The idea of family in the Kanteletar and in oral songs

Authors

• Niina Hämäläinen Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura

Abstract

Ethnographic narratives about common people emphasize a work-focused agrarian family with narrow emotional life. However, the picture of family is different in oral poems and written presentations based on the oral tradition. The family has a strong emotional meaning particularly in woman’s life which has dually been described as a happy life with parents and a hard life in a strange family of husband. This article reflects how an educated man, Elias Lönnrot (1802−1884) interpreted the idea of the family in his folk-poem publications, in the Kanteletar (1840, 1841) and the Kalevala (1849). As a starting point I refer to a complex relation between publications and the reality of common people they reflect. The knowledge we have about oral culture comes from selected written presentations, their “written images” produced by elite, educated people, based on the collected oral material.