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On 31/10/2011 7:37 PM, Darren New wrote:
> Doesn't Finland have a harvest celebration, tho? Like Thanksgiving and
> Mid-Autumn Festival and stuff like that? That's really all Halloween is,
> except some Christians went and dressed it up in evil icons because it
> was the pagan version of the holiday.
I beg to differ.
Hallowe'en is a Christian festival, the Eve of All Hallows. All Saints'
Day is a day when the dead are remembered. In Scotland and Ireland it
was thought that the dead could walk on the evening before that day.
Samhain was a harvest festival. The ghosts and goolies did not appear
until after Christianity had been established for several centuries.
As for poor Finland being infected by the American version of
Hallowe’en, I sympathise. I can’t stand the crass commercialisation of
what should IMO be small celebrations. What next, cakes and cards for a
tooth extraction?
When I was young, in Scotland, Hallowe'en was for children. When we went
guising we had to perform a trick, a song or a poem, before we got a
treat. Lots of thought went in to our disguises.
--
Regards
Stephen
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On 10/31/2011 12:37 PM, Darren New wrote:
> On 10/29/2011 1:45, Warp wrote:
>> Ten years ago Halloween was completely inexistent in Finland.
>
> Doesn't Finland have a harvest celebration, tho? Like Thanksgiving and
> Mid-Autumn Festival and stuff like that? That's really all Halloween is,
> except some Christians went and dressed it up in evil icons because it
> was the pagan version of the holiday.
>
Yeah, basically what they did, more or less. Would be, actually, more
accurate to say that, all over Europe, and I doubt Finland was any
different, if there was a harvest festival, and it was pagan, they
*claimed* it was Satanic, involved witchcraft, and therefor, as per the
re-write done in the KJV, one shouldn't suffer such people to live. The
only reason I can see Finland not having such a day is if its a) at a
different time, or b) the Christians where actually successful at ending
them. Mostly, they almost managed that everyplace, but, for various
reasons, new superstitions replaced the old ones, and instead of
celebrating "harvest" they started dressing up to scare off, or confuse,
"demons". One thing Christianity was almost as good at as the Romans was
mangling other people's festivals, distorting their meaning, then
co-opting them for their own purposes. But, in the end, *any* harvest
festival pretty much "is" Halloween, we just ended up with the version
that included costumes and candy.
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On 10/31/2011 1:46 PM, Warp wrote:
> The tradition that mostly resembles Halloween in Finland happens in
> Easter, especially in some parts of Finland. AFAIK this is a combination
> of two distinct traditions, one of them of Christian and the other of
> pagan origin (but neither directly related to Easter):
>
Technically, there is no "Christian" version of it, unless you include
some lame, misplaced (chronologically it can't fit where it got put, if
you follow the Bible's supposed sequence of events), story about Jesus
and some church services attached. Nothing done on the date, other than
the churchy stuff, at least any place I have heard of, isn't 100% pagan.
Its one of the cases where they stole the thing, lock, stock, and
barrel, but their followers refused to give up all the stuff that went
with it.
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Patrick Elliott <sel### [at] npgcable com> wrote:
> Technically, there is no "Christian" version of it, unless you include
> some lame, misplaced (chronologically it can't fit where it got put, if
> you follow the Bible's supposed sequence of events), story about Jesus
> and some church services attached. Nothing done on the date, other than
> the churchy stuff, at least any place I have heard of, isn't 100% pagan.
> Its one of the cases where they stole the thing, lock, stock, and
> barrel, but their followers refused to give up all the stuff that went
> with it.
When I say "Christian" I'm not exclusively talking about biblical
tradition. I also include everything that has come after it in the
name of Christianity.
Most Christian holidays are wild mixups of biblical, ecclesiastical and
pagan traditions. Curiously, the first one of those sources actually plays
by far the least significant role in most of the cases. (For instance, the
only modern Christian holiday that is actually mentioned and defined in the
Bible is the passover, from which Easter is derived. And even that is quite
completely different in the Bible than it is today.)
Blessing houses by waving catkins at them isn't found in the Bible, of
course. However, I still consider to be of Christian origin because it was,
AFAIK, invented in the name of Christianity, rather than having its roots
in a pagan tradition. (Although it certainly *sounds* like it could have been
a pagan tradition that simply got relabelled as Christian tradition, but
I have not found any reference to this.)
--
- Warp
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Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> In other parts of Finland Easter time was, for some reason, associated
> with witches (I think this is a more international phenomenon than Finland
> only).
> At some point these two traditions got merged, so we have children dressing
> as witches (in some parts boys would dress as their cats) and going from
> home to home blessing them with the catkins, the homeowners giving them
> treats.
Btw, in this case the witches refer to the traditional (both real and
mythological) witches of Lapland (northern Finland), not the pointy-hat
wearing broom-riding witches (although some dress as those as well). In
other words, like this:
http://www.seutulansuuralue.net/upload/virpojat.jpg
Notice the references to traditional rural and lapponian gear, such as
the lapponian hat, headscarf and the metallic milk jug (and overall dressing
like a rural old woman).
In old Finnish mythology Lapland witches had all kinds of supernatural
powers, such as being able to fly and turn invisible. There were many
traditions related to warding them off (such as throwing a knife to the
wind, believed to be a witch trying to steal the harvest).
There were also real people considered to be witches. They served a
role akin to shamans and wise women, who were often herbalists and who
were believed to be able to inflict curses and hexes, as well as remove
them. The traditional witch costume (resembling a rural old woman) is
probably derived from these.
--
- Warp
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Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> Btw, in this case the witches refer to the traditional (both real and
> mythological) witches of Lapland (northern Finland), not the pointy-hat
> wearing broom-riding witches (although some dress as those as well).
Apparently nobody is interested in Finnish culture. Bummer. And I poured
my soul into writing this.
--
- Warp
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On 01/11/2011 7:36 PM, Warp wrote:
> Warp<war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
>> Btw, in this case the witches refer to the traditional (both real and
>> mythological) witches of Lapland (northern Finland), not the pointy-hat
>> wearing broom-riding witches (although some dress as those as well).
>
> Apparently nobody is interested in Finnish culture. Bummer. And I poured
> my soul into writing this.
>
Not so. I thought that the photographs were very interesting, they
looked like Spey Wives, to me. Very young Spey Wives, that is. ;-)
Your description reminds me of a cross between Hallowe'en and Hogmanay.
--
Regards
Stephen
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On 11/1/2011 12:36 PM, Warp wrote:
> Apparently nobody is interested in Finnish culture. Bummer. And I poured
> my soul into writing this.
I thought it was really interesting -- I just didn't have anything to add.
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Kevin Wampler <wam### [at] uwashingtonedu> wrote:
> On 11/1/2011 12:36 PM, Warp wrote:
> > Apparently nobody is interested in Finnish culture. Bummer. And I poured
> > my soul into writing this.
> I thought it was really interesting -- I just didn't have anything to add.
I was expecting a 100-post thread about the subtleties of Finnish
mythology and an analysis of how it connects to other mythologies and
cultures...
Just joking, of course. Was expecting *some* comments, though. :)
--
- Warp
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On 10/31/2011 13:05, andrel wrote:
> I try to observe towel day and at least pay some attention to talk like a
> pirate day,
I must say I was very confused on halloween when one of our programs started
sending out a bunch of confirmation reports like "Arrr, matey, one o' your
programs are be havin' the errors!"
Turns out the reporting program started re-sending reports about bugs
submitted on talk-like-a-pirate day, and the bug tracker automatically
translates bugs into pirate talk on talk like a pirate day.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
People tell me I am the counter-example.
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