From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 2235
Date: 2000-04-28
----- Original Message -----From: Sergejus TarasovasSent: Friday, April 28, 2000 10:04 AMSubject: RE: [cybalist] Re: EasterJohn, Chris, Sergei and all.
Yes, rivers had to be flattered, fed and appeased. But if you worship a river as a deity (say, Dea Sequana, Tamesis or the like), from the linguistic point of view it is the hydronym, not the theonym, which is primary. River names, at least in Europe, are in most cases simple epithets describing the visual appearance ("White", "Shining", "Dark") or other "secular" properties or the river ("Winding", "Swift", "Running", "Flowing", "Strong", "Stony", "Muddy", "Salmon-bearing", etc.). What I mean is that when an IE name was chosen for a river, the choice was motivated chiefly by the way the river looked and behaved in physical terms, no matter if it was worshipped or not.
I think we can all agree, after Chris's explication, that the name Danuvius and other Celtic river names with the element *danu- (Don, Donwy, Rhone, and why not Eridanus, difficult as it is to associate this name with any particular river) were originally variations on the Swift (River); and it seems likely that the cognate-looking Iranian element meaning 'river' was an epithet turned into a common noun. The relation of the river name to that of the goddess Danu remains unclear to me.
Piotr
John wrote:
> I don't know whether
> "river worship" was found amongst Balto-Slavonic people. Perhaps
> Piotr and Sergei would be better placed to comment.
It was, and 'water worship' has fossilized in Slavic term for 'aft oar, scull': *kormidlo<*kormiti 'feed'<'feed the water'. In Lithuania, one of the most prominent rivers is called Šventoji 'sacred', cf. šventė 'pagan festival'. There are a number of Russian rivers named Святая 'the same'. But. Gods' or goddesses' names are not found in Balto-Slavic hydronymy. On the other hand, Baltic and Slavic pantheons are not reconstruced to such an extent as , eg, Celtic. Maybe the problem lies here.Sergei