20
the relocated or vanished farmsteads, as can be
illustrated through a few examples:
Ниву мою,
называемую Апидеме, то ест старое
селищо [‘My field, called
Apidėmė, i.e. the
former living place’] (Pavandenė, 1599 or
1600);
Третюю
ниву...
называемую
Апидемали, где седел Миколаи Кгедеикисъ
[‘The third field, called
Apidėmalė, where
Mikalojus Gedeikis used to live’] (Pašilė,
1616);
Прыкуплю [
...]
назъваную ниву
Апидемю старое седлиско [
...] [‘I shall buy a
field, called
Apidėmė, a former place of
residence’] (Veliuona, 1627 or 1629;
Jablonskis 1941: 2). This evidence indicates a
change in use of the word in the mid-16
th
century and that the land reform is of
fundamental significance for the study of the
history of
apidėmė.
Apidėmė is only attested as a theonym
beginning in the second half of the 16
th
century,
a use that seems to have spread simultaneously
as a generic name for the site of a former
farmstead and a toponym with a corresponding
meaning. In the Lithuanian language, the
prefix
api- (
apy-) frequently means ‘an object
possessing just a part of some relevant
properties’, e.g.
apymaišis [‘a not totally full
sack’],
apymolis [‘rather clayey soil’], etc. The
historian Leonas Mulevičius (1990: 92) argued
that
apydėmė could thus be a compound of
apy- and
dėmė [‘a spot’] that referred to an
indistinct spot which stands out in its
environment due to its colour. The linguist
Wojciech Smoczyński (2007: 19–20) related
apidėmė to a later recorded version
apynamė
[‘the place around a house’] through the first
edition of Konstantinas Sirvydas’ dictionary,
published around 1620, where
apidėmė
appeared as
apidamė. Smoczyński did not
reject the possibility that the root
dam- was
eventually assimilated by Lithuanians from
Sirvydas’ dictionary and converted into
nam-
(see also Zinkevičius 1981).
1
Examples from
the
Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language
reveal that
dėmė [‘spot’] was a term used for
the mark in the landscape that remained on the
site of an abandoned farmstead from its
structures, and especially from the house, even
in negative statements such as
Trobos nė
dėmės nebliko (Salantai; LKŽe,
s.v. ‘dėmė’)
[‘Not a single spot remained from the house’].
Therefore,
apidėmė is most naturally
interpreted as that which is above/on
2
or
around/by
3
the place where the house or
Figure 1. In a cultivated field, a black cultural layer of the Daugėlaičiai ancient settlement, dating back to the 5
th
to
the 13
th
centuries, stands out. (Photo by V. Vaitkevičius 2014).