Abstrakt
Gintaras Beresnevičius in his monography "Heaven: the Conception of the Life After Death in Archaic Lithuanian World Outlook" points out there exists a perception within the Baltic (~ Lithuanian) view of the death as a continuation of life in a new body. Beresnevičius divides the transmigration into another body into 'metamorphosis' (resettlement in the new body without death) and 'metempsychosis' (resettlement after the death), but in the particular chapters of his book he works with mostly narrative folklore which, as Guntis Pakalns writes in his dissertation "Concept of the World of the Dead in Latvian Burial Folksongs", tends to be more international and "travelling".
The paper analyses first evidence which might refer to Baltic belief in reincarnation - Magistro Vincento note on Gets who are "foolishly convinced souls that have left their bodies proceed anew in new-born bodies", or Peter of Duisburg Old Prussian's notion of "ressurection in future life". Further it uses data from folklore written down from 19th century, dividing thus reincarnation in Lithuanian folklore into such groups: souls in trees, remorseful souls in trees, reincarnation into plants, parts of the human body as parts of nature/plants, reincarnation into plants on a grave, reincarnation into animals and reincarnation into birds.
For validation or explanation of Lithuanian motifs comparison with Latvian, Czech and Russian folklore is used.