DIEVINI

[Latvian] Dievini (diminutive plural from dievs) is a collective name for the group of minor gods of the Latvian pantheon. Mostly, the Dievini act as protecting and household gods. The word itself seems to be a more recent construction. Although being less described in the classical folklore, these could be the deities honored more in day-to-day life as the actual rulers of the household fortune and therefore of more influence. Eliade suggests that such deities could be the ones honored more usually than the higher gods, who were invoked only in case of greater necessity or some emergency.