Curonian Kings

They were first mentioned in a document of 1320 and lived in the villages of Ķoniņciems, Pliķu ciems, Kalējciems, Ziemeļciems, Viesalgciems, Sausgaļciems, and Dragūnciems (now in Kuldīga municipality).

Despite formal Christianisation after Livonian Crusade Curonian Kings owned a sacred forest where nobody was allowed to hunt or walk.

It is possible that the first mention in written sources of those sacred forests occurs in the record left by the Flemish knight Guillebert de Lannoy in 1414.

In 1413–1414, he travelled through Livonia to Novgorod, and has left a short description of a Curonian funeral in his travel notes:[1] The aforementioned Curonians, although they have been made Christian by force, have a sect that, instead of burying their dead, burns them in a nearby grove or forest, dressed and adorned with the finest ornaments, constructing a pyre entirely from oak wood; and they consider that if the smoke rises straight up to the heavens, then the soul is saved, but if it is blown to the side, then the soul is lost.Their Christmas traditions were described in a 16th century travel description by Königsberg apothecary Reinhold Lubenau:[2] I first reached Mummel and then passed through Courland, reaching the Curonian king, where we had to watch his pagan superstitions.

Later, they brought an empty beer keg and beat on it with two sticks, and the men and women, as well as the children, danced around the table, something that continued for the whole night.