Eng. sq. m. Pop. Dec. 1811.
1. Prussia 24,880 3,137,.r45
2. Poseu 11,330 l,58d,843
3. Pomerania 12,130 1,431,633
■t. Silesia 15,666 3,70T,167
5. Brandenburg 15,505 2 st;:;. •>•.".»
('..Saxony 9,729 2,103,174
7. Westphalia 7,771 1,775,175
ne province 10,2S9 3,r.7>.i.::47
9. Hesse-Nassau 5,943 1.400,370
in. Hanover 14,846 i;963,61S
11. Sleswig-Holstein 6,959 995,873
Dnch} ofLauenburg 455 19,546
Principality ofHobenzollern. 453
Territory of Jade 5 5,941
About 88 per cent, of the population are Germans. Of the Slavonic tribes, the most numerous are Poles. numbering two and a quarter millions, in Branden- burg and Silesia (here are about 85,000 Wends, and in Bast Prussia upwards of 117.1)00 Lithuanians: while Western Prussia has rather more than 10,000 Walloons using the French language, intermixed in its generally German population, and Silesia lias nearly 59,000 Bohe- mians or Moravians— making in all two and a half mill- ions who do not use the German language, or who employ it only as secondary to their native tongues. Three distinct classes are recognised in Prussia — name- ly, nob li is, burghers, and peasants. To the first belong about 177.000 persons, including the high officials of the stale, although that number does not comprise the va- rious mediatized houses, of which sixteen arc Prussian, and others belonging to different states, but connected with Prussia by still existing or former territorial pos- sessions. The burgher class includes, in its higher fran. Ins. all public-office holders, professional men. ar- tists, and merchants; while the peasantry— to which belong all persons engaged in agricultural pursuits — are divided into classes, depending on the number of employed on the land. etc.
I. History and Religion, The lauds founded by the Baltic and n..w constituting East Prussia, and the ad- joining territory on that side of the < Ider, form the orig- inal home of the Prussians within the vast territory i h.y now occupy. These lands were early occupied by Slavonic tribes, nearly allied to the Lithuanians (q. v.) and the Letts, li is conjectured thai they were visit- ed by Phoenician navigators in the 4th century B.C.; bul beyond the facl of their having come into tempora-
1>
PRUSSIA
ry conflict with the Goths and other Teutonic hordes
prior to the great exodus of the latter from their north- ern homes, little is known of the people till the 10th century, when they tir-t appear in history under the name of Borussi,OT Prussians. They were then a small bul vigorous people, and had made themselves a terror io their neighbors by bold inroad-, w hen the race of the heroes and sea-kin-- arrived from Norway and Swe- den. Scandinavian Gotha settled in the country, and the southern Bhores of the Baltic sounded with the praise of the exploits of Starkodder and Ragnar Lod- brog.
1. Mythological Pt > iod. In the oldest historic times, doubtless, the primitive inhabitants— Prussians, Lithu- anians, CJlmarugians, Curlanders, Livonians, etc. — wor- shipped the sun. the m i, the stars, and the pow< re of
nature generally. The Scandinavians, who were further advanced in the arts of war and of peace, heller armed, and skilled in agriculture, then brought in new gods, among them the three supreme ruler-. Perkunos, Po- tt impos, Pihollos, and most probably all their other dei- ties. Much has been written and argued on the ques- tion whether the three mentioned names, or the gods to whom they an- said to have belonged, really existed, or whether they were mere inventions of some imagina- tive chroniclers. There are even writers who have dis- covered in them the three persona of the Holy Trinity. We shall not dwell on these speculations, but briefly state what we positively know of the ancient mythology of a people which occupies such a high rank among the nations of Europe. Besides the three mentiom d, there was another important deity, called Curcho, tl
of food. His image si 1 at the fool of many a holy
oak. There was one at the place where the city of Ilciligenhcil was afterwards built. The apostle of the Prussians cut the venerable tree with a hatchet, and this circumstance gave the town its present name. There were spread over the whole countrj sacrificial stones, or altars, on which milk. mead, honey, bi er, Sour, meat. fish. etc.. were offered to the god. Every year his image was made anew, out of wood, on the con-, i rati d spots; it was clothed in goat-skins and crowned with herbs and ears. Then il was carried about amid the shouts of the populace: dances and sacrifices ensued. The interior -oils, in large number, have been divided, not, perhaps, very properly, into gods of the hi a\ i ns, of earth, of the water, of men. of the cattle, of the lower world, into gods of labor, gods of trade, into good and had gods. This was, no doubt, a kind of wor-hip of nat- ure, similar to that which we find among all half-civil- i/.eil nations. The holiest place in the land was Ro- mowe. < »nly a priest was allowed to approach it 'I here
were hut few exceptions. Thus, hy special favor, a
powerful ruler was permitted to come near the conse- crated Spot, and Io speak to the (iriwe. or hieji-pricst. Bul not even those great personages were suffered to come near the sanctuary, the ever-verdanl oak. and the gods thai stood below it ; for il wa- surrounded with a fence formed hy long pieces of white linen, something like a mosl primitive tabernacle. To a great distance the land around the sanctuary, and the wood which en- circled ii.wa- consecrated. No one could enter this forest, which occupied many square miles; and il. un- wittingly, some wretch pui his fool into it, his life was forfeited to the offended deities. No tree was felled there, no wild animal chased. I" sides this celebrated Romowe, there were other places of the same kind spread all over the country, and whose names, com- mencing with Romas, and partly preserved to our days, aie i xpressive of calm and holiness. We find quite a number of Buch names in Lithuania. In Prussia the trees were held holy, as among the ancient i.ermans, the Anglo-Saxons, the Rugians, Holsteinians, and kin- dred peoples. There existed also single oaks and lin- den-trees which were held in particular veneration as being the -eat- of some divinity; they were approach- ed with pious horror and deep reverence. The oak of