In my paper, I explore how Finnish traditional belief legends delineated deathscapes and emphasised the danger of places belonging to the dead. I analyse the pursuit to keep the dead and the living strictly apart and briefly compare it with the more porous deathscapes of our time.
Paper long abstract
In 19th century Finnish belief legends, spaces and places associated with the dead were depicted as inhabited and guarded by the dead. Visits to the church and graveyards required ritual precautions, and places where someone had died or where the body had been kept were feared and avoided. According to the Lutheran church, the dead remained in their graves until the Judgement Day, and therefore, the presence of the dead was interpreted as relatively concrete. Communication with them was deemed as forbidden and dangerous, and spaces belonging to the dead were carefully kept apart from the everyday sphere of the living. Legends discussed these norms in various ways: they warned about violating the boundary between the dead and the living but also related numerous ways to do it. Today, spaces for the living and the dead are more intertwined. Graveyards are popular for recreation, and the dead dwell in spiritual and imaginary realms and are even felt to accompany the living in their everyday life. I will discuss the main factors which contributed to this change.