Baltic Tribes (Baltu Ciltis)

- Our story begins in the middle of the Baltic

Sea on a Danish merchant ship sailing to Prussian shores.

Onboard is a young, seasick and disheartened merchant.

A Christian called Lars.

The Medieval book Liburcenses Dani mentions a merchant

who would travel to the territories of the Baltic tribes

to spy on behalf of the Danish king, Valdemar II.

Lars will be our eyes and ears in the lands

of the last pagans of Europe.

- Had I known the fate that awaited me,

I would never have set out on this journey.

But I was young then and knew little

of people and the world.

I knew my craft well, where to find goods for low prices,

and places I could sell them for a profit.

I met an old merchant friend of my father's at the port.

He had come here to buy amber.

He praised the goods I had brought with me and advised me

not to travel the pagan lands without a local guardsman.

For one osse ring, a bar of local currency,

I hired a man named Kursaitis.

He was the youngest son in his family

and could not inherit his family's property.

So Kursaitis sold his strength and skills for money instead.

As was the custom,

I exchanged gifts with my father's friend.

He gave me an amber necklace.

I must say, pagans or not, they have very fine artisans.

When I offered him something in return, he declined,

suggesting I'd better keep Christian symbols to myself.

Even though Prussians were a peace-loving people,

these were not safe times.

When planning the long and dangerous journey, I read about

a merchant city called Truso in King Valdemar's archives

where Danes, Gotlanders and Swedes met and traded

with the pagans peacefully and amicable.

When I arrived in Truso, it was nothing like the

description and instead resembled a small fishing village.

The once-renowned city of the Amber Road

had lost its former glory and fallen into decay.

As the evening progressed, I began to think that the pagans

are not as frightening as I had thought and that

the Prussians were not so different from us Christians.

My feeling of comfort came to an end when I witnessed

an event that made my blood run cold.

The Prussians had captured and shackled a holy father.

- Christianity swept like a tidal wave

from the Roman Empire across Europe,

changing its world forever.

Upon converting to Christianity,

the pagans renounced their gods and their way of life and

gradually accepted European Christian values and customs,

including new social structures, property rights and laws.

The Prussian territory, home to several small

related Baltic tribes, was the borderland between

the last remaining pagans of Europe and Christendom.

I was horrified by what I saw,

and I remembered my last confession.

"Lars," the bishop had said.

"It's time to convert the pagans to the Christian faith.

"You will be our eyes and ears in the pagan land.

"Watch and listen carefully, because when you return,

"we shall expect to hear every detail.

"May God be with you, son."

I had heard that for the past several hundred years,

the church had been preaching the teachings of Christ

in the Prussian lands, trying to turn the pagans

to the one true faith, but not today.

The priest's only crime had been that, unknowingly,

much to his misfortune, or rather his wilful ignorance,

he had entered a sacred forest to gather firewood.

A peasant saw this and reported the crime.

Kursaitis knew that whenever gods were involved,

a pagan priest, Grieves, would settle the dispute.

The pagans called it the Trial of the Gods,

but this had nothing to do with our Christian god.

I felt sick to my stomach when I learned how the pagans

determined whether a person was guilty or not.

Those involved in the dispute had to pull a stone

out of a pot of boiling water

and hold it in their hands for a few moments.

Unfortunately, and understandably so, the hand of

the servant of God was not accustomed to such savagery.

So the pagans declared him guilty.

My blood ran cold when I saw the wild joy

with which the pagans gathered to watch the trial.

As other Baltic tribes,

Prussians venerated specific natural sites.

Large stones, springs, or ancient trees and wood groves

where they performed their religious rites and rituals.

Written records mention Prussia's most important holy site.

A place of pagan worship, overseen by a pagan high priest,

Krievu Grievitus, or Krievu Grieves.

The pagans believed that the spirits of their ancestors

lived in sacred forests.

In fact, the ancient Prussian symbol

for the world was the oak.

The gods lived in its branches.

The Prussians worshiped gods of the sky, the earth,

and the underworld, and believed that various natural

and animal deities lived all around them.

These deities influenced everyday life, such as weather,

health, fertility, life after death, and fortune in war.

They sacrificed food and livestock to the gods.

One archeological sacrificial site revealed a stone idol

and the remains of more than 200 horses.

Lars' journey continues through the lands

of the Galindians and Yotvingians.

In the early Middle Ages, these territories were sparsely

inhabited and the battles with their Christian neighbors

led to the demise or assimilation of both these peoples.

- Few people lived in the Galindian lands,

which were covered in thick forests and mostly inhabited

by wild animals.

The hill forts were abandoned,

and with no cities, I could not do any trading.

Kursaitis knew that the Galindians had a custom of never

refusing a meal or shelter to a traveler, if requested.

So, seeking shelter for the night,

we did not hesitate to enter a Galindian farmstead.

- Several closely-related families often lived

together in fortified farmsteads.

Most buildings were made of horizontal logs,

built directly on the land without brick foundations.

The windows were small and usually covered

with animal bladders or sealed with wood shutters.

The log roofs were covered with layers of spruce

or birch bark.

Records indicate the the Galindians also built

residential towers whose height could've indicated

the prestige of its owner.

- The pagan diet was similar to ours.

They ate peas, beans and lentils, as well as root crops,

turnips, black radish, onions, garlic.

Meat was salt-cured in barrels so it would last the winter.

To my great surprise, the pagans did not build chimneys

and even the wealthy were unaware that every respectable

house should have a stove with a chimney flow.

The Galindians treated us with a meal they highly enjoyed

called (speaks foreign language), a sweet scone made out of

rye flour, fried and then boiled in pork-fat soup.

To be honest, these

were not very tasty, but we ate everything our host

offered us out of respect and hunger from our long journey.

That evening, we were served by the owner's wives

and (speaks foreign language), the local name for slaves.

As in other Baltic tribes,

having many wives was common among the Galindians.

I noticed that our host was particularly fond

of his youngest wife and while the oldest wife

managed the household, the middle one seemed

to be in need of a man's attention.

I will say this, pagan women were in no way worse

than those raised in accordance with the Christian faith.

And in some ways, maybe they were even better.

The next morning, visibly nervous, Kursaitis told me

that the servants had seen what had happened last night.

Even Galindian hospitality has its limits,

so we had to leave quickly.

Kursaitis warned us of impending pursuit, but unfortunately,

I paid little heed to what he said,

as I did not feel that sleeping with a pagan woman,

even though a married one, had been such a serious sin.

Suddenly, a few well-aimed arrows from the woods meant

that our Galindian host had taken offense.

He engaged the aid of his relatives and servants

so they could hunt us down.

Fortunately, Kursaitis knew that the sacred forest

lay just beyond the river and that the Galindians

would never dare to follow us there.

I didn't notice that my fellow companions took deeper inland

into the lands of the Yotvingians and the Sudovians.

The Lord was by my side and we slipped away

from the Galindians and reached a local healer

who agreed to nurse me back to health for a small fee.

- In the Middle Ages, the smallest injury

or illness could prove fatal.

The average lifespan was just 25 to 30 years,

due to malnutrition, the relatively harsh climate,

unsanitary conditions, and lack of medicine.

The most difficult stage in life was childhood,

and half of the children did not survive.

- By taking us into the sacred woods,

Kursaitis saved our lives,

but he seemed concerned and frightened.

He had violated the order of his pagan gods

and feared their wroth.

To beg their forgiveness, Kursaitis offered the gods

his hair, thereby lowering his status in society,

and for a time, voluntarily likening himself to a slave.