Per Martin Tvengsberg

“ If the Finns in heathen were convinced of the soul’s eternal life, of punishment and prosperity in another world, no real conclusions can be drawn from it today. What one can find out indirectly through their philosophy, language, and old literature may be obtained in the writings of old Finnish philosophy. ”

“ The rye had priority as a food producer in several places at different times. Dried rye that has been treated by being shaken and beaten out of the grain bundles has been preferred for use as a sowing seed through the ages. This attentive selection of the best seeds, and reconnaissance exchange of three seeds by traveling young men each time they met led to the effective development and spread of rye. ”

“ Domestication of the reindeer and the development of various forms of husbandry has made it possible to inhabit demanding areas without the necessity of good farming opportunities or conditions. Here, people have survived on animal products like meat, milk, leather etc. But as long as the forest was available, an abandoned swidden (vuomen) produced a good grass growth. As these plots were fenced in, they were used as grazing plots or for hay production. There were eventually so many annual swidden plots that domestication nearly ceased. ”

“ Eventually it was not uncommon for the farmer to call on the Finns and swiddeners to make swidden in the forest next to the village.
Shifting cultivation was so complicated that it was not so easy to copy it for a field user in the valley village. Nevertheless, some guys from the valley farms were incorporated into the swidden group, and the Finns were often working on farms in the village. This collaboration increased when timber cutting expanded in the 1800's. The swiddeners working group consisted of many axmen under a leader. ”

“ In a 'Relation of Norway's Riges State in the year 1699' it is said: "They are the most harmful beasts for the country. They have burnt many miles of the finest and best forests for their rye and turnip cultivation. They make a profit, but the King, country, and citizens are hurt in the process. They know the forest re-weighing stations and trails so well that in war times, every poor man must fear plunder, robbery, and theft. ”

“ Tacitus writes in 98 AD about the Germans: fields are proportionate to the participating growers, but they share their crops with each other by reputation. Distribution is easy because there is great access to land. They change soil every year, and mark some off to spare, for they seek not a strenuous job in cramming this fertile and vast land even greater ydelser, by planting apple orchards, cultivated spesial beds or watering gardens; grain is the only thing they insist that the ground will provide. ”

“ Shifting cultivation is the reason for the move of Iron Age villages. Access to forest adjudged frequency and extent of the move. Through the transition to agriculture, the villages remained in the same places. Preparation and improvement of the same piece of land became the dominant cultural shape.
In Denmark, the establishment of villages during the Viking Age’s harsh climate was so extensive that few settlements we know of today existed much further back than the late Viking and early Medieval ages. ”

“ Shifting cultivation utilizes marginal areas that do not interest today’s mechanized economies. As long as a swiddener clan can cultivate in moderation, their rotation will fit seamlessly into the ecological cycle of the natural environment. However, there are devastating ecological consequences if land is overused. European commercial economies have over the last 500 years displaced the local population in the so-called "third world".
The European landscape was dominated by forest before people took it into use. ”

“ The Slavic population increased through land cultivation as steadily as the Finnish swiddeners in the woods, but in different ways and at different times. Field cultivation and swidden respond differently to climate variations and other influences. The Finns and Slavs could therefore live in constant fruitful interaction with one another. Finnish people, like finns, estonians, veps, muromani and merya had long lived in the forests of Northeast Russia by the time field-using Russians came from the south. ”

“ Only rarely have outsiders been able to understand the functional correlation. Swidden cultivation was dependent on that the various procedures were correctly and synchronously executed. Incorrect procedure was disastrous and could not be accepted. So ruled a cult excluding, polytheistic religion. Religion set the bar of worldly knowledge, as well as a communication process where the knowledge was kept alive through constant practical use, and new knowledge was developed and displaced useless routines with new rituals. The code was ruled by the forest, air, and water spiritual beings. ”

“ Natural forest fires caused by lightning strikes were the causes of the first clearing in the woods. It offered the opportunity for shifting cultivation. Thus, homo erectus was provoked to manipulate fire. And those who had first succeeded in controlling the fire were superior beings who got the most opportunities to develop further. There is reason to characterize man as the creature who mastered fire. That fire is caused by lightning is the exception rather than the rule. ”

“ In this transition period there were no land area standards so the variations were confusing.
Human history is complex, but history can be traced if one starts with the relationship between landscape, flora, fauna and climate. By registering the human influence on nature to achieve the envisaged food production, one can also observe relationships between cultivation and social change. Recordable natural climate changes and shifts have affected cultivation as well as ethnological, social and technological dimensions. ”

“ But it is much less than one million years ago that Homo sapiens (the man who knows and can) came from Africa to Eurasia. They were knowledgeable and experienced people already. Shifting cultivation is highly community-forming. The smallest unit was the clan – the cultivation team – and often several clans would cooperate with one another. The manager, or Kuningas, had many functions. It was not only practical, but also political and religious. Cultivation was mobile; the clan moved to new forests to burn and grow food crops. ”

“ Individualism was an unknown phenomenon in this society Individualism was an unknown phenomenon in this society. Complex cultivation cycles consist of a variety of carefully synchronized tasks, performed by individuals in an intimate partnership. This interaction should be so well established that the individual is synonymous with the community. These sophisticated procedures are perceived badly by outsiders, and in older literature, are often characterized as religious rituals without being given any practical significance. ”

“ People's loyalty stemmed from the old days of noitas’ ability to lead cultivation. Could he not guide satisfactorily, he was promptly deposed, exiled or killed. Priests’ sermons about the Christian religion and promise of eternal life or suffering and destruction in the opposite case were not enough for swidden culture. The Incarnation was a completely alien thought, as well as eternal life as something desirable. The numerous Finnish runes / poems says that he who molests other clan’s selections or swidden plots should not be allowed to go back to nature, ordered to wander around forever. ”

“ Agricultural religion became a monotheistic religion. It required personal faith, a belief in one God. It still required the resources of land, knowledge, and labor, but it was also necessary to introduce new laws, because it would have been chaotic with no new rules of human coexistence. The old mobile society, with its rituals and social systems, was totally transformed by the transition to agriculture. ”

“ History shows, however, that enforced or voluntary swidden for those in power or good payers is old business. There is no reason to romanticize ancient times. Today's technical capabilities were not part of that time. But it seems that Europe -- and later, Europeans all over the world -- is in an unfavorable position historically due to aggressions towards other parts the world from the Middle Ages onward. ”

“ In Southern Europe Mediterranean climates, the forest at that time, immemorial for the most part, was open evergreen leaves and pine forests. After slash and burn this forest had less capacity for regeneration than the forest north of the Alps.
In Northern Europe, there was usually only one crop harvested before grass growth took over, while in the south, suitable fall was used for several years and the soil was quickly exhausted. Slash and burn shifting cultivation therefore ceased much earlier in the south than the north. ”

“ Many different theories about the origins of reindeer husbandry are presented through the years, and I venture to come up with another: there was never a particular starting point, but a gradual spread. Different variants of pastoralism arose independently at different times in different places. The reason for the rise is in relation to the swidden procedure. The domestication of animals evolved as a result of the cultivation of human food crops which are also suitable for animals. The human endurance in a selected habitat depends on ecological balance ”

“ A change in vegetation is often mistakenly interpreted as a natural rather than manmade phenomenon.
The relationship between population and food production has been a controversial topic due to difficulties relating size to population. Registered data from one culture is often not comparable with a different culture. The collection of relevant data is also very complicated, often because the researcher does not know the foreign culture well enough. A common deficiency is that the period of regrowth has not been sufficiently taken into account. ”

“ The farmer would usually retain a third of the crop, or one fifth of irrigated land. This became the basis for a new social stratification and specialization of different groups in the new society. Community was not so inclusive anymore, and various groups came into conflict with each other for the right to own land. Shifting power alliances ensured political stability in order to conquer or avoid being conquered. Much of the iron was spent on war instead of food production. Earlier stone tools had not remained usable in combat. ”

“ Savo-karelians had a sophisticated system that secured them the best spruce forests for their cultivation. In a rune-poem about Finnforest and its spruce forests it is said, "Gåivu on mehdien valgoinen valhe" or, the birch is the forest’s white lie. The best spruce forests do contain birch trees. They come only after the forest has been swidden once or twice. To find new forest was an important prerequisite for securing the future. Noita chose flawless young men, who were sent out in late autumn (lähteä eriin) to find and mark the best forest (eräpühä) for his clan. ”

“ Huuhta swidden culture was the cultural sustain, who maintained the ethnic border between the forest people and their Swedish and Norwegian neighbors in the village. The fact that they were constantly in intense interaction sharpened cultural boundaries.
All villages in Finnforest had a magic guy and/or signings woman. They had stronger connections with the sky (bitch) , soil (maa) , and underworld (allimaa) , closer to nature than to other people. ”

“ Wild animals broke through the fence to find food, thus becoming accustomed to humans and making themselves vulnerable to human capture. During periods of decreased climate, the influx of hungry wild animals increased because of limited natural food supply. Shifting cultivation became a natural course of the domestication of animals, and subsequent animal husbandry was an obvious result. The good grass production after swidden, before the forest took the area back, was the prerequisite for the domestication of reindeer herds in northern Eurasia (Jettmar 1952 737-766) . ”

“ In Norway, some population groups held to their landscape, such as Heidmork and Raumariki. The single economic unit, extended family or clan, has again had its territory, which were often separated from others by rivers, mountains or other natural boundaries. Within its area ran a mobile cultivation and livestock breeding.
In the north, grass production was more important than grain, and grass growth inside the swidden led to the domestication of the reindeer. ”

“ The human plowing and harrowing of soil is the youngest of the three cultivation methods. Around 1300 BC, Indo-Aryans expanded to west Asia Minor and the Balkans, continuing on into Europe. On their way, they learned to melt the iron of the Hittites. The European Iron Age began in approximately 800 BC Herodotus (484-425 BC) and told the legend of the Scythians who received the plow sent from heaven.
The iron plow was going to revolutionize agriculture. The individual field user now had full responsibility of and control over food production, no longer relying on neighbors. ”

“ The fact that all species of wild cereals are either weeds in the field or occur close to arable land would suggest that they are relatively young species. They probably evolved after east Asian agriculture had already started. If this is correct, weed species of rye spread northward with the cultivation of wheat and barley in Neolithic times. The spread began when the Armenian - Anatolian highland was colonized. Secale montanum has a dominant position there, but it does not exist in the Nordic countries. ”

“ Hominids are defined as all creatures, living and dead, who are nearer akin to us people currently living than to a living chimp. This was before homo erectus hominids had apelike traits. Homo erectus was probably the first creature who was not afraid of fire, and who was intelligent enough to take fire in his service. They had discovered the benefits of growing food crops in the ashes of forest fires, and therefore used fire to their advantage. So there were some mighty creatures that evolved to lead ahead of animals. ”

“ Shifting cultivation expands as climate decreases, and the so-called "walking village" is activated, while arable farming has little chance of immediate territorial expansion that is detectable archaeologically. Vikings experienced a climate deterioration that led to internal expansion as well as a migration to unused forests both in outskirts and in other European areas where arable farming had already taken over the food production. ”

“ It is the readable layers of pollen and charcoal in these sediments which provide a picture of the vegetation development. Such studies have shown that there was a marked increase in prevalence in food crops in South Scandinavia in the period from 200 BC to 400 AD and also from 750 AD to 1000 AD. (Berglund 2002) . [56]
Charcoal and pollen are well preserved under such stable conditions, thus can be used as a source of information about past cultivation. A number of studies have developed many theories about whether human agriculture may have affected the natural vegetation. ”

“ Eräpühä was associated with the place between life and death. There was neither forest nor rye field; it was during the change (muuttuva pühä) .
Clans had marked up many potential swidden plots in the forest with different qualities, sizes, moisture, forest qualities, terrain, soil, wildfire risk and many other considerations. Noite should, at any time, be able select the location that would provide the best crop. If he believed/knew that weather conditions would be moist, he chose a plot with sloping terrain and thus good drainage. ”

“ The units gained additional meaning in arable farming, but the same words lived on. Now they were based on arable farming parameters: an "ax" was like a "Lott", but how much work is it? How much rye is a "stakk"? "Haken" used to be the same as the swidden land, but in arable farming it came to be an area measure.
During the Middle Ages, arable farming took over food production in the Nordic European countries. Field use has led to the deterioration of grain quality, while the quantity has increased. The number of "tunnland" pr.haken increased, but tunnland was not originally a unit area. ”