Baltic Religion: The Sacred Things

“Baltic Religion: The Sacred Things,” an Outcome archive entry by Eglutė Trinkauskaitė, Ellen B. Cutler. The entry belongs to the jcrt collection and connects readers to scholarship, public history, and organizing around the Doctrine of Discovery, Christian domination, Indigenous sovereignty, law, religion, land, memory, and accountability.

In brief, it addresses Trinkauskaite explores Baltic sacred traditions and sutartinės, linking domestic deities and revivalist practice to collective ethics beyond hierarchy.. For readers arriving from the main Doctrine of Discovery site, this post functions as a pointer rather than a replacement for the full Outcome record. The canonical page preserves the complete context, metadata, author information, citation links, media, and neighboring materials in the archive.

The source text highlights terms and contexts including In this chapter, I expand on the most vibrant traditional Baltic practices discussed in the Mapping the Doctrine of Discovery podcast and in my earlier work on edible mushroom gathering, sacred dimensions of wood, and the significance of beekeeping traditions (Trinkauskaitė 2008; 2019). Subjects include polyphonic songs called sutartinės, and traditional homesteads and their attendant deities. Baltic and Prussian domestic gods were believed to live with humans—in cellars, granaries, and barns, lurking in corners or behind a stove. Relationships with spirits and divinities often define home. Ethnomusicologists emphasize the egalitarian nature of polyphonic singing. In their rhetorical and performative strategy, sutartinės are similar to the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address. Their modern resurgence signals the urgent need for more. Read the canonical Outcome page for the complete entry.

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