Zemes-mate ( Latvian. Zemes māte "mother of the earth") is the goddess of the earth in Latvian mythology [1] . The analogy to her is the Lithuanian goddess of the land, Jeminia ( lit. Žemyna ).
The ethnographer P.P.P. Schmidt considered Zemes-mate to be one of the most important Latvian goddesses, which together with Dievas constituted a typical Indo-European couple of motherland and fatherland heaven [2] . It was believed that everything born of earth there and return, therefore Zemes-mate accepted the dead, sharing responsibilities with the mistress of the world of the dead Velu mate :
Sway me, mamma.
No more pee.
Calm me Mother Earth
Under the green grass [2] [3] .
A number of texts indicate that the goddess of the earth, together with the goddess of fate, Laima, determines the date of birth of a person [4] . The land was often turned into conspiracies, in particular, from a snake bite [5] .
Matthew Pretorius described the žemyneliauti ritual , celebrated at weddings, after harvesting or during the spring festival, before the plowman leaves the field and cattle pasture. After sprinkling the soil with the words “ Dear Earth, you give it to me, and I give it to you, ” the head of the house drank a mug of beer and put bread in the furrow [1] . At the turn of the XVIII-XIX centuries, August Wilhelm Hupel noted that milk, oil, wool, money were sacrificed to the goddess of the earth, and on April 23, the black rooster [2] .
See also
- Mother - Cheese Land
- Jemina - the earth goddess in Lithuanian mythology
- Ziva - the West Slavic goddess of life and fertility in the land of polabs
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 Ivanov V.V., Toporov V.N. The Baltic mythology / E.M. Meletinsky. - Mythological dictionary. - M .: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1980. - 736 p. - ISBN 5-85270-068-1 .
- ↑ 1 2 3 BĚTÁKOVÁ, Marta Eva; BLÁŽEK, Václav. Encyclopedia of Baltic mythology = Encyklopedie baltské mytologie. - Prague: Libri, 2012. - p. 213-215. - ISBN 978-80-7277-505-7 .
- ↑ Kokare E. The main characters of Latvian folklore = Latviešu galvenie mitoloģiskie tēli folkloras atveidē. - Riga, 1999.
- ↑ Marija Gimbutas. The living goddesses. - University of California Press, 2001. - p. 208–209. - ISBN 978-0-520-22915-0 .
- ↑ Ivanov V.V., Toporov V.N. The Baltic mythology / E.M. Meletinsky. - Mythological dictionary. - M .: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1980. - 736 p. - ISBN 5-85270-068-1 . Archived copy of August 16, 2017 on Wayback Machine
Literature
- Zemes-mate // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron : 86 t. (82 t. And 4 extra.). - SPb. , 1890-1907.
- V. V. Ivanov , V. N. Toporov. Baltic Mythology // Mythological Dictionary / Ch. ed. E.M. Meletinsky . - M .: Soviet encyclopedia , 1991. - p. 214-215. - 736 s. - 200 000 copies - ISBN 5-85270-068-1 .