The Birth of the Bear778 was an incantation performed in different phases of bear ceremonialism. It was often sung on the border of the village, just before entering the forest, and during other critical situations. Having both protective and reinforcing effects, it was one of the many precautionary rituals performed before leaving for the hunt,779 and it was also a myth or historiola preceding orders to the bear and exhortations to the forest spirits.780
The Births781 were standard incantations in Finno-Karelian healing rituals: only after the tietäjä sang about the mythic origin of the illness did he have the power to expulse or exorcise it into the otherworld. According to Siikala, the tradition of the Birth incantations was rooted in North Eurasian shamanism.782 The tietäjäs and the common folk sung or recited the Births in a wide variety of situations, since it was believed that knowing the mythic origin of an entity translated into power over it.783
Siikala and Haavio emphasized that there are practically no examples of a Birth appearing as an independent mythic narrative. The Births were part of a larger incantation complex which includes, for example, precautionary motifs, supplications and invocations,784 as well as orders and commands.
In the bear hunt, the Birth was followed by orders to the bruin or exhortations to the beings who generated the bear. After hearing about its mythical origins, the bear was expected to obey the commands of the singer. By singing the Birth of the Bear, the hunter
778 Ohton synty, kontion synty or karhun synty.
779 See Chapter 4.
780 See Chapter 6.
781 Synnyt. Singular: synty.
782 Siikala 2002: 89.
783 Siikala 2002: 90.
784 Siikala 2002: 86; Haavio 1967: 343.
gained magical control over the animal; acting in relation to the origin or progenitor of the bruin, he controlled other members of its race.
The Birth was believed to prevent bear attacks and neutralize the forest illness or potential contagion that could be contracted when the hunters touched the bruin’s meat, skin or skull. The incantation also reinforced the hunter. Samuel Kokkomäki from Pitäjänmäki (Pyhäjärvi) told that when a hunter uttered it, he alone was able to kill the bear without any help of other hunters, and he could do it with only a knife.785
The Births of the Bear varied significantly from singer to singer, and they often were historically stratified,786 containing references to pre-Christians and syncretic Christian beings. The Births of the Bear were also sung in the rituals to protect the cattle from bruins during the grazing season, or to heal the wounds of cows, horses or persons injured by a bear.787 Kaarle Krohn briefly covered the Births of the Bear in his monography about all the Births of the Finno-Karelian tradition.788 The only Finnish scholar to write an entire monography on the Births of the Bear was Juho Karhu, who divided them in three basic categories: Birth on the Earth, Birth in the Sky, and Birth from Wool.789 This classification is a rough simplification of the complexity of the mythic origins of the bear. The category Birth on the Earth is particularly poor, because in these versions the bear was not really born on the Earth in the modern geographic sense of the word, but in a mythical and otherworldly forest. However, Karhu was precise in his analysis of the different kinds of linguistic and poetic variations present in almost all of the lines of the three categories. I propose a more precise classification:
1) Births in the otherworldly forest and Pohjola
2) Births in the otherworldly forest and Pohjola with details about the supernatural beings who generated the bear
3) Births with the crone of Pohjola as the mother of the bear 4) Births in the sky
5) Births from wool thrown by a supernatural being or a saint
6) Births that joined two or more versions together or presented additional versions without clear narrative links between each other
785 Kerran vanahaan aikaan, kun vanahat miehet menivät karhun tappuun, niin ne loihtemalla lumovat karhun, että hyvästi voivat yksinään tappaa; he sitte työntivät puukon karhun kulukkuun ja sillä lailla tappoivat (SKVR XII2/6462).
786 See Section 1.3.3.
787 See SKVR VII5/3925. Suojärvi. Eur. H, n. 32. 1845.
788 Krohn 1917: 207–214.
789 Karhu 1947.
Kuusi and Haavio focused their attention especially on the Births in the Sky, considered to the most ancient versions related with the archaic hunting culture.790 Sarmela also paid attention to the Birth from the Crone of Pohjola and the Birth from the Wool, but he considered them a product of agricultural cultures and a strong degeneration of the ancient Births in the Sky.791
Analyzing the incantations in detail, the situation seems to be more complex. The Births involving otherworldly forests and Pohjola were more common in the tradition of the hunters. The Births in the Sky generally appeared in the tradition of the cattle herders, which is supposed to be more recent than that of the hunters. The Births from the Wool were peculiar to the cattle herders’ incantations.
It would be misleading to consider the traditions of the cattle herders and the hunters as two completely different worlds or historic phases. Different Births of the Bear shared some lines and motifs. Similar commands and exhortations could shift from one category to the other. The hunters were probably informed about the incantations and ritual songs by cattle herders, but also vice versa. Sometimes the hunters were cattle herders themselves. Skilled singers could remember, join and chant versions of fragments sung in different ritual contexts.792
However, there were some evident stylistic differences between the two main traditions. The Births of the Bear of the cattle herders were generally longer and more articulate than the ones sung during the bear ceremonials. It is difficult to explain the exact reason for this. Maybe the Births of the hunters were repeated more often as brief incantations to be quickly sung in critical situations, such as an unexpected attack by the bear. The cattle herders sang or uttered their Births before the cattle left from the cowshed, and thus they had more time to sing longer incantations. Other hypotheses are also possible: maybe certain hunters did not want to share their entire mythic knowledge with collectors, and maybe some collectors wrote uncomplete versions of the Births of the Bear of the hunters if in the same area abundant material about the Births of the Bear was collected in the incantations of the cattle herders. However, some hunters did also sing long and articulate versions of Births of the Bear.793
790 Kuusi 1963; Haavio 1967; see Section 2.3.
791 Sarmela 1991: 230–231.
792 See Section 1.3.4.
793 See Sections 5.3, 5.6.