Questions of Ethno-Cultural Substrata

1. Questions of Ethno-Cultural Substrata in the Finno-Karelian Song of Creation and the Sampo-Cycle Frog University of Helsinki Cultural Exchanges Across the Baltic Sea in the Middle Ages 1st Meeting of the Austmarr Network 14th–15th April 2011, Tartu, Estonia

2. The Sampo-Cycle: A Case Study • Corpus-based analysis • Textual entities – verbally conventionallized ‘songs’ • Probably 900+ variants and fragments • Constituent elements • Motifs, images, cultural figures, episodes –Theory and methodology will not be outlined here • Contextualizing data • Socio-historical processes • Cross-cultural contexts • Intersections and ethnocultural substrata • Evidence of earlier era • Maintained currency & evolved

3. What is the Sampo-Cycle? • Three main ’acts’ of several ’scenes’ each: • The Song of Creation • The shooting of Väinämöinen • Väinämöinen-diver • Väinämöinen as first land • World-egg • The Forging of the Sampo • Väinämöinen’s ransom • The deception of the tree • Ilmarinen forges the Sampo • The Theft of the Sampo • Väinämöinen organizes sea-raid • Väinämöinen puts inhabitants of Pohjola to sleep and accomplishes theft • Pohjola wakes and pursues in ship • Enemy ship destroyed on magically raised land • Otherworld mistress becomes bird and grabs Sampo • Väinämöinen strikes bird; sampo is broken, bird flies off with lid

4. An ‘Ideal’ Model of Stratified Influences Corpora (19th – 20th century) ------------------------------------------------------------------- Reformation (16th / 17th century) ------------------------------------------------------------------- Christianization (ca. 11th century onward) (Slavic influences) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Iron Age (Germanic influences) ------------------------------------------------------------------- *Finnic cultural era (Baltic influences?) ------------------------------------------------------------------- *Finno-Permic / *Finno-Volgic cultural era (Indo-Aryan influences?) ------------------------------------------------------------------- *Finno-Ugric cultural era (Indo-European influences?)

5. Plurality in Myth • Multiple cosmologies • Väinämöinen-World-Creation • Ploughing the sea (The Singing Competition) • Forging the heavens (incantations) • Dualist diver myth (local aetiological legends)

6. Proto-Finno-Ugric Cultural Era • Supreme sky-god *Ilma • Dualist antithesis (foreign; ’other’?) • Dualist bird-diver creation myth • Sky-god (duck) and antithesis (loon) • Antithesis succeeds owing to magical powers • Central & Northern Eurasian shamanism • Ritual specialist; dangerous soul journey; separable soul; stratified cosmology with world pillar as means of travel; immediate contact with supreme celestial god/sphere as well as underworld

7. Proto-Finno-Permic / Proto-Finno-Volgic Period • Linguistic-cultural era or regional isogloss? • Problem of stemma models and cultural interaction • World-egg creation of heavenly bodies • Exhibited in Finnic, Permic, and Volgic • *Juma[’god’] – loan from an Indo-Aryan language? • Finno-Volgic isogloss • What Indo-Aryan Language? • Stemma-model presumption that language of contact survived • *Taivas [’heaven’] – *sambas [’(world) pillar’] • Indo-Aryan loans / loan complex – Finnic isogloss • Models for chronology? • Changing conceptions / cosmogony

8. Proto-Finnic Cultural Era? • *Taivas–*sambas (Indo-Aryan?) • New conception of ’heaven’/’vault of heaven’ • Distinct from *Ilma [’Sky; Supreme God’] • ATU 1148b? • Aetiology of thunder from grinding/milling stones • *Ilma → *Ilma-ri / *juma → *juma-la • Disambiguates god from phenomenon of sky • Identification maintained in Uralic languages; not I-E langs • Iron-working technologies • Nail-star (Germanic influence? – cf. Thor) • Aetiology of lightning struck from smithing at bottom of sky/top of world pillar (also Latvian Pērkons) • Smith of heaven (aetiology of vault of heaven) • Attributed to *Ilma-ri – not Ukko [’Old Man’/thunder god]

9. Proto-Finnic to North Finnic Cultural Era? • ’Old Man’ emerges as thunder god • *Ilma-ri displaced from status as central celestial god • ... or distinguished as separate being? • North Finnic or Pan-Finnic’ • Väinämöinen and World-Creation • Diver-function; celestial figure (*Ilmar-ri) of dualist cosmology absent • First earth created from own corpse • Indo-European motif (cf. Germanic diver-creation) • North Finnic • Väinämöinen not attested in South Finnic • (Does not mean he was not known!)

10. Proto-Finnic to North Finnic Cultural Era? • Institution of tietäjä vs. noita/shaman • Interaction with otherworld through verbal actualization • No soul-journeys; separable soul not in illness diagnostics; world pillar not required to access celestial god Ukko • Väinämöinen provides cultural model for institution • Väinämöinen myths employ shamanic narrative patterns and motifs, but place emphasis on knowledge acquired which can be employed in incantations • Germanic influences • Incantation tradition developed in relation to Germanic models • Väinämöinen’s centrality parallels Germanic Odin

11. Proto-Finnic to North Finnic Cultural Era? • Institution of tietäjä vs. noita/shaman • Lexical distinction of tietäjä and noita • Impliesparallel institutions of ritual specialist • Epic traditions maintained by tietäjä institution as conduit of authority • Noita holds negative connotations and characterized as ’other’ • Possible competing institutions

12. Proto-Finnic to North Finnic Cultural Era? • The Sampo-Cycle • Ilmari(nen) subordinated to Väinämöinen • Narrative assertions of relationships between mythic figures • The forging of the Sampo employs images of forging the vault of heaven and world pillar • Ilmage power, narrative power employed in new context • Subordinates Ilmari’s creative acts to Väinämöinen’s authority • The Sampo is destroyed; the vault of heaven carried away • (Shamans can no longer access the celestial sphere?!)

13. Synthesis in the Sampo-Cycle • The Shooting of Väinämöinen • 2MC historiola??? • Väinämöinen’s Ransom • The death of the Germanic god which became Baldr • The Deception of the Tree • The rape of Germanic Iðunn • Reflexes of potential Circum-Baltic tradition? • The Forging of the Sampo • The Smith of Heaven • The Theft of the Sampo • Potential relationship to ATU 1148b? • The escape and battle for the Sampo • Germanic mytho-heroic epic story-pattern • Uncertain whether this story-pattern irefers to a mythological model • Intertextual references to the Väinämöinen-World-Creation • Cf. The Song of Lemminkäinen

14. Perspectives • The Sampo-Cycle emerged with: • The institution of the tietäjä • The rise of Väinämöinen (‘eternal tietäjä’) • The dominant incantation tradition • The Sampo-Cycle: • Assimilated and manipulated a range of contemporary mythological material • Both vernacular and Germanic • Constructed oppositions between the ideologies of the tietäjä and shamanic institutions • A ‘new’ mythology for a ‘new’ instutution