Forget Halloween, here comes Kekri.

[The Ripper]

Kekri - ancient celebration to mark end of harvest season

By Emma Vainio

Kekri, the ancient, almost forgotten, Finnish celebration of the end of the harvest season, was still commonly celebrated in rural Finland 100 years ago.

The Halloween tradition, which has come to Finland as an import from the American cultural sphere, with scary costumes and children begging for sweets, contains many elements in common with traditional Finnish late autumn festival.

Halloween has roots in the Celtic Samhain new year's celebrations, which Irish immigrants took with them to America. It was then that the summer was over and the souls of the dead joined the harvest celebrations.

In Finland the turn of the year occurred at around Kekri time, and at about the same time, Finns observed an interim period of about two weeks, when the months, calculated according to the phases of the moon, were adjusted to the solar year.

This phase between the new and old year was considered significant, and it involved many different kinds of beliefs.

People looked for omens in the weather for the next harvest season, and guidance was also sought on matters of love.

The spirits of the dead were said to wander in this world especially during the Kekri period.

The feast to celebrate Kekri was prepared already before bathing in the sauna, and the dead of the family were invited to come in and sample the offerings while the others bathed.

In different parts of the world the harvest celebrations have included a sacrificial meal. In Finland, the feast was crowned by a Kekri lamb. The blood was spilled for the protectors of the cattle, and a soup was made of the meat.

At harvest time, stores of food were bulging, and there was no stinginess when celebrating the autumn feast. Once the work of the year was done, it was time to eat, drink, and dance.

At least the man of the house was expected to get as intoxicated as possible so that the grain harvest for the next year would be as big as possible.

The "Köyri goats", dressed in a mask and fur (precursors of the present Finnish Father Christmas) went from house to house begging for drinks of the fermented drink sahti, and amusing the people in the house.

From the middle ages onward, the old Finnish customs started to blend in with the new Christian elements.

The Church sought to bring the Julian calendar into use in Finland, and the new year was moved to the beginning of January.

Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 30.10.2006

http://www.hs.fi/english/article/Kekri+-+ancient+celebration+to+mark+end+of+harvest+season/1135222832346

[Electronic God-Man]

So, it's Finnish Halloween? :)


At least the man of the house was expected to get as intoxicated as possible so that the grain harvest for the next year would be as big as possible.

This is awesome though.

[The Ripper]

So, it's Finnish Halloween? :)



This is awesome though.

Yes, its the Finnish variant of the pan-European end of harvest celebrations. :)

"Yx, kax, kolm, neljä, ann ilonen olla,
kosk suru tulee, ann hänen mennä
Ei aina kekriä kestä,
Ei aina tupia pestä,
Ei aina höyky,
Ei aina möyky,
Ei aina wiina flaskusa löyky;
Kosk juomme hywä oltta,
niin mahdam tupakkaa polttaa;
isken siis walkiat taulaan,
ja wirwoitan kaulaan,
ja wihdoin iloisest laulan."

(Mythologia Fennica)

[Motörhead Remember Me]

Bring back Kekri and all other pagan customs!

[Motörhead Remember Me]

There's very little about kekri in English, but here is some:

"Kekri is a very old Finnish harvesting festival, celebrated in the autumn when the food for the winter had been secured and the duties of the year had been made. The new year was welcome. Kekri was the greatest and the most important festival of the year. The word 'kekri' is very old, and originally it meant 'the last day of the year'.

At Kekri people ate well: pies of berries and fish, there was also meat, cheese, porridge and all kinds of food. There were also plenty of drinks, special kekri spirits. Masters and servants all gathered around the same table.

At Kekri time the servants also had their only week of the year off work. During the week servants ate well and visited each other and tried to get a new servant's place in another house for the new year.

Nowadays we have gradually forgotten the old kekri and it has given way for Halloween with the costumes and pumpkins. We can choose if we want to celebrate the old kekri or the new Halloween imported from a foreign culture. Fortunately, not all Finns have forgotten our traditional kekri."


KEKRI AND KÖYRI’S CROPS



"Kekri, or Köyry, was the deity of cattle, farming, and fertility. In vernacular language kekri also meant being the last in something, the end of something. Either the last shepherd to return home on All hallows eve or his cattle would be called köyri. Kekri, or köyri, was traditionally also the god of land. In Häme and Satakunta, people spoke of köyri’s crops or köyri’s rye. This was sown just before winter. Köyri’s crops were traditionally kept separate from other crops, and people used to sow some köyri grain among barley and turnips in hope of a good harvest, but that crop was never harvested. People believed that cattle prospered if they ate köyri’s crops. Köyri rye was the base of kylvöleipä or “sowing bread”. The harvester who made the last sheaf was called köyry.



Christmas preparations usually started around All Saints’ Day, when the harvest year was over and food was plentiful. The actual Christmas started on 21st December, and ended around Epiphany. This period was the equivalent of the Medieval Nordic “Christmas peace”.



“According to custom, people were allowed to be out on All hallows eve, but only if they dressed up as mysterious köyri people. Particularly in Savo, it was customary that a group of men and women in masks made of birch bark and dressed in upside-down fur coats went from house to house asking for food and drink. This took place on 2nd November, the “day of the souls”, that is, the day after All hallows. These people were called kekri(ä)tär, kekrihönttämä etc. The men could be dressed in women’s clothes and women vice versa. They visited the village houses, greeting every household with the phrase “Which will it be, köyri or the oven?” If they got no köyri - that is, no food and drink: a bit of beef, beer in a tankard, or booze from a bottle - they would “overturn the oven”. The underworldly character of köyri people shows in their upside-down clothes, and cross-dressing. You see, everything in the Underworld was the other way around.” (Rytkönen 1946, Kansan syvistä riveistä.)



In Western Finland, Christmas was the most important holiday of the year from early on, but in Eastern Finland, kekri and Easter were more important until late in the 19th century. Kekri had been the celebration of the end of a working period, which had had no fixed date in the calendar. The time of kekri varied from village to village, even from house to house. Kekri was the end of the harvest season, the harvest feast, and the start of a new year. Thus, the year ended in the autumn. Some kekri customs were transferred to Christmas and the New Year. In the 19th century kekri was settled at All Saints’ Day."

http://www.jyu.fi/tdk/museo/kekri_en/kekri2_en.html


Finnish kekri

The Finnish Christmas has its roots in the old pagan harvest feast called kekri, named after the ancient Finnish cattle protector and fertility god. Kekri was celebrated around the end of November, or the end of the harvest season, marking the end of the year in the old agrarian calendar.

After Christianity reached Finland in the 12th century, the traditions and habits of kekri began to assimilate with Christian Christmas celebration.

These preserved habits include food traditions, such like eating ham from pagan times and lutefisk during fast days from the Roman Catholic time.


http://www.dlc.fi/~marianna/gourmet/season1a.htm
In Finnish:
http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kekri

As usual the perverted church worked against kekri and other pagan festivals and ancient rituals by either banning them or stealing them for own purposes, Christmas, midsummer and Walburg.

[The Ripper]

The orthodox have spoken.

Now, go away, Saint Serb.

The Orthodox Finnics have preserved the most of our pre-Christian heritage, albeit with a thin Christian icing.

And I don't really know if we can consider Voin a Serb. Hollywood Serb, may be. :D

[Motörhead Remember Me]

The Orthodox Finnics have preserved the most of our pre-Christian heritage, albeit with a thin Christian icing.


Yes, that is because they have maintained a lot of traditions living in the regions where ideas and innovations have arrived late or not at all.
Another important factor why eastern Finnish traditions survived better was that the Orthodox preachers/missionaries were not as zealous as the Catholic preachers in early medieval times. Where Catholic priests banned and abolished traditions, the Orthodox had a bit more relaxed attitude toward the old ways. This is also what is reflected in old annals about Swedish "crusades against pagans". They were not crusading against actual Finnish pagans but more often against orthodox Karelians and the spread of the orthodox faith.

[The Ripper]

Yes, that is because they have maintained a lot of traditions living in the regions where ideas and innovations have arrived late or not at all.
Another important factor why eastern Finnish traditions survived better was that the Orthodox preachers/missionaries were not as zealous as the Catholic preachers in early medieval times. Where Catholic priests banned and abolished traditions, the Orthodox had a bit more relaxed attitude toward the old ways. This is also what is reflected in old annals about Swedish "crusades against pagans". They were not crusading against actual Finnish pagans but more often against orthodox Karelians and the spread of the orthodox faith.

Also the Seto of Estonia and Russia have retained much more of their pre-Christian heritage, despite not being isolated by long distances. The Catholics did convert more by the sword, but it was really the protestant reformation that purged the pre-Christian elements from religious life and society in general.

[The Muse]

Love it!