The Finnish Folklore Atlas is the English-language translation of Suomen Perinneatlas, originally published in 1994. This work is remarkable in the breadth and depth of the knowledge presented and for the fact that it is available in the English language as an open-source text. It is but one step in a long process of mapping work related to Finnish folk traditions, and represents the decades-long work of Matti Sarmela and others. In short, the work consists of a number of atlases describing the geographic spread and cultural variation of folk traditions, including social and religious practices and oral narrative traditions. These maps are accompanied by chapters that describe each tradition in great detail, making the book accessible for a broad community.
The book begins with a description of the spatial and cultural area at hand, which focuses on Finnish, closely related Karelian, and occasionally Sámi people, all of whom can be found both within Finland itself and in neighboring areas of Norway, Sweden, and Russia. The maps reflect the national borders of Finland and neighboring states established after World War II, but the parish borders of these areas date from 1910, illustrating how border changes affected local areas. The book relies on archival materials collected from the late 1800s to ca. 1930 in the period of intensive archival collecting of folkloric materials in Finland during its period as a Grand Duchy within the Russian Empire (1809-1917). While the date of collection comes from this period, many of these practices reflect traditions that have their roots in ancient culture, and also many of these practices were either moribund or extinct at the time they were described for the archives. Because these maps represent traditions in a time of precarity, the author was careful to create four different types of map: distribution maps show the known geographic distribution of a given practice, found from the late 1800s to 1930; archive maps show the last known points of practice of dead traditions; reconstruction maps show the earliest known points of practice of traditions either living or dead; and statistical maps show regional variation within a given tradition. Each map is marked clearly with its type.
The book goes on to describe the modes of subsistence found in Finland that influenced the traditions described, including hunter-gathering, swidden agriculture (commonly known as slash-and-burn agriculture), and agrarian production, with a brief discussion of what Sarmela calls a “postlocal era” in which Finland (and conceivably the rest of the world) participate in technological, globalizing practices that endanger that which is local, ethnic, and traditional. This introductory section of the book is completed with textual tables that are offered to help concisely illuminate the cultural, temporal, and social-structural dimensions illustrated in the following chapters.
The rest of the book is divided into chapters, including “Life and Death,” “Marriage,” “Annual Feasts,” “Village Youth,” “Shamans, Sorcerers and Witches,” “Environmental Narratives,” and “Songs in the Archaic Meter” (i.e., trochaic tetrameter commonly associated with Kalevala and other Finnish folk poetry traditions). Each chapter then presents maps and textual discussion of practices found in each theme. In “Life and Death,” for instance, the practice of bear ceremonialism is particularly well mapped and detailed. The map is labeled as an archive map, meaning it is reflecting the last known sites and styles of bear sacrifice ritual among Finns and Karelians. The accompanying text first situates Finnish bear rituals as part of a range of practices found among cultures in Europe, Asia, and North America. It next describes the basic organization of bear rites, offering parts of songs associated with the rituals that come from the archival records. Regional variation is illustrated in the discussion of the basic features of the ritual, as is the similarities seen between Finnish, Nordic, and Finno-Ugric bear-related beliefs and practices. Mythological, social (i.e., totemic), and occupational relationships between Finns and bears are important parts of this section, reflecting attitudes toward the bear over time into the present, when bear-killing remains important in Finland, but for vastly different reasons, and where awe toward a bear has less mythological importance and more ecological, even touristic, significance. This section is an exemplary illustration of why this book is so useful and interesting. The section ends, like all sections, with a name-date bibliographic reference list for the reader’s convenience.
Other well-detailed practices in the book include festival bonfires (in the chapter “Annual Feasts”), incantations for blood (in “Shamans, Sorcerers and Witches”), supernatural guardians of the environment (in “Environment Narratives”), and the sorcerer Väinämöinen (in “Songs in the Archaic Meter"). Each practice represented in the book has superb mapping, clear descriptions that provide incredible detail, and bibliographic details that allow readers to dig deeper into any topic that interests them. It is a book that can be easily appreciated by students, researchers, and even an interested lay audience. It could find good use as a source in classes on Kalevala, Nordic folklore, and more. Because it is open source, the otherwise expensive volume coming in at 669 PDF pages can be accessed freely by anyone with a computer.
The book does not engage directly with the traditions associated with Swedish-speaking Finns or, except in a few instances, with Sámi traditions. While this is reflective of the fact that the author does delineate the primary communities he will describe, it will still likely cause some readers to wonder about those traditions and about available comparable sources. It is, though, a monumental work, and will certainly be useful to researchers who have not mastered the Finnish language but are still intrigued by the culture.
--------
[Review length: 934 words • Review posted on September 6, 2018]