DEATH
In ancient Finnish folk belief, death received positive overtones. In rituals surrounding death, the
departure of an individual took on a cosmic framework which articulated the
unique event as part of the cycles of nature. Activities associated with death followed the setting of the
sun, the cycle of the moon and the changing of the year. They were timed in such a way that
everyone had to be present: the deceased was to be in his or her grave before
sunset, or - based on the mythic model of the time between Good Friday and
Easter Sunday - at least within three days of death. After six weeks, in Karelia, came the kuusnetäliset, the
'six weeks' provender, recalling the period spent by Christ on Earth before his
ascension to heaven. The calender
year still has days of remembrance dedicated to the dead in spring and autumn.
For a year after his or her death, the person was a vainaja (deceased),
without individuality or a given name, which the people of old subsequently
avoided using. A year was, in
Finnish society, the most important milestone; the period of mourning, during
which a widow was not allowed to marry or amusements to be enjoyed in the house
of mourning. Finnish revivalist
movements cultivated the habit of meeting for remembrance on the one-year
anniversary of death, even when these meetings were forbidden by law, and
through them this beautiful tradition has survived to this day.
Encounters with the dead in dreams were expected during the time of
mourning, and subsequently feared.
The rituals of death aimed at the success of social transference, so
that 'the dead would not walk at home'.
A flock of waxwings in the rowan tree at home was evidence of a
successful crossing of the border.
(According to tradition, it was best to return in the form of a bird.)
The culture of death was at first different in different parts of
Finland, but in the 19th century it became part of the overall Lutheran
culture. Differences in the
culture of death have survived for ecological and historical reasons. One important ecological factor is
connected with the forests and waters of eastern Finland. The eastern distant graveyard is part
of the belief-system of the hunting and fishing culture and its mobile way of
life, while the western graveyard, close to the village, speaks of the
world-view of an agrarian culture that has already settled down.
The old, eastern Finnish tradition was to mark the border-line between
village and church, living and dead, by carving a cross and initial on a rowan
tree on the path along which the body was carried, in memory of the person
whose memorial tree or cross-rowan it was. The memorial tree was a marker which the dead person was not
allowed to pass. The eastern
Finnish tradition tells of dead people who leave their graves to go home, but
return to the graveyard having seen the cross and the mark.
The eastern burial ground gradually became a graveyard, which had in the
west been the resting place of the dead since the Middle Ages - first under the
church, and then inside it. In the
east, graves were long marked with the wooden cross that was the symbol of the
Finnish forest culture. This was
only gradually displaced by the western gravestone, first for the clergy and
persons of rank, then for everyone.
In western graveyards, the more high-ranking the family, the closer the
graves are to the church. The
wooden cross of the eastern tradition was more egalitarian in terms of both the
living and the dead: it disappeared around the same time as the memory of the
person at whose feet is stood. The
eastern Finnish tradition reflects a thought that belongs to the Finnish
world-view: A person lives as long
as he is remembered.
Death has its own grammar in Finland: a vocabulary, the mastery of
portents and marks, beliefs, stories and customs. Laments were sacral poetry through which the eastern Finns
interpreted death, the journey to the other side and the interaction which the
poetry of death is at its profoundest.
The lament brought a liberated anarchy to grief as the keener set the
pace for each individual's grief.
Lullabies of death are known only in Finland and Estonia.
The tradition of death, which also appears in the Kalevala, formed a
'book of death' which was passed from one genera-tion to the next. The epic of death tells of the heroes'
journeys beyond the Tuonelanjoki River, to cold Pohjola, the underground
Manala, the other side of heaven.
The vocabulary of death is the oldest layer in the Finnic
languages. The original
terminology of the soul of the Finno-Ugrians reflects their conceptions of life
and death.
Behind the Finnish tradition of self-destruction or suicide lies,
partially, the mythic model of voluntary death that is prevalent in Nordic
cultures. This is the right
accorded to heroes to determine the way to go, when and where. The Kalevala ends with the judgment of
Vainämöinen, in which the hero's death is the exceptional departure of the
shaman.
Just as the vocabulary of death is among the oldest layers in the
Finnish language, customs associated with death are among the most central
elements in the Finnish world-view.
Finns' beliefs, attitudes and behavior in relation to death are still
bound by tradition, and they are seldom able to verbalize, still less justify,
how and why. In other words, the
tradition is still primarily part of the mental land-scape, but it also be seen
in the cultural landscape, in graveyards, customs and words.
In the family, kinship and village communities of former times, death
was a shared experience which had a meaning that supported the community. This culture of death began to change
after the industrialization, urbanization and emigration that followed the
Second World War. Particularly
during the accelerating changes of the 1960s and 1970s, links with ecological
roots in home parishes were severed, as were the transgenerational links of
family and kin in which the Finnish culture of death had its being. The disappearance of many customs, for example
viewing the body, expresses the fears of a generation that 'denies death' that
it is passing on its own lack of values to its children. The shifting of death from homes to
outside life, is an expression of this.
When death visited traditional communities, the entire house and village
participated.
Contemporary Finnish culture shows signs of a fumbling toward lost
transgenerational roots, for example in the increased habit of family visits to
graveyards on Christmas Eve and All Souls' Day to light candles on graves. A peculiarly Finnish cult is attached
to the Day of the Fallen. The
military grave at Hietaniemi in Helsinki, centered on the tomb of C.G.E.
Mannherheim, is a sacred space for a national cult. War veterans play a central part in preserving the cult,
through military graves throughout the country and memorials to red and white
casualties of the Civil War of 1918.
Observing the principle that 'a brother does not abandon his brother',
they honor every veteran's funeral with their presence.
by Juha Pentikäinen in
"Finland, a cultural encyclopedia"
June Pelo