(Book Excerpt 1) Finnish Goddess Mythology and the Golden Woman: Climate Change, Earth-based Indigenous knowledge and the Gift By Kaarina Kailo

Finnish Goddess Mythology and the Golden Woman: Climate Change, Earth-based Indigenous knowledge and the Gift 

Kaarina Kailo 2018

Introduction  

Literature and the stereotyping of culture establish complete control over truth and knowledge. It finally replaces troops and guns as the relevant tool of colonization. (Ward Churchill 1992, 2)

The creative arts play a crucial role in this expression of Earth Love. Ecofeminst arts … [are] essential catalysts of change that (re)connect us with nature and spirit. (Diamond & Orenstein 1989, 279)

For the worst toxins are not those of external pollution but those generated by humanity’s wrong thinking. (Forest 2008, 237)

Since time immemorial myths have been used to unite and mobilize people. They have served to create “imaginary communities” and to help create a sense of ethnocultural identity. Most importantly, mythic tales have served to transmit Traditional Ecological Knowledge and ecosocially sustainable lifeways.[1] Myths are often rooted in rituals and have a core of historical truth although they have a way of blurring the distinctions between fact and fiction.

Terra Feminarum, the mysterious Northern Land of Women, has intrigued scholars for centuries; after the Roman historian Tacitus (98 CE), the Roman historian, Ohthere of Hålogaland (a Viking Age Norwegian seafarer living about (890 CE), and Adam von Bremen (a German medieval chronicler) mentioned a land east of Sweden that was not just ruled by women, as in having an occasional queen, but very vividly run by women. They referred to such a geographical site of powerful woman leaders, perhaps even Amazons, living in what is now Finland and maybe Estonia with its Naissaar (Island of Women).

In the Finnish national epic, Kalevala, Elias Lönnrot also refers to Pohjola, the North Land or farm, as the “man-eating village.” He pits the Kalevala heroes of the South against the “Harlot of the North”, Louhi, the matriarch who is the epic’s strong female leader and shaman.While going deeply into the mystery of this Land of Women is the topic of my next book, in this context I look upon the Terra Feminarum as the hypothetical matrix of Northern pre-Christian–and likely more woman-positive–cultures. I see this Land as a convergence zone extending across Scandinavia, Finland, Samiland and the lands of Russian Finno-Ugric people. The traces in legends and myths, toponyms and folk art of Great Mothers or Goddesses of the North from Gullveig and Freyja to the Golden Woman (Zolataja Baba) suggest that the matriarchal cultures of Old Europe, researched by Lithuanian archeologist Marija Gimbutas and her followers need not be limited to the South-Eastern borders of Europe. The evidence I have gathered so far regarding the more egalitarian and woman-friendly North is, however, not as such the focus of this book. Because Finnish Guardian Spirits and other female figures of the pagan folk beliefs and worldview have not received the attention they deserve, in this book I focus on making them visible, introducing the many Great Mothers and Spirits that have been neglected, even censored by Christian patriarchy. However, the focus is not alone on the figures themselves but on the traces of a Finnish Traditional Ecological Knowledge system and culture that they can be associated with.

Today no serious scholar, activist, politician or citizen dares to question the reality of climate change. More and more evidence has been amassed regarding its dramatic impact. The South is shivering while the North is experiencing heat waves. Exceptional storms, weather constellations and natural phenomena are beginning to convince even the staunchest resisters of global warming that the ecological crisis is a tangible reality. The World Tree is shaking and some fear that the mythic acopalypse, the biblical flood, the Ragnarök of Norse sagas is actually about to come true. While all cultures have known myths of impending end-of-the-world catastrophies, today’s planetary situation is undeniably more serious than that of any other generation. Is an ancient mythical prophecy of the apocalypse in the making? In another book project, I focus on the causes of the climate change of which Canadian Woman Studies/cahiers de la femme also published a special issue (2017). The newsletter of the Planetary Movement For Mother Earth sent the following up-date on the less recognized roots of climate change: “The moment of truth has come! Weakened ozone layer lets cosmic radiation through. The earthly life dies. Proof provided, reasons clarified.” Von Werlhof sums up the recent findings in the report as follows: “There is no possibility of mistakes since April 4th, 2018. Beyond all official claims and speculation about  increasing CO2 emissions as a threat to earth´s life, there is now proof to the contrary … a part of the atmosphere, the famous and unique Blue of the planet Earth …  is in the process of dissolution. The atmosphere thus no longer offers the protection for which it was created in the course of earthly life…. Already … 250 million years ago nearly all life on earth became extinct, because nothing grew any more. The so-called ’Great Dying’ had then probably the same reason (Gabbattis 2018) (Von Werlhof April 13th, 2018).

Today, Wehrlhof continues, ”the problem consists not only in the existence of the infamous ozone holes over the Antarctic and over the Arctic, too, but also in that, contrary to expectations, they make no attempt to close themselves (Titze 2018). The ozone layer as such has in the meantime generally become very weak (Dönges 2017). This means that it lets the cosmic radiation pass also far from the ozone holes themselves. That this is possible, has always been denied“.[2] It may seem absurd, after such news, to move on to discussing the role of stories in bringing about a change of heart regarding the future of the planet. I believe, however, that we need to act simultaneously on many levels of consciousness-raising and of ecopolitical action. I have personally decided to do just that, seek outreach on different levels and in ways that touch different readers or target groups differently. This is the method of both/and, not either/or.

Colonial and imperial powers have understood how powerful as tools of socialization myths and stories can be. It is not a coincidence that the woman- and nature-friendly worldview in stories of the past has been transformed, often through a total reversal of their original meaning and gendered figures. This has been a widely-used patriarchal mechanism of mind colonization. Westernized “masculated” (Vaughan l997)[3] men and women would not hold on to such misogynist and racist ideas as they unfortunately still cling to, unless those ideas had been planted in their minds from early on.  The radical paradigm shift that is now needed must also include the transformation of the most violent, aggressive, ecophobic narratives (master narratives) that children and young people are brought up with, not only through fairy tales and children’s books but by new media like the Internet, violent electronic and other games that also naturalize the nefarious patriarchal politics of self vs other.

The aim of this book, then, is to introduce young people and others concerned about an ecologically and socially sustainable future to alter-native life-oriented approaches regarding Nature that have not received sufficient attention, particularly in the Western or Euro-formed (Mann 1998) world. Northern Indigenous people have been compelled since the beginning of time to adopt practices suited to their particular environments that would best guarantee the return of the natural cycles of regeneration regarding sources for food, game and other basic resources necessary for survival.

I see the following as my contribution to the debates regarding global warming.  Having spent seventeen years in Canada in close contact with various First Nations people as friends, colleagues and research partners, I believe that I have managed to decolonize myself at least from the worst aspects of Western Euro-forming of the mind in the patriarchal binary mind-set. Although it is hard, if not impossible to fully to shake off the identity one has been brought up with, I have been deeply influenced by the alter-native value systems and worldview to which I have been introduced.

I believe it is relatively new and unexplored in the Finnish context to revisit Finnish mythology by seeking out our own “original instructions” (Nelson 2008) of the ecologically good life, by paying attention especially to the maternal, possible matriarchal “mentifacts” and worldview. There are to my knowledge very few studies of a Northern matriarchy, or however we might call a pre-patriarchal maternal order prior to the distorting influences of Catholic and Lutheran missionaries.

It has been well-established in Finnish folklore and cultural studies that a pagan era preceded the arrival of Christianity around the llth century. However, I have come across few hints, let alone any studies of the fact that a maternal order and gift-oriented worldview in the North involved a very different status and worldview from the woman’s point of view. The starting point for my belief in  woman-friendly “paganism” is that the Finns, like other Arctic or Northern people, must have shared many of the elements of the Indigenous worldview that we know to have characterized North American First Nations, and Finno-Ugric Indigenous peoples including the Sami. Why would the Finns, who were among the first inhabitants of Northern Europe differ drastically from the Goddess-worship or other ways of life-oriented and shamanistic neighboring peoples. For these cultures of cyclical regeneration, it was the mother who provided rebirth and Mother Earth that ensured the return of the cycles of life and decay–hence the culturally, not biologically coded expression of “maternal” epistemologies.

We share with the other Northern people many ancient beliefs and narratives—foremost that of the Woman who Married the Bear (Kailo 2008b).  Such shared although locally distinct narratives give much information about rituals and ecosocial practices, gender systems and environmental attitudes of high age. I resist the generalized view that the Finns would have differed from the “primitive” nature peoples who have been found justifiably still to have remnants of a matriarchal social order.  I believe the reasons are ideological. The Finns who wanted to show themselves equal in practising the recommended life style of the “civilized” Europeans suffered from an inferiority complex, having been colonized by the Swedes and then by the Russians…..

Ultimately, what matters the most is that the monocultural, one-sided lens is broken. There is also a mythic glass ceiling in need of being shattered. We need to approach the Finnish worldview of shamanism and life-oriented “animism” without colonial prejudice and fears of primitivism. We need to give up the irrational and racist view, first of all, that Indigenous people have nothing to contribute to our human destiny and culture, and, second, that they would have been savage and primitive. ….

To trace the attitudes and values of women under matriarchal or “motherland” types of cultures in the North is also to decolonize ourselves as women. We have been robbed of a cultural past in our own image—something I have become aware of thanks only to the comparative research I have engaged in with Northern Indigenous peoples. It is a truism of ecological anthropology that people in a particular geographical area tend to have similar economic systems and cultural practices (Sarmela 1994). On the other hand, if capitalist patriarchy is now the hegemonic, if not the inevitable model of social and economic life across the globe, then matriarchal or matrilineal societies were also likely to have been widely spread in prehistoric times. On the other hand, contrary to what people are allowed to know, there are even today matriarchal societies of peace and egalitarian lifeways in China, Sumatra, North America and India, to name some of the regions where patriarchy is not the norm (Mann 2000 and Goettner-Abendroth 2015, www.gift-economy.com).

In most of my research of the past thirty five years, I have been inspired by Native Science and its worldview to ask new questions of the materials I have studied, be it the Finnish sauna or the goddesses overshadowed in our mythology by the pagan and Christian male deities (Kailo 2003). My contribution is to have gone through a wealth of literature and theories by Indigenous peoples (mostly North American and Sami) as regards an alter-native, non-patriarchal worldview and approach to the meaning of myths and stories. I bring to the study of Finnish mythology now a very different methodology and set of approaches from the norm.

The primary materials for this book consist in the writings by Indigenous scholars, ecofeminists and modern matriarchal studies scholars which reflect a different outlook on what counts as knowledge and what scientific cultural narratives are now needed to change intersectional ecophobic and misogynist thinking. I have also gone through Ancient Poems of the Finnish People (SKVR) and in English translation by John Abercromby (l898).[4] I hope that by adopting the concepts of the Gift Economy, Gift Imaginary and Gifting by Indigenous and non-indigenous women, and challenging the taken-for-granted masculated research approaches to myths… I also strongly feel that global warming and the crisis affecting us in this era require us to adopt a new lens towards planetary and societal healing. I will also elaborate on what Indigenous peoples and ecofeminists have identified as the hot issues and the root causes of the current dysfunctional world, and how mythologies are an important element in changing how we think of life and human/animal or human/human relations.

By the Northern Land of Women I refer to the whole range of matrilineal, matriarchal and Indigenous worldviews that reflect a different gendered attitude towards women, Nature and vulnerable members of society. They provide alter-natives in many ways to colonizer cultures that for all their differences tend to express non-sustainable and anti-egalitarian patriarchal values. Melissa K. Nelson’s anthology, Original Instructions. Indigenous Teachings for a Sustainable Future (2008) represents a journey to retrieve the original instructions for how to live on Earth in a good way, in a way that lasts (Ausubel 2008, xxi). The preface refers to Indigenous cultures as “old growth cultures” (Ausubel 2008, xxi) because of the importance of preserving the natural diversity of Mother Earth. Ausubel writes that “We need the enduring knowledge of Indigenous Science where high tech meets high- TEK and in many cases modern science is affirming what the keen empiricism of First Peoples has long known” (2008, xxii).

He well sums up the Indigenous attitude towards Nature, calling it the Declaration of Interdependence. His views are in my view representative of the philosophy of North American First Nations peoples with their sacred ecology. The ancient Finns, like other Finno-Ugric people,  shared the worldview of shamanism and animism, the notion that all beings, even rocks and lakes are inhabited by Spirits (“väki”). This world of kinship where all life is related consists in a profound cosmic vision where humans are not raised above other species. Instead of expressing a patriarchal world of hierarchical dualism, the Northern people can be seen to embrace the values of Earth Democracy…..

As a cultural and gender studies scholar, I concentrate on climate change on another level (which I think she also would find important)—change through stories and a cultural revolution in our thinking modes. While Shiva has given Earth Democracy her own specific meaning, for me the concept refers to the kind of transformations resulting from Indigenous Gifting, the Gift economy and what I call the Gift Imaginary. I elaborate on this concept in Chapter Two, but give a brief initial definition as follows. The Gift Imaginary is my heuristic umbrella term for the varied Indigenous and ecologically oriented imaginaries that offer more mother-, woman- and nature-friendly attitudes than the hegemonic ones. The imaginary as the internalized worldview and outlook condenses precisely all the meaningful cultural symbols, rituals, institutional policies and values, images of mind-colonization and public gender scripts, whether produced deliberately or unconsciously.

We learn in Nelson’s anthology that, in many Indigenous traditions, seeds are considered sacred. For Native people seeds carry life from generation to generation and the voices of the ancestors are believed to speak through them. For Ausubel’s people “Each time [they] plant a seed,                  [they] become ancestors for the generations to come” (2008, xxii). He sums up that life will be everlasting, if people follow the instructions and adds that stories, too, are seeds. I assume that he sees stories as seeds of change and the transmission of the best practices and instructions from the ancestors. The metaphor and literal meaning of the seed well sums up the differences that have come to create a wedge between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people, the rich and poor—after all, as neoliberal multinational corporations are allowed to patent and privatize seeds themselves. Thus they deprive those from whom the seeds are seized (peasants and farmers) of their very livelihood. This means that a very sacred law has been broken by the global corporate culture. The value of organic seeds as our shared Gift can be seen as metonymy of the worldview of organic self-sufficency, as metaphor for Earth Democracy—a key notion of this book together with Earth-based Indigenous Knowledge. Indigenous Science is by definition Earth-based but it needs to be stressed since many young Native people are also being seduced into the me-first world where nature becomes a mere environment to manage or rescue.

Collective demands that we take serious and far-reaching measures to prepare for the unavoidable changes in the ecosystem are becoming louder. A rise of global temperatures beyond the legendary two degrees forecasts disaster, yet the Western world is still dragging its feet regarding meaningful action. Many believe that the critical stage has been reached and we have already “taken the giant step backwards for mankind”–an irreversible ecological footprint is now visible in the sand. The oceans contain floats of plastic exceeding the size of Northern Europe. As we are one with nature, we will ourselves be consuming the finite bits of plastic through the food chain, as do the animals who deserved a better lot……

The dominant worldview emphasizes individual rather than collective rights; materialism is the only thing that matters while spirituality is seen as childish or irrelevant (unless expressing patriarchal dogmas). This attitude is obviously flawed and fragmented, representing a template of unsustainable development. TEK is the name given to the kind of orally transmitted, partially recorded and now increasingly written traditional knowledge that the Indigenous people of the Arctic and of the European, Asian and North American North have transmitted across generations. The Finns and other assimilated people still have much left of this silent and practical knowledge, as do other peoples. They just have to come to appreciate it and to begin paying attention to it. TEK may well turn out to be the most invaluable Gift any culture has given to the planetary community. The ecosystems of the Arctic act like the “canary in the coal mine”, as prewarnings of not only what is to come, but also in providing solutions of global relevance. Hence I am particularly interested in the Northern folk beliefs and narratives of ancestral knowledge.[5]

(To be continued)

(Meet Mago Contributor) Kaarina Kailo.

Notes:

[1] I will from here on refer to traditional ecological knowledge when appropriate as the short-hand TEK.

[2] Von Werlhof reports that the bearer of the horrendous message is Dr. Marvin Herndon together with Raymond Hoisington and Mark Whiteside, who have published their respective Research results in the Journal of Geography, Environment and Earth Science International, 14 (2): 1-11 (2018), Article no. JGEESI.40245entitled: “Deadly Ultraviolet UV-C and UV-B Penetration to Earth’s Surface: Human and Environmental Health Implications”.

[3] Masculation is a term coined by Genevieve Vaughan  (l997) to  name the rejection of gift giving that is imposed on boy children in the social construction of their gender role, the ‘manhood script’. This role is invented in opposition to the role of the nurturing mother and thus falsely implies to boys that they should not be maternal. If we understand the maternal role as economic gift giving we can see that for boys the turn away from the maternal gender identity implies a rejection of the Gift Economy.

[4]Abercromby has entitled the poems he translated as Pre- and Protohistoric Finns, Both Eastern and Western. With Magic Songs.  Vol. 1 & 2, 1898.  Although I refer mostly to this English translation as an apt example of patriarchal projections on the level of language itself, the common translation is Ancient Poems of the Finnish People. I abbreviate the source of these multi-volume collected poems, chants and incantations as SKRV (Suomen Kansan Vanhat Runot, 1908-l948).

[5] On Native story traditions I recommend, for example, Armstrong  2007, l998, l994;  Archibald 2008a, 2008b.