Per Martin Tvengsberg

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Common to all the people in this area is that they can easily change residence because of their sordid way of life; that they do not grow any fields and do not collect property, but live in temporary huts. They get their nourishment from their livestock for the most part, and like nomads, they pack all their goods in wagons and go on to wherever they want. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Other scientists believe that Homo sapiens came to Europe from Asia or from Africa to other continents. All theories are good, but there are few indications. But if we move north, it can be confirmed that Northern Europe was depopulated during the last glaciation, and that people come back here approximately 10,000 years ago. A common feature of almost all the archaeological investigations of hominids of this period are stone tools in the excavations, and that einkorn, millet, spelled, and wheat were grown. In northern Europe there seems not to have been a permanent, stationary society. ”

“ The Finnish immigrants to Scandinavia in 15 - 1600's were some of the last swiddeners in Europe. In Scandinavia, they soon came into contact with the field usage culture among villagers, and a mutual cooperation was initiated. Because the forest Finns were specialists in huuhta swidden cultivation, they applied themselves to the best spruce forest areas, but these were often used by the sommerfields farmers as well. In this period of climate deterioration, farmers were forced into an increased utilization of their farms, simultaneously accelerating expansion of swiddeners. ”

“ Settlements have always pulsed with periods of use between barren intervals. When reasonable distances of forest were used up, the clan moved to new forest to burn. But when the new forest generation had grown back, people could return and burn once more. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Rain after burning formed a hard crust of ash, so the small rye seeds would fail to penetrate it. Then the rye was exposed to wind and voracious birds. The burning needed to take place at the right time, before the turn of the weather from high to low pressure, but not before the chill of the fall, for otherwise the rye could be damaged by the high temperatures. The fall could not be cold, for the heat retained in the soil promoted germination. To determine whether cooling was sufficient, one person was awarded the honor of rolling around naked in the hot field. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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) . ”

“ 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. ”