Traditions

Suiti traditions are those habits, rituals and knowledge that we have inherited from previous generations. It is our great fortune that these traditions still partly live with us, and that so much has been written down, recorded and filmed before it has disappeared from the living environment. Suiti traditions tell us a lot about our ancestors, about our families, about the people in whose footsteps we follow and in whose footsteps future generations will continue to follow. These traditions are our wealth. How much we learn from them and how much we follow them will always be up to us. But here they are, readable, ponderable and attainable. They are our wealth, which makes us belong to this land, this region, this community, which gives us this foundation on which we can safely stand and feel like one of our own.

In a church

When going to church, men did not go together with women.
When entering the church, the men hid their hats behind the water drain or put them on the ground, placing a stone on top so that the wind would not blow them away.
In the church, the women threw their scarves on the windowsills, or gave them to beggars for a small reward to keep for the duration of the service, at the same time pressing into her hand a piece of white bread or a pie, or something else to eat.
One should not laugh at the mention of God’s name.
When the church bell starts to ring, the men raise their hats and the women throw the cross.
God’s help can only be earned by doing good.
Before sowing, the beet seeds were sprinkled with holy water.
Before communion, people ate only the night before. They neither ate nor drank in the morning. You could eat again only after communion. Others brought something to eat to church to eat immediately after communion. The sick at home also did not eat before the priest came to them to administer the sacrament of the sick. In the past, the feet, forehead and hands of the sleeping and seriously ill patients were anointed with oils, now only the hands. If the patient was in such a condition that he could not receive the Sacrament, he was only anointed with oils.
Strict fasting was only on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, when neither meat, nor eggs, nor milk were eaten. In the past, people fasted three times a week: on Wednesdays in honor of St. Joseph, on Fridays in honor of the Passion of the Savior and on Saturdays in honor of the Virgin Mary. In our days, people usually abstain from meat on Fridays. Eating oil and fish was allowed.
Before eating, we made a cross. Other hosts recited prayers from a book on Sundays before meals.

In a graveyard

The spruce branches were removed from the grave 40 days after the funeral.
In the cemetery, candles were also lit on the dates of birth and death of the deceased.

In the Liekne meadows

In the Liekne meadows, the manor allowed mowing to begin on June 17, which is one week before Midsummer.
Men never speak when fixing a scythe with a hammer.
The cleanest and whitest shirts were worn when mowing grass in Liekne meadows.
When going to the meadow for haymaking, men usually took a bucket with skābputra with them.
While working in the meadow, you were not allowed to fight or argue.
It was not allowed to walk in the meadow dirty or torn.

Other traditions

In the Suiti region, as in all of Courland and also in Sweden, until inclusion into the Russian empire, driving was done on the right side of the road.
Fighting had to be done on annual fairs.
Apples were not eaten until Day of Herbs (August 15) and children were not allowed to do so.
In a butter churn, the sign of the cross was stamped on the butter.
Until the First World War, married people did not dance. You could only dance until the wedding. Dancing after the wedding was considered sinful.
In the past, there were no relationships before the wedding. It was believed that pre-marital relationships came from the Lutherans.
In automobiles, as once in a horse-drawn carriage, a woman will sit in the front seat only if there is no man to sit there. Otherwise, the women will always sit in the back.
The afternoon naps can start only after the storks have returned from the south.
Before starting to sow grain, people knelt down and recited a prayer. The same was done before the harvest.
On birthdays and name days, the jubilee was seated in a chair and thrown into the air, shouting hooray!.