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The Verification of Lithuanian Deity Bičbirbis / Birbulis in View of Information Provided by Matthaeus Praetorius

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The Verification of Lithuanian Deity Bičbirbis / Birbulis in View of Information Provided by Matthaeus Praetorius Perspectives of Baltic Philology III, Poznań 2017 389 ŽYDRŪNAS VIČINSKAS The verification of Lithuanian deityBičbirbis / Birbulis in view of information provided by Matthaeus Praetorius Keywords: Matthaeus Praetorius, Bičbirbis / Birbulis, sundew (Drosera), authenticity, Baltic religion and mythology The object of the article is mythical material on Bičbirbis / Birbulis in Matthaeus Praetorius’ work Deliciae Prussicae or Prussian Theater (Deliciae Prussicae, oder Preussische Schaubühne). The purpose is to evaluate the authenticity of mythical material on Bičbirbis / Birbulis registered in M. Praetorius’ work. Tasks: 3.1. To select and to evaluate interpretations on Bičbirbis / Birbulis by more significant researchers of the 19th–21st centuries who had analysed M. P.’s data. 3.2. To collect mythical information on Bičbirbis / Birbulis provided in the work of the late 17th century. 3.3. To prove or to deny the authenticity of Matthaeus Praetorius’ mythical mate- rial. Methods: analytical, structural content analysis, hermeneutical interpretative description, comparative. The main aim of the article is to establish the reliability of a deity which is a patron of bees and which Matthaeus Praetorius calls Bičbirbis (Bicz(ƶ)birbins, Bicž-birbins, bitzbirbins) / Birbulis (bicziu birbullis)1. Further the article will chronologically – from the earliest to the latest – present and evaluate interpretations by more significant researchers of the 19th–21st centuries, those who analysed data on Bičbirbis / Birbu- 1 The previous articles have already discussed the authenticity and the research context of gods de- scribed by M. P. – Perdoytus, Wejopattis, Gardouten, Bangpjtjs, Luobgelda (and partly Bardoayts) [Vičinskas 2015: 178-200; Vičinskas 2017: 434-452]. One of the previous article called Mato Pretori- jaus mitinės medžiagos apie ąžuolą verifikacija (Verification of Matthaeus Praetorius Mythical Mate- rial on Oak) attempts to evaluate the reliability of M. P.’s mythical material on oak [Vičinskas 2016: 63-84]. The mentioned researches have revealed the tendency of “information noise” and ambiguous authenticity of mythical data, therefore, the mythical material recorded by Matthaeus Praetorius should be verified further. 390 Žydrūnas Vičinskas lis recorded by M. Praetorius. It should be noted that previous researchers of the defined period did not attempt, except a few fragmentary functional interpretations, to verify the reliability of Bičbirbis / Birbulis. For this reason, besides the poorly developed explanations of Bičbirbis / Birbulis there are provided interpretations of other deities of beekeeping, mentioned in ancient written sources, Babilas / Bubilas (Babilos / Bubilos) and Austėja (Austheia). Simonas Stanevičius (19th century) did not doubt that “[…] Lithuanians and Samogitians did have the god of bees […]”, but the reliability of the name is problematic, because “we do not know which of the two words [Bubilos / Babilos – Ž. V.] is more authentic” [Vėlius 1995: 95; translation here and hereafter Ž. V.). Finally, it is concluded that the name of the god of bees is Bubilus or Babilus [Vėlius 1995: 95]. S. Stanevičius’ did not consider the probability of god names (Austėja, Bičbirbis / Birbulis) or functions nor the use of a sundew. S. Stanevičius’ contemporary, Józef Ignacy Kraszewski, on the contrary, associated the patron of bees with a female creature Austėja. He made an assumption that “it was Aušrinė and evening star […] which at the time was called Auszta” and tried to jus- tify it with Latvian material – “[…] Latvians had the goddess Szwets uhsinsz which guarded and defended the swarms from destruction” [Vėlius 1995: 208]. As it can be seen, J. I. Kraszewski did not provide more arguments on this guess and did not consider the question of reliability of the deity. He also did not discuss the question of other beekeeping deities mentioned in the chronicle. Researchers Hermann Karl Usener and Felix Solmsen, believed that in terms of derivation the combination of the words “bičių birbius” (Bičbirbis) in Lithuanian language system is inappropriate [Usener 1896: 88]. The linguists reasoned that the chain of god names: 1. Bičių Bo- belis; 2. Babilas / Bubilas; 3. Birbulis [bob-, bab-, bub – and bir – (?)]) is illogical, because the component bir – is a mistake [Usener 1896: 88]. Besides the identified gods, Ozstėja (a humming female) is mentioned, who took care of bees in the time of swarming, and Prakorimas, who, according to linguists, is prayed to when honey is being retrieved from the hive [Vėlius 1995: 426]. Interpreters did not attempt to determine the authenticity of the bee rites described by M. Praetorius or to restore the image of a sundew in Baltic religion and mythology. However, they seem to be the first to have formed a negative linguistic reconstruction of Bičbirbis / Birbulis and contrasted it with the mythical material of the previous chroniclers. At the end of the 20th century, Algirdas Julius Greimas published a study called Tautos atminties beieškant. Apie dievus ir žmones (In Search of National Memory. Of Gods and Men), dedicated to the analysis of the pre-Christian Baltic religion, in which he discussed the relationship between Austėja and Babilas / Bubilas. The fol- lowing three most essential researcher’s claims can be distinguished: 1. Austėja ‒ an ideal of a married woman, manufacturer (+ connotation) [Greimas 1990: 259; 262]; 2. Bubilas – Austėja’s opposite or a seducer-user-pragmatist (– connotation) [Greimas 1990: 270-271]; 3. Author does not speak of the existence of Bičbirbis / Birbulis. It may be assumed that A. J. Greimas, ignoring M. P.’s mythical information about Bičbirbis / Birbulis, considered it as unreliable. For the same reason, the Greimas’s The verification of Lithuanian deity Bičbirbis / Birbulis in view of information... 391 work does not use the material on the rites of h o n e y b e e h i v e ‒ h i v i n g a s w a r m ‒ s a n c t i f y i n g o f b e e s described by M. P., and at the same time does not discuss the role of a sundew. At the end of the 20th century, Pranė Dundulienė-Stukėnaitė, on the basis of functional similarity, also associated Praetorius’ recorded god of bees with the creatures Babilas / Bubilas recorded by the authors of historical documents of the 16th century: Maciej Stryjkowski – Jan Łasicki [Dundulienė- Stukėnaitė 1990: 118]2. On the other hand, unlike the above-mentioned interpreters, Dundulienė-Stukėnaitė does not view the mythologem negatively. The researcher as- sumed that M. P. had made a mistake and had mixed Babilas / Bubilas with Bičbirbinis but she did not provide any arguments for this hypothesis [Dundulienė-Stukėnaitė 1990: 118]. Dundulienė-Stukėnaitė widely enough discussed the god of bees Bubilas and the goddess Austėja; she thought them to be the “royal couple of gods”, perhaps under A. J. Greimas’ influence [Dundulienė-Stukėnaitė 1990: 118]. The author, when reasoning about the latter creature, states that it was already known “[…] in the late Palaeolithic Age for gatherers of vegetable and other food and hunters” [Dundulienė-Stukėnaitė 1990: 117]. Moreover, Dundulienė-Stukėnaitė extends Austėja’s functions, stating that the goddess “[…] patronised […] flora, blossom, from which the bees collected honey, and material for combs” [Dundulienė-Stukėnaitė 1990: 117]. Finally, she reconstructs the feast day in honour of Austėja, its exact time (mid-August), its attributes (unspeci- fied grasslands) [Dundulienė-Stukėnaitė 1990: 117]. And when describing history of the research of Bubilas / Babilas the researcher is critical about A. J. Greimas’ study, referring to it as sophistries of little value [Dundulienė-Stukėnaitė 1990: 118]. In fact, Dundulienė-Stukėnaitė did not attempt to base the above mentioned declarative state- ments on any cultural, linguistic or any other material analysis, therefore I view her interpretations negatively. In conclusion, Pranė Dundulienė-Stukėnaitė considered mythical data by Matthaeus Praetorius as sufficiently reliable to be used in scientific work, but she did not analyse information from the point of view of authenticity. Norbertas Vėlius, analysing the mythical vocabulary recorded in Jacob Brodowski’s dictionary, argues that the chronicler who had rewritten M. Praetorius’ material, from Bičbirbis / Birbulis had made Bičių Bobelis [Vėlius 1996: 69]. N. Vėlius does not discuss the issue of reliability of Bičbirbis or Birbulis directly; however, the fact that he uses M. P.’s mythical information in his study, in order to verify the reliability of any other document, reveals that he was conscious of the problem of the authenticity of the ancient written sources and tried to explore it. Daiva Steponavičienė refers to the Austėja – Bubilas / Babilas opposition formed by A. J. Greimas but the question of Bičbirbis is not raised in her work; which takes into account examples of folklore (songs). She argues that in the Lithuanian folklore b e e – 2 In the work written in 1990, the researcher specifies the precise metrics of the cited data; the precise reference to the work by M. P. also exists in the monograph issued in 2007 [Dundulienė-Stukėnaitė 2007: 213]. To record the system of conveyance of data cited by Dundulienė-Stukėnaitė is necessary because in the previous works [Vičinskas 2017: 438-440; Vičinskas 2016: 65-66] it has been identified that the author of the monograph does not always comply with a uniform citation system. 392 Žydrūnas Vičinskas d r o n e (lith. bitė – tranas) symbolically represent Austėja
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