God
Pigs, domestic animals, household economy
in late sources
Who is Krukis?
Krukis is a Lithuanian deity known from a sixteenth-century list of gods and connected with pigs and domestic animals. Krukis does not belong to the high gods, but to the layer of protectors of the peasant farm.
The name Krukis onomatopoeically echoes the grunt of a pig, so his field is clear: the health and success of pigs and barn animals. He is one of the small gods who reflect a very concrete concern of the peasant household.
Protection of pigs on the peasant farm
Pigs were an important source of meat and fat on the peasant farm, so their increase and health directly affected a family's livelihood. It is natural that this field could have its own divine protector.
Krukis embodies this need. His protection was sought so that pigs would breed, grow healthy, and not die of disease. Such narrow specialization is characteristic of late lists of gods, where every farm task has its own divinity.
Krukis and Kremata: similar deities
Łasicki's list includes more than one name connected with pigs and domestic animals: Kremata is mentioned beside Krukis. The fact that several similar deities protect the same field raises questions.
This kind of duplication is one reason why the reliability of Łasicki's list is disputed. Some researchers think that some names may have been epithets, local terms, or even misunderstandings rather than separate gods.
How should Krukis be read?
Krukis, like other deities from Łasicki's list, must be presented cautiously. Some researchers treat Łasicki's work as a significant source for Samogitian mythology, while others, such as Brückner and Mierzyński, consider it almost or completely unreliable.
Krukis should therefore be presented as a name with a clearly stated field, protection of pigs, but without an expanded mythology. It is important not to assign invented stories to him, but to present exactly what the source says.
Krukis today
Krukis helps explain how minutely an agricultural religion could divide farm concerns: even the success of pigs could have a deity. At the same time, he is a good example of how cautiously late and disputed lists of gods must be read.
Krukis is meaningful to read together with Kremata, Ganiklis, and Sutvaras. All belong to the field of livestock protectors, whose boundaries are indistinct and some of whose names are uncertain.
