Genius loci - The spirit of place in historical Central Ostrobothnia - Kokkola University Consortium Chydenius

Introduction

When understood as a source of timber for commercial purposes, forests have always been full of treasures. Throughout the centuries, forests have provided building timber for houses as well as mast timber for sailing ships, tar and pitch for sale, and firewood for heating dwellings and saunas. The treasures of the forest also include such great sources of nutrition as berries, mushrooms and game. In addition to material wellbeing, forests have offered people peace and shelter. In the 1710s, during the Great Northern War, refuges were built in forests in the hope that they would not be reached by ravaging Russian invaders. During the Finnish War at the beginning of the 1800s, forests again provided shelter against Russian troops.

Tar was transported to coastal harbours on riverboats and, in the winter, by horse. But transporting tar from the backwoods was by no means easy. Before the tar could be sold to the bourgeoisie of the coastal towns, it had to be controlled and verified as legal. As proof of their legality, the manufacture year and a crown were burned onto the tar barrels. The most important tar harbours were located in Kokkola and Pietarsaari, and tar was transported on big sailing ships from there as far as Stockholm. In the 1700s, Central Ostrobothnia produced no less than a quarter of the tar produced in all of Sweden-Finland. More than a million barrels of tar were transported from the region in the second half of the 1700s.

As the forests began depleting already in the 1700s, tar burning moved further inland, to the forests of Perhonjoki river valley and Lestijoki, which meant that tar transport distances grew even longer than before. In the harbour towns, the exhausted tar transporters and horses were met by ‘tar boys’ sent by the townsmen, promising the transporters a wealth of benefits in compensation for good tar deals. If the deal was made, the transporters were entertained in the traders’ inns – salted fish, home-brewed beer, spirits, cigarettes and sweets were generously offered. As you can guess, the horses were also well taken care of.

The building and clearing of tar-burning pits, as well as tar burning itself, included various traditions, such as round games, dancing and entertainment. The pit master who ensured the success of tar burning also had to be kept awake. Some sayings relating to tar from those days are still alive, such as, “If sauna, spirits and tar don’t help, the disease is fatal.”

A tar-burning pit in Lestijärvi, early 1950s (Suur-Lohtajan historia II)

The tar culture also included its own superstitions. The ignition of the pit was a solemn ceremony with rituals that can seem strange: “Every pit had its own elf, and the tar burner would walk several times around the pit, which was believed to protect the pit” (Jämsä 1978, 136). Eino Isohanni (1978, 252) talks about a sorcerer who used tar for witchcraft. He “brought a toothache patient to the sauna porch and fetched pitchy wood, from which he carved three sticks. Each of these sticks he used for digging the gum of the sore tooth. Then the patient had to spit blood three times into the keyhole and cross his arms three times, like the blades of a windmill. Then the sorcerer hid the sticks and the tooth was supposed to be OK until the sticks rotted.”

Traditional tar burning gradually became less common towards the end of the 1800s and ended completely at the beginning of the 1900s. Tar was still in demand for household use, such as in oiling leather boots, sealing carts and sleighs, and treating cow hooves. However, it was no longer burned in people’s own pits, “of which only black, smelly holes were left in the nearby forests”, as Viljo S. Määttälä states in his book Rautamestareiden kylä (2000, 45). During World War II, charcoal were needed for the coal accelerators of cars. After the war, tar was produced industrially in Lestijärvi because it was needed for boats and as raw material for lubrication oil. There were even attempts to make chewing gum from pitch, but without success. In any case, the tar factory was an important regional employer until the end of the 1950s.

During Swedish rule, legislation and its non-existent supervision allowed people to use forests very freely. Forests were indiscriminately exploited and wasted: mast timber was felled, boards were sawn, slash was felled, and tar was burned endlessly. In the 1780s, for example, some houses in Lestijärvi were allowed to manufacture only a few barrels of tar per year, but the statutes were not put into practice: these houses would produce 20 to 30 barrels.

The forest decree of 1851 concerning state forests, as well as the establishment of forest administration (Metsähallitus) a little later, were attempts to regulate excessive forest utilisation. New professions were established to control forest use: forest rangers were the ones in charge of circulating their ranges and keeping watch for thieves, exploiters, wildfires, and illegal hunters. People were no longer allowed to fell or sell timber without permission. Reckless felling of timber would land you in the courthouse and result in punishment.

Lappi house

Rantatie 1 Lestijärvi

The main building of the Lestijärvi local heritage museum is called Lapin talo / Lappi house. It was built in 1784 and moved to its present location in 1956. The name Lappi has a history of many generations and centuries. As far as is known, the house is the oldest remaining building in Lestijärvi and its original floor plan has largely been retained. The small fragments of wallpaper found on the walls during repairs, as well as the originally whitewashed ceiling, probably reflect the wealthy and progressive past of the house.

In the course of its history, the main building has played a central role in the parish as the venue of parish/municipal meetings and parish catechetical meetings (kinkerit). In other ways, too, the heads of this house have been locally influential persons as, for example, lay members of the court. The house was last owned by Juho Oiva Josuanpoika Lappi and his wife Helmi. Oiva was a police officer and took care of the local people’s economic and legal affairs as well. The couple sold – or finally donated – the Lappi house to the local heritage association in the 1950s. Before that, the house had been inhabited for about 170 years.

Tar burning was a significant – and in some cases the only – source of livelihood in Lestijärvi. In the parish meetings held in the Lappi house, the bailiff’s proposal to end tar burning was firmly rejected in the 1830s. The state finally separated crown forests from common forests in the 1880s, and tar burning decreased significantly in the region: the acquisition of pitchy wood became more difficult because it was forbidden to collect it from crown forests.

Stories

In the frost and famine years towards the end of the 1860s, many people starved to death in Lestijärvi, leaving various farms desolate. According to oral tradition, a starving person died in the huge oven of the Lappi house at that time. Timo Lappi (interviewed on 23 Ocober 2018) has heard the following story from Oiva Lappi’s son Seppo:

 “The Lappi house had an oven for 17 breads, heated with one-metre-long logs. When the famine years were at their worst, hungry people walked from one house to the next, asking for food. One day again, a starving man had arrived at the Lappi house and crawled into the large oven, in which there naturally were remains of grain and flour, which he intended to collect. Sadly enough, he was in such bad shape that he did not manage to get out and died in the oven. What a terrible story!”

Photos

Lappi house

The courtyard of the Lappi house

The courtyard of the Lappi house

The courtyard of the Lappi house

Map

Route

Kivestö forest ranger farm

Kivestönpolku Lestijärvi

The forest district of Lestijärvi was established in 1860, comprising the state lands and forest ranger districts located in Kannus, Toholampi and Lestijärvi. In the Lesti forest district, there were several forest ranger farms and crown crofts. The forest rangers who lived in them and maintained them were in charge of supervising the use of crown forests and intervening in misuses. The Lesti district rangers are said to have been fair-minded and taken into account local people’s needs. They would give, for example, bread, flour, grain and potatoes to people in need of help. Many of the rangers were also known as rather unusual personas. When encountering actual illegalities, they had to strictly follow the instructions they had received.

Fredrik Juhonpoika Kivestö, aka Veelu (1864–1940) served as a forest ranger in the house that had been officially nominated as a forest ranger farm already in the 1860s. As was usual with forest ranger farms, Kivestö was located in a remote area, far from the parish village of Lestijärvi. Smoking his pipe, bearded Veelu would circulate his district wearing clothes made of coarse homespun cloth and shoes lined with sedge. He was known as a versatile, helpful and religious man. He used to give bread to the poor, practise folk healing and nurse sick animals. He is also said to have had supernatural skills. Later in life, Veelu and his wife Marjaana moved to the village and continued farming there, and their son Johan Emil, aka Eemeli, continued as a forest ranger on the Kivestö farm. In autumn 2018, the foundations of the buildings were still clearly visible.

Stories

Legend has it that when a farmer from Perho had gone missing and drowned in a stream one autumn, Veelu had been able to explain how the accident had happened. The following spring, the body was found in the place Veelu indicated. (Lindholm 1995, 340–341)

According to another story, Veelu had been walking towards the village when he met the Devil himself. The Devil had intended to touch Veelu, but Veelu claimed he was a clergyman. The Devil stepped aside and screeched nastily. In Veelu’s words, the Devil was a remarkably ugly creature. (Mäkitalo 1989)

Väinä Laakso (1992) talks about the “paralysis water” that Veelu used to prepare, which did not always work in the way he intended. Veelu’s brother Antti had a foreign object in his eye, and Veelu treated it with the aforementioned medicine. “Antti could not go to see a doctor because there was nobody to take him there. Veelu just washed the eye with the paralysis water and said it would soon heal. But the eye did not heal and started to fester instead. Veelu’s son, a forest technician, happened to come by and brought Antti to see a doctor. Even the doctor could not help and sent Antti to an eye clinic in Oulu. Antti went there, but the eye had already decomposed inside his head. It was cleaned and the eye was sewn closed. Antti bemoaned not having been sent to the doctor earlier, but said that there was no reason to lament since there were many one-eyed people as well.”

Photos

Stone footings of the Kivestö farm in autumn 2018

Stone footings of the Kivestö farm in autumn 2018

Original trees of the Kivestö courtyard, autumn 2018

Veelu and his family (photo archive of Aimo Itäniemi)

Veelu (1864–1940) (photo archive of Aimo Itäniemi)

Map