Emotional causality in dynamistic Finnish–Karelian folk belief

Abstract

Drawing on more than 1,700 folk narratives and descriptions of folk belief, this article posits a particular ethnotheory of emotion centred on anger and fear in the 19th- and early 20th-century Finnish countryside. According to this ethnotheory, it was believed that anger could kill or injure others at a distance, and that the envy and desires of others were sufficient in and of themselves to cause harm to neighbours. Moreover, not only humans were perceived to have emotions: the anger of nature spirits and the dead were also seen to be able to cause illness. Finally, this article explores why the emotional habitus based on this ethnotheory was adaptive in this social and physical environment.

Keywords:

• emotion
• anger
• fear
• body
• magic
• sorcery
• nature spirits
• supernatural
• dynamism
• Finland
• Karelia

Notes

1 Karelia is the region straddling Finland’s eastern border region which historically has been closely related, both linguistically and culturally, to Finland. During the 12th and 13th centuries, while Finland was incorporated into the Roman Catholic Church (later being converted to Lutheranism during the Reformation), Karelia came instead under the cultural influence of the Orthodox Church and Russia.

2 Of these, 824 texts were recorded from Orthodox Karelia, and the remainder, 895, from all 14 regions of historical Finland. The oldest informant in my sources was born in 1805, while the youngest was born in 1937.

3 Rosenwein,‘Worrying about Emotions in History’. In the emotional community depicted here, an important rival set of discourses regarding emotion and the morality of its expression were Christian teachings (Stark, The Magical Self, 224–53).

4 Karisto, Pentti, and Haapola, Matkalla nykyaikaan; Tuomaala, Työtätekevistä käsistä; Helsti, Stark, and Tuomaala, Modernisaatio ja kansan kokemus; Mikkola, Tulevaisuutta vastaan.

5 Lavonen and Stepanova, ‘Kansanusko ja ortodoksisuus Karjalan tasavallassa’, 29; Hämynen, ‘Karjalan yhteiskunta ja talous’, 162, 168, 171.

6 Apo, Nenola, and Stark-Arola, ‘Introduction’, 18.

7 Ibid., 25, note 1.

8 Rosenwein ‘Worrying about Emotions in History’; Eustace et al., ‘AHR Conversation’.

9 Roberts, ‘Emotions Research and Religious Experience’, 497.

10 Rosaldo, ‘Toward an Anthropology of Self and Feeling’; Lutz and White, ‘The Anthropology of Emotions’; Nussbaum, ‘Narrative Emotions’.

11 Nussbaum, ‘Narrative Emotions’, 226.

12 Scheer, ‘Are Emotions A Kind Of Practice’.

13 Lutz and White, ‘The Anthropology of Emotions’.

14 Eustace et al., ‘AHR Conversation’, 1478.

15 E.g. Swanson, ‘Memory, Subjectivity and Intimacy’, 111; Rose, ‘Assembling the Modern Self’, 239–40.

16 Stark, The Magical Self.

17 SKS KRA. Alavus. 1937. A. Hakala 686. – Lyydi Anttila, 50 years.

18 SKS KRA Liperi. 1935–6. Tommi Korhola KRK 157:143. – Aapeli Ihalainen, 43 years.

19 Alles, ‘Dynamism’, 527.

20 Siikala, Mythic Images and Shamanism, 75.

21 Ibid.

22 For more on dynamism in Finnish–Karelian folk thought, see Holmberg, Jumalauskon alkuperä, 7–16; Manninen, Die dämonistichen Krankheiten, 122; Haavio, ‘Suomalaiset kodinhaltiat’, 51; Hautala, ‘Sanan mahti’, 13; Honko, ‘Varhaiskantaiset taudin¬selitykset ja parantamisnäytelmä’, 88; Apo ‘“Ex cunno come the folk and force”’; Stark, Peasants, Pilgrims and Sacred Promises, 77–110; Stark, The Magical Self, 254–85.

23 Women used the supernatural väki force coming from their lower bodies to protect their children, husbands, and domestic farm animals. But female väki could also enter an open wound of a man and ‘infect’ him. If the wound failed to heal, it was assumed that the vagina was ‘angry’ at the male sufferer and a tietäjä was called in to cure the illness (Stark-Arola, Magic, Body and Social Order, 206–11).

24 Väki and luonto have been compared to the Scandinavian concepts meginn and náttúra (Siikala, Mythic Images and Shamanism, 203, 252–3). The concept of väki was first documented by that name by Christfrid Ganander in his Mythologia Fennica, but was part of the Finnish–Karelian world view long before this (Vilkuna, Das Verhalten der Finnen).

25 Jokinen, ‘Suomen kielen maaginen viha’.

26 Åstedt, ‘Mytologisista Nenä-Yhdynnäisistä’; Stark, The Magical Self, 254–85.

27 For more on the role of teeth in magic rites, see Stark, The Magical Self, 280, 288, 306–10.

28 Siikala, Mythic Images and Shamanism, 242.

29 Ibid., 243.

30 SKVR XII2 5443. Pohjois-Pohjanmaa. 1880.

31 SKVR XII1 4399. Länsipohja. 1933. – Aappo Niemelä, old man of the farm, 84 years.

32 Stark, The Magical Self, 163–223, 286–314.

33 See Stark, Peasants, Pilgrims and Sacred Promises.

34 SKS KRA Suistamo. 1935. Eino Toiviainen KRK 154:193. –Julia Särkkälä.

35 Tulomajärvi. 1943. Helmi Helminen 2314. – Solomanida Petrov, b. 1862.

36 Stark, Peasants, Pilgrims, and Sacred Promises, 81–8.

37 Ibid., 77–101.

38 SKS KRA Suistamo. 1935. Eino Toiviainen KRK 154:193. –Julia Särkkälä.

39 SKS KRA Tulomajärvi. 1943. Helmi Helminen 2312. – Solomanida Petrov, b. 1862

40 SKS KRA Tulomajärvi. 1944. Helmi Helminen 2308. –Solomanida Petrov, b. 1862.

41 SKS KRA Mikkeli. 1961. Jaakko Valkonen TK 112:317.

42 SKS KRA Paltamo. 1909–10. L. Merikallio 163. – Maria Luttunen (parentheses in original).

43 SKVR XII1 3518. Simo. 1891. – Anna Pahnila, 40 years.

44 SKS KRA. Virrat. 1936. Eino Mäkinen 1510. – Heikki Joutsenjärvi, farm master, b. 1861.

45 SKS KRA Kivennapa. 1964. Tenho Rämö 371.

46 SKS KRA Lappajärvi. 1938. Heikki Toivonen KT 178:1.

47 SKS KRA Muolaa. 1961. Hilma Jussila TK 28:31. – Hilda Kuisma, b. 1881.

48 SKS KRA Kitee. 1894. O. A. F. Lönnbohm 1390.

49 SKS KRA Tohmajärvi. 1891. J. H. Hakulinen 246.

50 SKS KRA Pudasjärvi. 1932 (1915). Samuli and Jenny Paulaharju 16551. – Matti Naamanka, 50 years.

51 SKS KRA Tulomajärvi. 1944. H. Helminen 2380. – Olga Fomin, b. 1905.

52 SKS KRA Joensuu. 1935–6. Ida Vänskä KRK 175:5.

53 For a description of the entire rite, see Stark, The Magical Self, 294.

54 SKS KRA Anjala. 1961. Väinö Lehtoalho TK 56:17. – Collector’s sister Toini Pesu, b. 1908.

55 SKS KRA Kitee. 1921. Pekka Vauhkonen VK 107:1, 52–9.

56 SKS KRA Raahe. 1930 [1923]. S. Paulaharju b) 13843. – Kalle Läksy, fisherman, 62 years.

57 SKS KRA Pylkönmäki. 1938. Otto Harju 1603. – Miina Leustu, b. 1870.

58 SKS KRA Valtimo. 1939. Jorma Partanen 1056. – Risto Häkkinen, b. 1869.

59 Foster, ‘Peasant Society and the Image of Limited Good’.

60 The Finnish and Karelian concept of limited good (onni) was identified already in 1960 (Vuorela, Paha silmä suomalaisen perinteen valossa).

61 Vuorela, Paha silmä suomalaisen perinteen valossa; Sarmela, Suomen Perinneatlas, 143–4; Stark, The Magical Self, 34; 47–9; 202–3; 474, note 201.

62 SKS. KRA. Valtimo < Pyhäjärvi. 1955. Siiri Oulasmaa 3102. – Lempi Suurkoski, 54 years.

63 SKS. KRA. Haukivuori. 1938. T. Nurmi 578. – Tahvo Hänninen, itinerant labourer, b. 1855.

64 SKS KRA Parikkala. 1938. Pentti Sairanen KT 119:4 (parentheses in original).

65 SKS KRA Vieremä. 1948. Niilo Väätänen 32. – Ville Romppainen, b. 1877.

66 Eustace et al., ‘AHR Conversation’, 1478.

67 See Stark, The Magical Self, 52, 95.

68 Ibid., 306.

69 SKS KRA Kaustinen. 1938. Heikki Salo KT 176:251.

70 SKS KRA Parkano. 1958. Impi Kyrönviita MT 5:664.

71 SKS KRA Rantsila. 1954. Raili Hyvärinen 118.

72 SKS KRA Valtimo < Pyhäjärvi. 1955. Siiri Oulasmaa 3156. – Jussi Puro, 75 years.

73 Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice; Bourdieu, The Logic of Practice.

74 See Stark, The Magical Self, 47, 172–7.

75 Ibid., 315–56.

76 As late as 1916, there was still only one professional doctor per 13,500 inhabitants in the Finnish countryside (Konttinen, Perinteisesti moderniin, 151–2).

77 The last great famine in western Europe occurred in Finland (1867–1868), in which an estimated 150,000 persons died of hunger or illness, representing 8% of the Finnish population. See Häkkinen Just a Sack of Potatoes?; Rasila, Jutikkala, and Mäkelä-Alitalo, Suomen maatalouden historia, 1–3.

78 Haatanen, Suomen maalaisköyhälistö; Karisto, Pentti, and Haapola, Matkalla nykyaikaan, 28–9; see also Stark, Köyhyyden perintö.

79 Kirschner, ‘From Flexible Bodies’.

80 Greenblatt, ‘Fiction and Friction’.

81 Sulkunen, ‘Työläisidentiteetti ja kansanvalistus ja valtiokontrolli’, 38–9; Heikkinen, Kirveskansan murros, 166.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Laura Stark

Laura Stark is a professor of Ethnology at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. Her research focuses on gender and sexuality, folk belief, and poverty in Africa. She has written four books on everyday beliefs and practices in 19th-century and early 20th-century rural Finland, including three on magic and the supernatural.