Kriwe

Known primarily from the dubious 16th-century writings of Simon Grunau, the concept of kriwe became popular during the times of romantic nationalism.

The title was adopted by Romuva, the neo-pagan movement in Lithuania, when Jonas Trinkūnas was officially installed as krivių krivaitis in October 2002.

[2] Simon Grunau (died c. 1530) provided most detailed description of the pagan priest and introduced the double title Kriwe Kriwaito or Criwo Cyrwaito.

[4] Maciej Stryjkowski (c. 1547 – c. 1593) wrote that Lizdeika who interpreted a dream of Grand Duke Gediminas about the Iron Wolf (the story was first written in the Lithuanian Chronicles) was a kriwe.

[5] Matthäus Prätorius (c. 1635 – c. 1704) described and drew examples of a crooked and twisted wooden stick called krywule [lt].

The most commonly accepted etymology of kriwe is that the word is derived from "curved, crooked" (Lithuanian: kreivas, Latvian: krievs, Latin: curvus).

Johann Erich Thunmann was the first to analyze etymology of kriwe and claimed that it was derived from German Grewe meaning chief, supervisor.

[4] Jēkabs Lange [lv], Aaron Christian Lehrberg [de], and Gotthard Friedrich Stender believed that kriwe was derived from krievi, Latvian ethnonym for Russians.

[3] Some authors, including Marceli Kosman and Antanas Kučinskas [lt], went further and doubted that the pagan society even had a class of religious officials.