainē Jānis birzītē,/ Jāņa suņi medībās”. [Ttranslation: Herders, do not send your herds far away when the Holy Day comes. On the Holy Day John comes visiting us in the forest (?clearing),/ his hounds are on leave to go hunting.]

The word “dievaine” sounds a little awkward as used above, but can readily be made conform to the standard rhythm of the Latvian folk verse. My point is to show that “dievaine” means Sunday (as in “the Sun’s day”). To understand that Dievaine is the Sun’s day, we need to go back to the days before monotheism had not yet destroyed the native Gods. Before the arrival of neo-Christianity and monotheism, there were many Gods, some obviously more important than others, but Jānis and Saule were certainly among the main ones.

The origin of “Dievs”, however, is not be sought it the monotheistic Dievs, but in the Sanscrit word “div” or “dyu”, which means to “to shine” and to “give light”. The Sun certainly is the source of daylight. When used as a noun, these words mean “sky” and “day”, from which word the Latvians derive “diena”=day and “dievaine”=holyday. When the word gets personified, as in the Rig-Veda, where div becomes the God Dyaus, a personification of the sky, of the brightness of day, this does not mean that Dyaus turns into a monotheistic God or displaces the Sun, or Jānis, or Laima, etc. He remains a God among other Gods.

Another item of interest: the wolf may signify the bringing of light. In Greek the epithet Lykaios as applied to Zeus means “the bright one”. Somehow the epithet may have been confused with the name “lupus” (perhaps accidentally, perhaps willfully) which mean wolf. This enabled some story tellers to see wolves as messengers of light and evolved their stories from there. Unfortunately, neo-Christianity, determined to destroy a multicultural approach to cultures and substitute it with monotheism, found it convenient to turn Lykaios into “wolf-born” or werewolf.

The above is supported by the research of John Fiske in his studies of myth, which can be found at
http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/lit/literarystudies/MythsandMyth-Makers/chap7.html
There are however many other sites and many books that will substantiate the same.

In pursuit of the meaning of the Latvian folk poem in the previous post:

The origin of the Latvian word for church, re: baznīca is to be sought in the joining of the words baz + nica. Baz is derived from Basil, meaning king in Greek; nica is derived from niche, a corner, a recess, a nest.

The Latin equivalent for „baznīca” is „basilica”. However, this brings up a more complex origin for the name. If we can explain „bassil” as king or royalty, does „ica” denote place, just as of the addition of, say, ”burg” (originally meaning a fort) came to denote a city.

Moreover, can it be that the word „basilica” should be divided in three parts: bas + sil + ica? If so, we have three words here: king/royalty + sylvan/wood + place/nest/niche. We may also want to remember that originally the king was sacred, one who owed his functions to the priest, earlier yet a shaman.

Thus, originally a basilica meant a sacred place in the forest. One of the features of early basilicas as buildings was the baptismal font at the centre of the floor. When in the woods, the font was likely to have been a well, perhaps a place near a brook or a small pond. In any case, the early basilica was an outdoor place.

Later, when the priest assumed secular leadership, the wood still remained his special domain. We can see this in the fact that what we today call a “forest” was originally (in England) a legal term used by the king to assure that a certain part of the wood was under his protection and where only he and his court could hunt.

Here then we have an interesting evolution of meanings and activities, re:

Shaman/ priest >
Officiating at sacred rites in a wood clearing called basilica [the rite probably consisted of drinking (or being blessed with) water and a sacrifice] >
Combining the role of the priest with that of a king (a usurpation of sacred office really) >
The king substituting the sacrifice with the hunt (which points to the origins of secular rulers in predatory activities) >
Thus, the hounds of the king on a secular holiday (a holy day to others, simply a Sun day to locals) could be let loose in the forest as part of a royal ritual: the hunt. Any commoners and herders of pigs (probably named Janči), who had disregarded the king’s privilege and entered the forest or let their swine loose there to feed on acorns, better know that this is a time to beware.

Baazniica is senlatvieshu house of ill repute..........................

and WAY before there were any ‘baznicas’ in Latvija, there were ‘sveetvietas’ or ‘sveetbirzes’

Sorry Peter - but cannot resist. I am not sure baznicens was around when Baznica had that meaning or not - but if it was - I guess they would have been whoreshippers instead of worshippers?

Sniks - that is funny!  I love a good pun.

[size=3]In Prussia, Livonia and Lithuania, according to the bishops Olaus Magnus and Majolus, the werewolves were in the 16th century far more destructive than “true and natural wolves”, and their heterodoxy appears from the Catholic bishops’ assertion that they formed “an accursed college” of those “desirous of innovations contrary to the divine law”.

The above may be found at the following site: http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:0CEGdNP4lHUJ:answers.yahoo.com/question/?qid=20061009061941AAOgNjZ+Article+I.+Where+did+the+myth+of+the+werewolf+come+from??&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1

One of the difficulties of bringing the religious concepts of the Balts back into the play and getting it the respect of a dievaine (or however one prefers to say “a day in the Sun”) is that research is often left at the academic level and much of that nearly a hundred years old. Today, after a half a century of Soviet occupation and nearly twenty years of lackluster leadership in government, many appear ready to accept insult to injury and enter the future empty handed with regard to their past.

When the Normans and William the Conqueror (“He caused castles to be built/ And poor men to be greatly oppressed…”--Peterborough Chronicle, 1087) defeated the natives of England, they fought back with wit and deception. Robyn Hood is to this day a hero in the popular imagination, because he “hood winked” the sheriff who had driven him to take shelter in the forest.

If Latvians were to let go of the grip on the dead letter of obviously neo-Christianized folk poems, see themselves critically and taka a panoramic view, then deconstruct the false constructions hid in such dainas as have been “prettified”, they would be able to give the neo-Christians a run for their money. After all, we would be reclaiming s the history of Europe not only for ourselves, but for all of Europe, too. We do not need to deceive, but we do need wit. One of the signs of wit is to know and understand the present and be a little ahead of it. By being a little ahead of times, we gain hindsight on the phony doctrines that present themselves as the guitar’s miau or, if you will, an age of rock that’s actually become repetitious, limp and a spiritless bore.

At the site above, we will also find the following: “The Roman Pliny the Elder, quoting Euanthes, says that a man of Anthus’ [perhaps Janus—J.] family was selected by lot and brought to a lake in Arcadia, where he hung his clothing on an ash tree and swam across. This resulted in his being transformed into a wolf, and he wandered in this shape nine years. Then, if he had attacked no human being, he was at liberty to swim back and resume his former shape.” And, I hope, reclaim his place among his people with authority.

Something new about wolves http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7213731.stm[size=3][color=green][/size][/size][/color]

I don’t know how many of you are paying attention to this, but Janis is not a god, he’s nothing. Jesus is your road to salvation, Janis is emptiness, a place for intellectualism lost.
Consider the world around you, believe it or not, Jesus has had a huge, visible, impact on the world in which we live. John......... , this John that the author talks about has done NOTHING.

You Latvians that think that “our gods” do anything for you, are sucked up into stupidity. Jesus is your road to salvation. John will get you plenty of beer, and maybe a few women among the papardits. I can’t say that’s that is the worst of life having enjoyed those moments myself. But what is really being discussed here? Do Latvians really want a god of their own making because their intellectual side finds it soothing?

Latvia is a small culture, unknown to 99% of this world. ( and probably less ) Does that make it any less important to me or you? Surely, you can tell from my perspective that God is more important to me than Latvia. Yes, God comes first, my family second, surviving in the world 3rd, and perhaps, if I’m lucky, preserving my heritage comes next.

Those of you that cling to Latvianism, especially those who don’t live in Latvia today, should we…
Preserve Latvia, with history, beautiful songs, wonderful dances, show the world that a culture, small and irrelevant in most of the world’s TV’s is vibrant and as lovely as we all know it to be.

Don’t tie it to faith. Dievturiba is nonsense, It’s just another way to solidify the Latvian culture into an identity. But there is plenty of Latvian identity in Song and Dance. We don’t need a god to represent Latvia. Latvians need to understand who Jesus is and what He has done for Latvians.

What is a forum on faith? which is what this LOL website brings us to? Faith in what? John? Laima? Perkons?

Who are these gods? Do you believe in them?  If so.. why? What is their fruit? ( which means, what have they done to contribute to the well being of the world around them, and not just in Latvia.)

For those of you who think that Dievturiba really has any merit, you are lost in nationalism. You arene’t really thinking about God and your place in the eternal plan, you are trying to fit into the narrow space that is Latvianism.

For those of you that are “loved” by your fellow Latvians by “representing the cause”, well… I love you too. I wish that life could be as I imagine it to be. Life is what it is.

May God bless you all in Love
In Jesus name
Amen

Janis? This is the biggest piece of nonsense I have found so far on these forums. If you follow this ideology , then… you have no hope.

Ikabods

Ikabods - you seem to miss the point. Over the ages - there have been literally thousands upon thousands of gods/deities/idols - whatever you wish to call them. For simplicity - people tend to call them gods. I have yet to see anyone write that they are worshipping Janis - have you? It is wonderful when someone is zealous enough to have any strong belief - but when that same individual cannot seem to comprehend that there are more beliefs - both current and historical - and possibly interest in those same ideas - then what possible purpose does it serve to continually state your personal conviction that there is nothing else. Get real! Humilitity is a virtue - is it not? The way you carry on at times - it seems that you might consider resurecting the Spanish Inquisition or something of the kind. Perhaps you could provide one article that is actually writen by God - or Christ for that matter. The writings that exist are by mortal people only. What difference is there between those writings and any other dealing with religious or mythological writings of a different nature. If you care to - read some transcripts of amcient religions/mythologies - Greek, Roman, and even Egyptian. You will find many that are included in the bible. In your narrow vision - you would have us believe that every word in the bible is the word of God. Well - I’ve got news for you - those writings borrowed from other religionsare older than the Christian faith. Perhaps you can explain which god you are worshipping. And what is his name - is it Iam - is it Jehovah - is it any of the other names. Have you every even for a milisecond stopped to consider that many of these so called different religions seem to have common origin points? Did you ever consider that with that being the case - that they may just be different people’s interpretations of one and the same god. May Christ forgive you for your judgemental ways.