The Materiality of Finnish Folk Magic: Objects in the Collections of the National Museum of Finland
In Finland the material aspects of magic have long been of marginal interest to scholars. Still, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries several magical objects were gathered into museums, in addition to the archived vast folklore collections describing magic practices. The latter h...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Taylor & Francis
[2018]
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| In: |
Material religion
Year: 2018, Volume: 14, Issue: 2, Pages: 183-198 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Finland
/ Folk religion
/ Magical thinking
/ Materiality
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| RelBib Classification: | AG Religious life; material religion KBE Northern Europe; Scandinavia |
| Further subjects: | B
Folk Religion
B Finland B magic objects |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) |
| Summary: | In Finland the material aspects of magic have long been of marginal interest to scholars. Still, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries several magical objects were gathered into museums, in addition to the archived vast folklore collections describing magic practices. The latter have been widely discussed, while recently also the material culture of magic is becoming the object of study.This paper discusses the objects classified as magical in the collections of the National Museum in Helsinki. The collection includes, for example, miniature coffins containing an impaled frog or a wooden stick figure, magic pouches with various contents, animal bones and teeth, snake's court stones, and curious growths of trees. The objects date mainly to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This collection is briefly presented and the process of ascribing magical meanings to a natural or constructed object is analyzed, both from the viewpoint of practitioners and museum personnel.From the practitioners' standpoint a complex combination of analogical thinking, potent agencies, and specific contexts resulted in special qualities of objects. In the museum, specific objects used solely for ritual purposes have attracted more attention than multi-purpose everyday items. Moreover, a foreknowledge of what kinds of objects were used ritually has guided choices of cataloguers. As a result the collection is quite limited. |
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| ISSN: | 1751-8342 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Material religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1080/17432200.2018.1443893 |