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Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the processes of (re)defining bodies in the incantatory practice documented in 19th-century Ilomantsi, North Karelia. How was the ideal of a normal body expressed and constructed in collected texts?

Paper long abstract:

Incantations were part of everyday life in agrarian communities of North Karelia up to the beginning of the 20th century. People who had little access to modern medicine often turned to the incantatory practice when they would get sick or wounded. Some incantations were common knowledge, while some cases required the help of a specialist, the tietäjä. A common interpretation of the incantatory healing practice is that the tietäjä was restoring the balance of the world, disturbed by the agent responsible for the wound or the disease. By negotiating with non-human forces, the tietäjä could modify the state of the patient’s body and repair it. Love charms were also used when someone could not find a partner and, thus, did not meet the expectations of the community. Where are the limits of one’s body and welfare in a community marked by the idea of the limited good?

In this paper, I explore how the image of the normal state of the body is constructed in a corpus of around 500 charms collected in the parish of Ilomantsi, North Karelia, in the 19th century. How did other representations of the body relate to this ideal of normality? And what processes affected our interpretations of the incantatory practice? The corpus of incantations was formed through negotiations between informants and folklore collectors, who were, for some of them, also practicing modern medicine. Harmful magic practices, which aimed at refining one's own welfare, remained untold, and yet were present in discourses about charms.