When popular home remedies against disease and ailments did not suffice, residents of smaller rural districts at the beginning of the 1900s fell back on the advice of pharmacies, for at that time doctors were still scarce in outlying areas of Finland. In this pharmacy in Maaninka district, North Savo,the row of medicinal bottles is watched over by a snowy owl. The owl was considered to be a bird of omen and a symbol of wisdom, associated with mysterious powers, and was also used in folk medicine. Its blood was used as a medicine for asthma and as an aid in beauty treatments. Girls rubbed owl grease on their hands and thus bound their dancing partners to themselves for life. The owl in Maaninka pharmacy undoubtedly lent added prestige to the apothecary’s and chemist’s trade.
(Photo: Finnish Literature Society)

PIELA ULLA:

The Breaking of Ritual Tradition in Border and North Karelian Folk Medicine

In my research I concentrate on the changes that occurred in folk concepts concerning health, illness and healing in modernizing agrarian Finland. The research material comprises illness incantations and spells that express mythical concepts and magical practices, folk memory contextualized in traditional healing, and health care literature oriented toward popular enlightenment. This research concentrates on the region of Border Karelia and North Karelia during the 19th to the 21st century.

In my research I examine health, sickness and healing as changing cultural constructions whose basis involves physical, cognitive and communally-based concepts of reality. Key questions include: 1) how did mythical ritual traditions collected in the 19th century, that is, disease incantations and spells, and folk healing practices recorded up to the year 2001 express and produce models of cultural thought and action concerning health practices, 2) how has the medical-based health and hygiene enlightenment on the rise at the beginning of the 20th century affected the transformation of these models of thought, and 3) how did Border and North Karelians experience and respond to the teachings of the health care enlightenment.The theoretical frame of reference of this research derives from folkloristics, cognitive anthropology, medical anthropology and cultural sociology.

This research, which analyzes the culturally-specific changes in health care practices of Finns living in a certain area over a period of 200 years, has not yet been carried out. The parallel focus on mythical ritual tradition and enlightened views of health care highlights both altered cultural models and those models that have persisted in spite of health care education and the modernization process. The lengthy time frame offers a forward-looking perspective, helping us to identify future models of cultural thought and practice associated with the health, illness and healing.