The Materiality of Finnish Folk Magic: Objects in the Collections of the National Museum of Finland

In Finland the material aspects of magic have long been of marginal interest to scholars. Still, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries several magical objects were gathered into museums, in addition to the archived vast folklore collections describing magic practices. The latter h...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Hukantaival, Sonja (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Taylor & Francis [2018]
In: Material religion
Year: 2018, Volume: 14, Issue: 2, Pages: 183-198
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B Finland / Folk religion / Magical thinking / Materiality
RelBib Classification:AG Religious life; material religion
KBE Northern Europe; Scandinavia
Further subjects:B Folk Religion
B Finland
B magic objects
Online Access: Volltext (Verlag)
Description
Summary:In Finland the material aspects of magic have long been of marginal interest to scholars. Still, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries several magical objects were gathered into museums, in addition to the archived vast folklore collections describing magic practices. The latter have been widely discussed, while recently also the material culture of magic is becoming the object of study.This paper discusses the objects classified as magical in the collections of the National Museum in Helsinki. The collection includes, for example, miniature coffins containing an impaled frog or a wooden stick figure, magic pouches with various contents, animal bones and teeth, “snake's court stones,” and curious growths of trees. The objects date mainly to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This collection is briefly presented and the process of ascribing magical meanings to a natural or constructed object is analyzed, both from the viewpoint of practitioners and museum personnel.From the practitioners' standpoint a complex combination of analogical thinking, potent agencies, and specific contexts resulted in special qualities of objects. In the museum, specific objects used solely for ritual purposes have attracted more attention than multi-purpose everyday items. Moreover, a foreknowledge of what kinds of objects were used ritually has guided choices of cataloguers. As a result the collection is quite limited.
ISSN:1751-8342
Contains:Enthalten in: Material religion
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1080/17432200.2018.1443893