LL-L "Traditions" 2009.11.02 (01) [EN]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 02 November 2009 - Volume 01
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From: "Mari Sarv" <mari at haldjas.folklore.ee>
Subject: Traditions

> Do you have an equivalent of Saint Nicholas in Estonia?

In Estonia nigulapäev is known mostly in small orthodox regions in East and
South-East of Estonia as the begin of the winter.

> What do you call that "Week of the Dead" in Estonian? (I would expect
something like *Nädal surnud.)

There is no special week of the dead in Estonian tradition. The Time of
Souls "hingedeaeg" spans over most of the dark autumn-time - from the end of
September until the snow-time in November mostly.

November is called "kooljakuu" or "hingekuu".

The belief of scary dead has been sometimes commented to be borrowed from
Germans.

Mari
Eesti

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
 Subject: Traditions

Thanks, Mari! Very interesting again.

So a reference to the period of connection with the departed souls is even
embedded in one of the traditional Estonian names for November.

> The belief of scary dead has been sometimes commented to be borrowed from
Germans.

This is very interesting too. I have long suspected that the tradition of
scariness in connection with the spirits of the dead predominates mostly
from Western Europe (though there are similar, apparently unrelated
traditions in other parts of the world, such as in Papua New Guinea and some
indigenous cultures of the Americas). In East Asian traditions, scary ghosts
tend to be only those with unfinished business, typically those that want to
take revenge (in Japan for instance typically wronged or murdered women).
There are rare references to ghosts in Roman literature, but by and large it
seems to be in Celtic and Germanic, and to some degree Slavic and Baltic,
traditions that the scary predominates and from which it made its way
elsewhere. I am under the strong impression that there is no such native
tradition among the Finnic-speaking peoples (to which Estonians belong) and
other Uralic-speaking peoples with roots in Western Siberia.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
Seattle, USA

•

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