Prowling about the Wonders of Satakunta Nature – The Nature Relations of the People of Satakunta

The Finns have never doubted the natural position of the king of the forest – the bear is sacred and the mightiest of all the creatures of the forest. Many have believed in the divine origin of the bear. The many names of the bear as well as the celebrations and ceremonies associated with it, such as karhunpeijaiset, have sustained the mythical relationship between the Finns and the bear over centuries.

The special status of the bear is apparent in old Satakunta tales. There are many stories about bear hunts and karhunpeijaiset, feasts that were held after the bear was caught. The stories are filled with respect for the king of the forest. The bear was seen as the enemy and a superior opponent, that would only yield to the bravest of the hunters.

Karhunpeijaiset

Karhunpeijaiset was a feast that was held in honor of the slain bear. The feast lasted many days, making sure the bear would be escorted back to its heavenly home. The slain bear would be the main character of the feast, and a bride and a groom would be chosen for it. Bear meat and the bear’s head would be served at the feast. The feast culminated when the skull of the bear was hung on a pine tree and the rest of the bones were buried in the woods. A good feast was believed to ascertain good future luck in bear hunting.

In 1903 a stone statue was found in the potato patch of the Malmi croft in Palojoki, Huittinen. The statue was from the Mesolithic Stone Age, and it represented the head of an European elk. The original elk head is now part of the collections of the National Museum in Finland, but there are several reproductions as well as artistic variations made of this distinctive statue.

The elk was an important animal for the Stone Age people. It was a prey animal, which provided nourishment but also material for tools and clothing. However, its significance was even wider than that, as show the many archaeological finds and rock paintings depicting elks. Elk folklore has remained in forms of myths and hunting spells.

The elk was on the brink of extinction in the early 20th century, but endured to have now become a common game animal.

Wolves inhabited the area that is now known as Finland already during the milder years of the Ice Age. The Baltic-Finnic folklore related to the wolf has been rich, although it has remained in the shadow of the bear’s mythical status. The wolf has never been a game animal. As animal husbandry gained ground, the wolf became a threat. Wolf hunt began.

The Royal decree on hunting of 1647 introduced a bounty on wolves. Paying the bounty was abandoned only in 1973. The wolf was nearly hunted to extinction, and the folklore relating to it withered at the same time.

For instance, in the late 19th century it was told that there were wolves galore in the Rauma region. They bothered the livestock and frightened the people. The herders warded off the wolves with shepherd’s horns made of alder bark. It was told in Voiluoto that even the bear had said: “I don’t mind listening to a buckhorn or a bullhorn, but the sound of a barkhorn will send me straight out of the village.”

The Finnish folk beliefs have seen the snake as both beneficial and fearful. The common European adder is the only venomous snake species in Finland. People thought that the snake gathered venom from the ground while it slithered about, purifying the earth of poison and anger. Similarly, it was believed that the frog purified waters. In folklore the snake and the frog had a close relation to each other. Frog meat was used as a cure for snakebite.

In folk tradition, the boundaries of home were seen as weak and in need of strengthening. Fires, illnesses and other external threats to the home were interpre-ted as consequences of other people’s envy. Snakes were believed to protect the home boundaries and weak spots, such as windows and doors, and that is why the residents hid snakes near them. There is some information about malignant hiding places, which would be used to weaken the safety of an enemy’s home.

Before Christianity arrived in Finland, sacred places like grave fields or places of worship were called hiisi. Later on the Catholic church sought to banish pagan traditions by building churches at hiisi sites. Little by little, the meaning of the forbidden hiisi turned in people’s speech into malevolent creatures dwelling in these sites.

Tales from Satakunta also connect the hiisi creatures with ancient sacred places, building of churches and troll-like creatures. One of the villages with vivid stories is Karhiniemi in Huittinen. It is told that a hiisi wiped out the Karhiniemi village church.

The water spirit Näkki is known all around Finland. It is typically described as a malevolent, mythological creature living in water, luring children to water. According to tales, Näkki lives in freshwater environments, such as wells, rivers and lakes. Although often described as human-like in appearance, it has been said that Näkki was seen in a horse form in Karvia.

Näkki was either good or evil. It would drown people, but also grant a fisherman with abundant catch or a heavy-milking cattle.

Swimmers would protect themselves against Näkki with spells. One would pick up water, mud or a handful of stones from the lake or the river, throw it on the shore and say: “Näkki to the ground, I go to the water!” When the swimmers returned to the shore they would do the opposite.

he forest spirits were supernatural inhabitants of the forest who represented stability by protecting their areas and the animals living in them. They were described as men and women who looked like fatwood stumps or tree trunks covered with beard moss. On the other hand, forest spirits might have had characteristics of the deceased or even supernatural characters like the devil.

The forest spirits’ task was to warn the wanderer in the woods when a danger arose, as when a tree fell. In addition, it might have granted a person good luck, but also misled them and made them lose themselves within the forest, in metsänpeitto.

There is an abundance of references to magical ghost lights in folklore. An aarnihauta was believed to be a location of a treasure, marked with a will-o’-the-wisp. People thought that the will-o’-the-wisp or aarnivalkea was the light that shone when Aarni, the spirit of treasures, cleansed his mouldy and rusty treasures by burning them in a fire.

Sometimes the ghost lights were connected to burial cairns. For instance, old man Penttala from Nakkila had seen a ghost light burning at a site where a Bronze Age burial site was later found.

The scientific explanations for ghost lights vary from case to case. Theories include spontaneously combusting methane rising from a swamp or a bioluminescent fungus, glowworm, moss or algae. An example of these species is aarnisammal (Schistostega), or goblin gold in English.

The archives of the Satakunta Youth Association, held in the Satakunta Archives at the museum, contain rich documentation of memories and traditions from the historical Satakunta region.

Matti Kauppinen, museum director from 1896 to 1930, contributed significantly by collecting both historical objects and valuable knowledge of the past.

1. A snake was found in 1908 from within a hole bored in a log when a building was dismantled in Ämmälä village in Karvia. Originally the building was part of the Niskamäki croft in Sarvela village in Kyläkarvia (now Karvia). In one of the wall logs of a room built by Juho Matinpoika Skraatari there was a hole that was plugged shut. In the hole there was an adder curled up in such a position that it had probably still been alive when the hole was closed. In 1798 the room was moved from its original Sarvela site to Lautamäki farm in Ämmälä village, where it had first been used as a smoke cabin until 1851, then as a distillery until 1866, after which it was relocated as a fodder barn at the farm. The snake was considered to protector the inhabitants of the dwelling against the evil eye, thieves and other misfortunes. The adder was recorded in the Satakunta Museum collections in 1911.

1. A frog was used as a charm in Lassila village in Noormarkku. The frog was donated into museum collections in 1912.
2. The sword was used to scare away “spirits” in the Bernääs croft in Merikarvia. The sword ended up in the museum collections in 1899 from the Bernääs crofter’s wife via the collector K.A. Pettersson in Lammela village in Merikarvia.
3. A holed stone was found in Aittaluoto about 2,5 feet below the ground when a trench was digged. Similar objects and flints could be tied to a horse’s neck or tail when taking them to swim in order to protect them from the water spirit. It was thought that Näkki lurked especially at horses. The stone was donated to museum collections in 1893.
4. A bear tooth would be tied to a horse’s bridle when travelling, to bring good luck and to protect against accidents, infections, the evil eye, curses and the like. To ensure perfect success, one would tie one tooth on both sides of the horse’s head and one more on the forehead. The use of these charms was very common in Finland.
5. The shinbone of a bear has been used as a charm. Crofter Salomon from Konkari village in Parkano has used it to cure cephalhepatomas and hemorrhoids on people and animals by warming up the bone, spitting on it thrice and pressing it on the sore area thrice on three occasions, and the results have been good. Another use for a shinbone has been to carve chips from around the bone and mix them in the cattle’s drinking water right before they were released grazing in the spring, in order to keep the bears and other beasts from harming the grazing cattle. The shinbone was donated in the museum collections in 1913.
6. The so-called hiisi coin was found in Harjunpää village in Ulvila when clearing a field. The coin was given to the museum in 1890.
7. The hiisi coin was found in Noormarkku in 1886 when a new field was cleared in Palomäki. The coin was donated in the museum collections from Lavia in 1890.
8. A piece of a bear’s windpipe was used as a charm for curing children’s toothaches, for instance. Milk was poured through it nine times, after which it was given to the ill child to drink.
9. A bear’s claw was used as a charm for toothaches and revenge. A crofter’s wife from Kynäs village in Pomarkku gave the claw for the museum in 1911.
10. The first inhabitants of Luvia travelled on their skis, looking for a place of residence. The wintery journey had tired the two men, so they decided to rest for a while in a place near the present-day church of Luvia. Suddenly a fearless herd of elk started to approach the men. To keep them away one of the men threw his ski pole at the head of the closest elk so hard, one of the elk’s antlers fell to the ground for the men to keep. After the men had examined the location more closely and decided it was a decent place to live in, the men acclaimed: “Löytty on” or “It’s found”. Then they built a house on that site, called it Löytty, and that is how the first house and village in Luvia got their name, Löytty. The antler was kept in the Löytty house until a church was built in Luvia and the antler was attached to the wall next to the altar as a memento of the first residence in Luvia. The antler was kept in the church until 1911, when the last wooden church of Luvia was dismantled.The antler has also been carved quite a bit over the years, to get a cure for stings.
11. A (wolf) collar was worn around the neck of a watchdog at night in Noormarkku, to protect the dog from wolves.
12. As many other artists of his time, Akseli Gallen-Kallela was also interes- ted in the past of Finns, and admired the ancient times he considered authentic and pristine. Gallen-Kallela’s personal collections included a plaster reproduction of the elk’s head of Huittinen, perhaps the best known pre-historic find in Finland. There is no information on how Gallen-Kallela acquired the elk’s head. It is possible that the artist himself made the reproduction, using the original object as the model.