The Forestland’s Guests : Mythical Landscapes, Personhood, and Gender in the Finno-Karelian Bear Ceremonialism

• Main Author: Piludu, Vesa Matteo
• Other Authors: Wiget, Andrew, University of Helsinki, Faculty of Arts, Scienve of Religions / Folkore Studies, Doctoral Programme in History and Cultural Heritage, Helsingin yliopisto, humanistinen tiedekunta, Historian ja kulttuuriperinnön tohtoriohjelma, Helsingfors universitet, humanistiska fakulteten, Doktorandprogrammet i historia och kulturarv, Tarkka, Lotte
• Format: Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Helsingin yliopisto 2018
• Subjects: Study of Religions; Folkore Studies; karelian
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10138/282220

The goal of the thesis is to provide new approaches for the interpretation of the elaborate Finnish and Karelian bear ceremonial’s songs, which were intensively collected in the 19th Century and in the early 20th Century. The study aims to furnish a better understanding of the meanings of the ceremonial taking in consideration the context of folk beliefs at the time. The chapters will cover all the ritual phases, adapting the classic Hallowell’s typology to the Finno-Karelian case. However, each chapter aims to provide some answers to the main research questions. Why did the bear hunt require such a complex ritualized reciprocity? How were the passages of borders between the village and the forest ritualized? How and why were the forest, its spirits and the bruin personalized? Why do many Bear Songs contain references to wedding songs? How did the Christian faith and the rich cattle holders’ beliefs communicate with the hunter’s rituals, forming a historically stratified tradition? The study reveals that the vernacular definitions of the bear’s personhood changed often in the ritual phases: it was the offspring of the forest spirits or a hunter’s relative; a bride or a groom; a boy or a respected elder. On a general level, the bear had a shifting double identity: it was strictly bounded to the family of the forest spirits, but at the same time the hunter emphasized its human features to make the ritual communication easier and to transform the bruin into the guest of honor of the village feast, in which the bear meat was consumed. The hunter’s self could also change in the ritual: in the songs, he presented himself as a mighty man protected by mythic iron belts and shirts; as a handsome and mimetic seducer of female forest spirits, or as a humble orphan who needed their guidance. During the feast, the roles of the women toward the bear also varied: the mistress warmly welcomed the bruin as a guest or groom, but the women were also guided to protect the cattle. The landscapes acquired mythic features and they ...