Sketches of the Old Customs of the Eastern Finns 2: The Funeral Feast

Häyhä, Johannes, 1839-1913Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.8

Word count: 70K words
Chapters: 8

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Kuvaelmia itä-suomalaisten vanhoista tavoista 2: Maahanpanijaiset by Johannes HäyhäAuthor: Häyhä, Johannes, 1839-1913,Language: Finnish, Class: GR: Geography, Anthropology, Recreation: Folklore, Release Date: Nov 30, 2017

Editor's review

This is the second volume of Johannes Häyhä's Finnish-language collection of folklore sketches, titled The Burial Feast, focusing on the feasting component of old burial customs in eastern Finland. Through literary scene-writing it presents folk rituals, food, social relations and local beliefs, combining folklore record with narrative interest; it is a popular work under the classification of geography, anthropology and folklore. For Chinese readers it offers a rare Finnish local folklore text, useful for understanding the ceremonial life and narrative traditions of nineteenth-century eastern Finnish villages. It is best read as folklore sketches rather than strict ethnography, with attention to the customary logic behind scenic details and characters' words and actions. Suitable for folklore and Nordic culture researchers and readers interested in exotic old customs; the Finnish original poses a language barrier, so a translation or reference works are recommended.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Folklore readers studying Finnish customs and Nordic rural ritual
Cultural researchers needing textual material on eastern Finnish local customs
General readers interested in nineteenth-century Nordic rural life
Language learners with basic Finnish who want reading practice

Not a good fit for

Readers with no Finnish at all and no translation available
Beginners in folklore expecting a systematic academic theoretical framework
Casual readers who prefer the pacing of a modern novel

Reading tips

First learn about eastern Finnish geography and the nineteenth-century rural background, then enter the specific scene descriptions.
While reading, note the ritual stages, food and interpersonal relations in the burial feast, and sort out the logic of the customs.
Read alongside other Nordic folklore sketches to compare ritual differences between regions.
When reading Finnish, first grasp scene keywords, then revisit detailed sentences, avoiding stopping word by word.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

What kind of work is this book?

It is the second volume of Finnish author Häyhä's Finnish-language collection of folklore sketches, centered on old burial-feast customs in eastern Finland. Through literary scene-writing it presents folk rituals and local life, and is a popular work under the classification of folklore and geography/anthropology.

Can I read it without knowing Finnish?

The original is in Finnish, so readers with no Finnish will find direct reading quite difficult. It is advisable to look for a translation or use translation tools and first learn the background; learners with basic Finnish can use it as advanced reading material.

What does “Maahanpanijaiset” in the title mean?

The word relates to the feasting after a burial, referring to the custom of holding a banquet after the interment. This book centers on this stage, describing the social relations, food and ritual scenes of old burial rites in eastern Finland.

Is it suitable as primary material for folklore research?

It can be used as a literary folklore text for understanding local burial customs in eastern Finland, but it is not a strict field survey record. When citing it, compare it with academic ethnographies and distinguish literary description from empirical material.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Häyhä, Johannes, 1839-1913 Author

Johannes Häyhä (1839–1913) was a Finnish writer whose biographical details are very limited in publicly available sources; even basic information such as nationality and dates is not clearly established in the records at hand, and only seven works are confirmed under his name. His representative work is a series titled Sketches of the Old Customs of the People of Eastern Finland, arranged in thematic volumes dealing respectively with the celebration of Christmas, funeral customs, village reading meetings, winter work, summer chores, and marriage customs, alongside a first volume of Original Stories from Former Times. These works record the traditional rural life of eastern Finland in an ethnographic manner, focusing on everyday labor, festival rituals, and rites of passage, with a realistic descriptive style that serves to preserve folk customs and carries considerable value as folklore documentation. Public information is limited, so a fuller assessment of his literary standing is difficult.