Finns

“ Education is highly advanced; Swedish and Finnish are the two languages of the country, Russian being practically unknown. There is an excellent Saga literature, and the beginnings of a modern literature. The Finns came under the dominion of the Swedes in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and were by them Christianized.
The Finnish race includes the Finns and the Karelians (two million four hundred thousand in Finland and three hundred and fifty thousand in European Russia) ; the Esthonians, the people of Livonia, and other Western Finns in the Baltic Provinces (about one million) ”

“ Thus the main body of the Finns were almost exclusively under the influence of Swedish civilisation, and there was practically no Finnish movement until after the Finns came under Russian rule. The very peculiar conditions under which Finland became incorporated into the Russian Empire, with complete internal autonomy, with a kind of ring-fence separating the Finns from the rest of the peoples of the Empire, made it possible to develop within Finland a very interesting and a now very strong national movement, which first of all fought very hard against Swedish predominance. ”

“ And north of Finland lies Lapland, which the Finns now call Lappi, but in the olden days they called it Pohjola (that is, Northland) . There the night lasts for whole weeks and months about Christmas, and in the summer again they have no night at all for many weeks. For more than half the year their country is wrapped in snow and frost, and yet they are both of them a kind-hearted people, and among the most honest and truthful in the world. ”

“ The people to whom we apply the name, call themselves “Samlash.” The Danes and Norwegians term them “Finns;” and the Swedes and Russians style them “Laps.” The people whom we know as Finns—and who are not Laplanders in any sense—have received the appellation of Finns erroneously. These Finns have for a long period been making progress, as colonists, in the territory once occupied by the true Finns, or Laplanders; and have nothing in common with these last people. They are agriculturists, and dwell in fixed settlements; not pastoral and nomadic, as the Laplanders eminently are. ”

“ It was won by the Finns, and Swedish and Finnish gained equal rights in public life. The Finnish movement rapidly developed and during the last thirty years its progress has been most extraordinary, and so the Swedes, who were once predominant, find themselves being elbowed out of the land in which they were masters. The new Finnish literary language is in spirit, though not in structure or vocabulary, Scandinavian. ”

“ The Finns are the most advanced of their whole family, and are, the Magyars excepted, the only Finnic race that can claim a station among the civilized and civilizing nations of the world. Their literature and, above all, their popular poetry bear witness to a high intellectual development in times which we may call mythical, and in places more favorable to the glow of poetical feelings than their present abode, the last refuge Europe could afford them. ”

“ The Finns are a very ancient people. It is claimed, too, that they began earlier than any other European nation to collect and preserve their ancient folk-lore. Tacitus, writing in the very beginning of the second century of the Christian era, mentions the Fenni, as he calls them, in the 46th chapter of his De Moribus Germanoram. He says of them: “The Finns are extremely wild, and live in abject poverty. They have no arms, no horses, no dwellings; they live on herbs, they clothe themselves in skins, and they sleep on the ground. ”

“ History.—It was probably at end of the 7th or beginning of the 8th century that the Finns took possession of what is now Finland, though it was only when Christianity was introduced, about 1157, that they were brought into contact with civilized Europe. They probably found the Lapps in possession of the country. The early Finlanders do not seem to have had any governmental organization, but to have lived in separate communities and villages independent of each other. ”

“ The Finns who occupy that part of Russia nearest to Sweden have quite a sympathy for the Swedes, Finland having been at one time a part of Sweden. The races, however, are not the same. The Finns are a Mongolian race and certain similarities of language make it plain that the Finns and the Hungarians came from the same mysterious place of origin somewhere in the great mountains and highlands of Central Asia. ”

“ The Karels, further removed from the Lapps, are somewhat longer-headed; the Baltic Finns, being quite free from their influence, are much more so. Moreover, all along the southwest coast of Finland the heads are much longer. Observations upon twenty-eight Finns in the lumber camps of Michigan by my friend Mr. David L. Wing, yielded an average index of only 78.9, while thirty-nine Swedes were two units lower. A portrait of one of these Finns will be found on our page of Finnic types. ”

“ So far as regards their moral character, the Finns have as little cause for reproach as any other people. ”

“ It seems loathsome to write, but it was worse to see and feel, and one must write it, for the would-be traveller among the peasant homes of Finland ought to know what he may expect. Enchanting as the country is, interesting and hospitable as are its peasantry, the Finns must learn how to deal with such a curse, or no one will dare to enter any dwelling, until the tourist club opens shelters everywhere and supplies iron beds and good mattresses, and a capable woman to look after them all and keep them clean. ”

“ They are a simple, hospitable, and kind-hearted people, ignorant and superstitious, yet by no means deficient in natural capacity. No better sailors than the Finns are to be found in any part of the world, and there is scarcely a sea throughout the arctic regions which has not been visited by their vessels. Although the climate is rigorous during a considerable portion of the year, the Finns prefer it to any other in the world, and conscientiously believe the garden of Paradise must have been originally located in Finland. ”

“ The Finns proper are the inhabitants of Finland, between Russia and Norway. They are a Northern Mongolic race, of Finno-Ugrian stock, who are supposed to have originated beside the head waters of the Yenisei River. They entered Finland about the end of the seventh century and established themselves there, being afterwards annexed, first by Sweden and then by Russia. They are a strong, hardy race, who make excellent seamen, with round faces, fair hair and blue eyes. ”

“ Knowing that the Finns of Russia preserved most of the national poetry, and that they came annually to Finland proper, which at that time did not belong to Russia, he invited these itinerant Finnish merchants to his bedside, and induced them to sing their heroic poems, which he copied as they were uttered. And, when he heard of a renowned Finnish singer, or minstrel, he did all in his power to bring the song-man to his house, in order that he might gather new fragments of the national epic. ”

“ The other Finnic deities were tribal gods adopted in the course of migration and development. In Finland there are about 1,500,000 Finns proper, many of whom have adopted the civilization of the Swedes, their former conquerors, but are reluctant to become Russianized. The peasants of the interior still live in a very rude and simple manner. The dialect of this branch of the Finnic race is considered one of the most harmonious and softest languages spoken. ”

“ They are a grave, solid people, who understand a joke even less than the Scotch, while such a thing as chaff is absolutely unintelligible to them. Life to the Finns seems a serious matter which can be only undertaken after long thought and much deliberation. They lose much pleasure by their seriousness. They sing continually, but all their music is sad; they dance sometimes, but the native dances are seldom boisterous as in other lands. They read much and think deeply, for unlike the Russians, only 25 per cent. of whom can read, in Finland both rich and poor are wonderfully well educated ”

“ Finns.—The Finns form small scattered populations which extend from the Baltic sea to the east of the Obi. The Finns are regarded as the remains of people once far more numerous, who have been conquered, repressed, carried off, or driven back by Slavonians, Turks, and Mongolians. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They are nearer to Russia, and the Russian influence is distinctly seen. They are not so cleanly or so highly educated as the rest of the country, but they are musical and artistic.
One must remember the word Finn implies native [172] peasant; the upper classes are called Finlanders. Until lately the two spoken languages of Finland represented two parties. The Finns were the native peasants who only spoke Finnish, the Radical party practically—the upper classes who spoke Swedish among themselves were known as Svecomans, and roughly represented the Conservatives. ”

“ The authorities who hold that the earliest home of the Indo-Europeans must be placed where the main body of them is still found, maintain accordingly that the Finns still inhabit their primitive soil, and that they are the ancestors and the stem of the Asiatic Turanians. ”

“ The spirit of nationalism that swept over the small peoples of Europe in the early nineteenth century touched faraway Finland and started the Finns on the quest of the Finnish. There as elsewhere scholars who were also patriots found that the native tongue, lost to the educated and the well-to-do, had been preserved in the songs and stories which were current among the peasants. Elias Lönnrot spent a long and busy life collecting those ancient runos from which he succeeded in building up a national epic, the Kalevala. ”

“ Anyone who gets hold of their protecting garment has the Finns in his power. Only by means of the skin can they go back to the water. Many a Finn woman has got into the power of a Shetlander and borne children to him; but if a Finn woman succeeded in reobtaining her sea-skin, or seal-skin, she escaped across the water. ”

“ The Finns proper or Suomi, as they call themselves, are the most important and civilized division of the group. They inhabit at present the grand duchy of Finland and the adjacent governments, especially Olonetz, Tver and Finns. St Petersburg. Formerly a tribe of them called Kainulaiset was also found in Sweden, whence the Swedes call the Finns 390 Qven. ”

“ And this race and their land will repay study, for nowhere will one find a more beautiful land than Finland, nor a braver, truer, and more liberty-loving people thanp. vi the Finns, although, alas, their love for liberty may soon be reduced to an apparently hopeless longing for a lost ideal. For the iron hand of Russian despotism has already begun to close on Finland with its relentless grasp, and, in spite of former oaths and promises from the Russian Tsars, the future of Finland looks blacker and blacker as time goes on. ”

“ They may thus wander far from their original type, becoming part of the local ideal of physical beauty prevalent among a primitive people. Only in this way can we explain the almond eyes, flat noses, and high cheek bones of tribes which by their blondness and head form betray unmistakably a Finnic descent.
One objection to our ascription of the name Finn to a long-headed type is bound to arise. We must meet it squarely. If the Finns are of this stock, why is all Finland relatively so broad-headed as our map makes it appear? Here is the largest single aggregation of Finnic-speaking people ”

“ According to the opinion of the old Finns, dangerous illnesses often proceeded from the fact that one or other of the sick person’s deceased relatives wanted to have his or her help and companionship in the other world. In that world the Finns, according to their notion, lived with their herds of reindeer, much in the same way as they had done upon earth, only, of course, they were free from their worst enemies, the wolves and the husbandmen. ”

“ Finmark (29) , a province of Norway, lying in the extreme N., with a rocky and indented coast and a barren and mountainous interior; fishing is the main industry of the inhabitants, who are chiefly Lapps.
Finns, the native inhabitants of Finland, and originally of the districts in Sweden and Norway as well, are of the Mongolian type, and were settled in Europe before the arrival of the Slavic and Teutonic races. ”

“ The Finns frequently go out and roll in the snow during the progress of the bath. I ventured so far as to go out and stand a few seconds in the open air. The mercury was at zero, and the effect of the cold on my heated skin was delightfully refreshing.
I dressed in a violent perspiration, and then ran across to Herr Forström's house, where tea was already waiting for us. Here we found the länsman or magistrate of the Russian district opposite, a Herr Bràxen, who was decorated with the order of Stanislaus for his services in Finland during the recent war. ”

“ Now we know better, and both archaeologists and philologists have made it evident that the Finnish peoples are relatively quite recent arrivals in Europe, that the men of the Bronze Age in Finland itself were not Finns but Teutons, and that at the beginning of the new era all the Finnish tribes still dwelt east of the Gulf of Finland [715] . ”