Jumala jälgi ajamas
Tracing Back the Word jumal (‘God’)

Summary/Abstract: The paper discusses the origins of the Estonian word jumal (‘God’). First, it summarises the versions proposed by previous treatises, and thereafter the linguistic material of Estonian runo songs is analysed in order to detect variations in its usage, pointing to the possible pre-Christian meaning of the word. The body of the paper consists of presenting and discussing the alternative stems that the word jumal could be derived from. Among them are some appellatives (jumm/juma ‘log’; jumi/jume ‘colour of the face’) as well as proper names of the mythological creatures of the neighbouring countries (Finnish Jumi and Latvian Jumis) and the name of the Indo-European divine twin (Yemo).The linguistic and geographical distribution of the term as well as the background information obtained from archaeology suggest that the latter version fits the best. In the following a somewhat more extended summary of the abovementioned sections of the paper is presented. The previous treatises agree that the term jumal is of genuine origin. It is considered to be a derivative term consisting of the stem jumV (the last vocal varying between (a/e/i) and of a suffix (-l-). They disagree on its proposed original meaning (‘cover’, ‘face’, ‘sound of thunder’, ‘good’, ‘essence’, ‘shivering’, ‘dead body’) and on what the function of the suffix has been. There are also different opinions on whether the supposed supreme being has been of “heavenly” kind or it could have been located elsewhere. The analysis of the context in which the term jumal was used in the runo songs revealed that besides the usages in the Christianity-related contexts (co-located with Jeesuke (‘Jesus’) and Mari (‘Mary’)) there were other uses where it omitted such a company. Among them were the stereotypical phrases and addresses for help and the pantheistic nature-related usages (in connection with wind, trees and light). There were also some references to the genuine Baltic-Finnic mythological heritage (the God-Smith, the ‘golden trace of god’, etc.) and some usages that could be cultural influences from the neighbours.

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