Buildings as persons: relationality and the life of buildings in a northern periphery of early modern Sweden.

Herva, Vesa-Pekka

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Introduction

Matthew Johnson opened a paper two decades ago with the question, 'Why is the study of vernacular architecture in England so boring?' (1990: 245). He emphasised that while the subject matter itself is fascinating, the problem lies with the 'anti-theoretical' approaches conventionally employed within the study of vernacular architecture. Ordinary vernacular buildings in the post-medieval western world may not exactly encourage unorthodox thinking because the buildings and their historical context appear relatively (or seemingly) familiar to us. This is particularly true, for example, with the simple log houses discussed in the present paper. Since there is little or nothing 'special' to log houses, common sense and practical-functional considerations may seem quite sufficient for understanding these buildings.

Although it is widely recognised that buildings resemble organisms in various ways in different cultures, and that the relationship between people and buildings is dynamic in nature (e.g. Rapoport 1969; Blier 1983; Carsten & Hugh-Jones 1995a; Thomasson 2004; Bradley 2007), modern understanding of the world dictates that buildings are 'really' just inanimate objects and organism-like only in a metaphorical sense or in the minds of people (Rapoport 1987: 12-13). This thinking, with its dualistic and mechanistic assumptions, may actually be a poor guide when it comes to understanding buildings and their relations with humans in seventeenth-century Europe, and especially in such peripheral contexts as northern Sweden and Finland. In this northern periphery, distinctions between subject and object, culture and nature, and the natural and supernatural were not clearly drawn, and what might be called animistic-shamanistic concepts of the world were preserved (see further Henry 2008; Herva & Ylimaunu 2009 with references). These observations should also have implications for our understanding of buildings.

This paper rethinks buildings in a northern periphery of early modern Sweden in the light of folk beliefs and relational thinking (as explained below). The discussion revolves around the seventeenth-century town of Tornio, founded by the Swedish Crown in 1621 (although today in Finland) and located on the northernmost Gulf of Bothnia (Figure 1), and is loosely structured around the idea of object biography (e.g. Marshall & Gosden 1999; Thomasson 2004). Rather than a thorough or fully substantiated case study, this paper is an attempt to explore human-building relations at a more general level. The argument is not specific to Tornio but concerns northern peripheral regions of early modern Sweden, and the approach discussed here has a much wider application. The main goal of the paper, then, is to outline a 'relational perspective' on buildings and illustrate some of its implications for archaeological interpretation through the case of Tornio.

Folk beliefs and the relational constitution of the world

Christianity spread into the northernmost Gulf of Bothnia in the fourteenth century, but elements of pre-Christian thought and folk belief flourished in the northern periphery centuries after its nominal Christianisation (Luukko 1954: 256-65, 293-6; Paavola 1998: 28-9; see also Wallerstrom 1995: 107-28; Toivo 2006). Popular beliefs indicate that people co-inhabited their world with non-human beings, such as trolls, earthlings and manifold nature spirits, which were associated with various places and landscape elements in the wilderness. Extraordinary properties were attributed to the sea, forest, soil, the elements, and various materials and artefacts (e.g. Sarmela 1994; Eilola 2003; Westerdahl 2005). The persistence of popular perceptions about non-human beings and the extraordinary properties of ordinary things is well established, but their nature and significance may have been misunderstood.

The use of folklore and folk beliefs in the study of the early modern past is not without problems. First, the relevant data have mainly been collected in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, so given (sets of) beliefs cannot be projected back directly onto particular seventeenth-century contexts. However, there are centuries-long continuities at a general level (see further Siikala 1992; Sarmela 1994; Eilola 2003; Lahelma 2007). Second, there are regional and other variations in the distribution of beliefs, although these can be discounted, since the aim here is not to link particular beliefs to particular archaeological features, but to assess folk beliefs at a more general level in order to gain insights into the dynamics of human-environment relations. Third, folk beliefs tend to be associated with rural rather than urban communities, but folk beliefs have flourished also in towns, and life in seventeenth-century Tornio and other small towns in the northern periphery was in many ways rural in character (see Virtanen 1985; Lilja 1995; Herva & Nurmi 2009; Herva & Ylimaunu 2009).

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

In sum, then, when used with due caution and on a sufficiently general level, folk beliefs can provide clues as to how early modern people perceived the world and engaged with it, and thus folk beliefs can help to develop new perspectives on archaeological interpretation (Herva & Ylimaunu 2009). This approach requires a reconsideration of the idea that folk beliefs are only about the 'inner' mental world, and relational thinking provides a means to that end. Relational thinking proposes that organisms and things do not have any 'essential nature' but are continuously changing or coming into being in relation with the surrounding world (Ingold 2006). This means that physical, biological, spatial, social, and other relationships between entities, rather than the physical constitution of entities, determine what things 'are' in a given context of interaction (Gell 1998: 123; Bird-David 1999; Harvey 2005; Ingold 2006). The identities and properties of all entities are therefore context-dependent, and one and the same artefact or landscape element, for instance, can thus be a person-like being in one situation and a mere passive object in another (Ingold 2000; Harvey 2005; Willerslev 2007:116-18).

When considered in the relational view, popular perceptions about non-human beings and the extraordinary properties of ordinary things in the early modern world cease to appear as mete misunderstandings about (the workings of) the world. That is, such concepts can be regarded as indications of two-way relatedness and sociality between people and certain constituents of the environment (artefacts, landscape elements, etc.) in certain situations in the past. Furthermore, non-human beings and extraordinary properties were perceived to be real rather than something that people just blindly believed in (see further Herva & Ylimaunu 2009). Encountering a nature spirit, for instance, was to recognise that a given tree, body of water, or other landscape element behaved in a manner analogous to sentient, conscious beings (cf. Ingold 2000: 90-100, 2006: 16). Thus, folk beliefs about non-human beings and extraordinary properties were embedded in and arose from people's practical everyday engagement with the world. This idea of 'animistic ontology' would seem historically appropriate in the north, where shamanistic-animistic conceptions characterised the pre-Christian cosmology and elements of this worldview survived well into the early modern period (see Siikala 1992; Lahelma 2007; Herva & Ylimaunu 2009).

The transformation of trees into buildings

Tornio was founded on the small island of Suensaari in the River Tornio delta on the order of King Gustav II Adolf of Sweden. Historical sources indicate that a few farmers owned land on Suensaari prior to the founding of the town in 1621, and a major pre-urban market place may also have been located on the island (Mantyla 1971; Vahtola 1980: 503). Prior to the urbanisation boom of the seventeenth century, there had been no urban settlements on the northern reaches of the Gulf of Bothnia, and the early inhabitants of Tornio were probably mainly local peasants (see Mantyla 1971). The population of Tornio was about 250 in the mid seventeenth century and around 500 at the end of the century (Mantyla 1971: 404-407, 418-23). Like other small towns, Tornio was village-like and agrarian in character in the seventeenth century and its economy was largely based on such rural activities as keeping livestock, fishing and hunting (see Mantyla 1971; Lilja 1995; Ylimaunu 2007). Thus, a nominally urban life did not initially break the bonds of traditional pre-urban ways, economically or in terms of the worldview.

Several excavations have been conducted in Tornio over the last 15 years, and the material discussed here derives mainly from the large-scale campaign of 2002 (Figure 2). Excavations have not revealed any pre-urban contexts or structures, but the earliest, pre-1650 phase of urban settlement is relatively well represented. The architecture of Tornio was based on simple corner-joined timber buildings which in the seventeenth century were erected directly on the ground without stone foundations. Tree trunks were apparently hewn into timber on the spot (Ylimaunu 2007: 31). It is not known who did the actual construction work, but it must be assumed that the peasant tradition dominated, which would mean that people constructed their own buildings, or at least were directly involved in the construction work.

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

The construction process can be understood as the transformation of trees into buildings (cf. Gell 1998: 229). Converting trees into wood signifies a new phase in the cultural biography of trees, which means that some (relationally constituted) properties of trees can be preserved in wood and therefore influence the relations between humans and buildings (cf. Knight 1998). The evidence from folklore suggests that trees could be seen as responsive beings and could possess extraordinary or person-like properties (see Guenat 1994; Sarmela 1994: 46-8; on the special properties of trees more generally, see Frazer 1993 [1922]: 109-35; Rival 1998). Such views should not be seen as wayward, but can be taken to reflect attentiveness to the behaviour of trees and their influence on human life (cf. Bird-David 1999; Harvey 2005:104-106). In other words, human engagement with trees was not based on the modernist objectification of the environment; people negotiated their relationships with trees instead of understanding them reductively in terms of their material or symbolic utility.

Pine was widely used as a building material in early modern northern Sweden (Ylimaunu 2007:32 with references). Four wood samples from archaeologically documented seventeenth- and eighteenth-century buildings in Tornio were all pine (Zetterberg et al. 2004; Zetterberg & Lehtola 2005). In folklore, pine is a 'good' tree with connotations of strength (Guenat 1994:120-25; Sarmela 1994: 38-43). Pine and spruce were also classified in folk-thought into male and female individuals on the basis of their shape and other criteria (Guenat 1994: 120-25). This shows deep attentiveness to, and 'folk knowledge' of, trees and may indicate that pine and spruce were understood as animate and person-like in some respects (cf. Frazer 1993 [1922]: 114). Something of the special properties of pine was perhaps preserved into the 'second life' of trees as buildings and thus charged architecture with power and meaning (cf. Knight 1998).

The possible special powers of wood notwithstanding, buildings in Tornio were subject to various hazards. For instance, the lack of stone foundations exposed the lowest timber to decay, and fires ravaged the town several times. The boundaries of households as physicosocial units were also considered permeable in early modern Sweden and therefore vulnerable to malicious agents and deeds (Eilola 2003: 314-15; Hukantaival 2007: 70-71). The vulnerability of households on the one hand, and their integral role in successful life on the other, would have called for continuous maintenance and nurturing of buildings, by both mechanical and non-mechanical means, and thereby promoted a sense of mutuality and reciprocity between people and buildings. This, I propose, is the key to understanding human-building relations in seventeenth-century Tornio and northern periphery of Sweden.

Living (with) buildings

Certain 'special deposits' were identified in association with several building remains in Tornio, including pots, bear claws, an iron bar and an axehead (Table 1; Figures 3 & 4). Some problems of interpretation are involved with all the objects listed in Table 1, but five or six items can quite plausibly be interpreted as foundation deposits dating from c. 1620-1700 (see further Herva & Nurmi 2009; Herva & Ylimaunu 2009; also cf. Hukantaival 2007; Falk 2008). Medieval and early modern building deposits comparable to those from Tornio have been documented in the Nordic countries (and beyond), and they have often been interpreted as lucky charms and/or supernatural protection from evil powers and entities, but social interpretations have also been advanced (see e.g. Merrifield 1987; Hoggard 2004; Hukantaival 2007; Falk 2008). Special building deposits, however, can also be considered in a slightly different and somewhat broader perspective which does not automatically preclude other, more specific interpretations.

[FIGURE 3 OMITTED]

[FIGURE 4 OMITTED]

To begin with, folklore shows that 'spirits' have been associated with houses and other buildings, such as saunas, barns and mills (Haavio 1942; Sarmela 1994:158-64; Jauhiainen 1999: 216-25). Household spirits were often ambiguous in character - they appear as invisible forces, old men, and animals in folklore - and were sometimes identified with the very structure of buildings, particularly the fireplace and occasionally timber (Haavio 1942: 171-7, 192-6; Sarmela 1994:159-60; Jauhiainen 1999: 225). Spirits were identified with the founder of the household, and while their birth is explained in various ways, the setting of the lower courses of timber and especially the lighting of the first fire are common themes (Sarmela 1994:159; Jauhiainen 1999:216). Spirits contributed to household work, warned or saved people in danger, and guarded the morals of the household (Sarmela 1994: 160, 163; Jauhiainen 1999:216-22). Moreover, spirits were sensed rather than merely imagined - people could hear the noises they made, for example - and they were also responsive and engaged with people (see Haavio 1942: 72-109; Sarmela 1994: 162-3). If they were treated well, spirits took care of the household and ensured its success. Good relations were maintained with spirits, for instance, by giving them food and drink (Jauhiainen 1999: 226-8).

It is clear from folklore that household spirits were taken seriously, that is, considered real-world beings with which people could, and did, engage in two-way interaction. The folklore of household spirits, as documented especially in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, combines ancient ideas with Christian and quite recent fairytale traditions - the dominant image of household spirits as independent elf-like beings living in buildings is probably of a later date (see Haavio 1942: 214; Sarmela 1994: 160; Jauhiainen 1999: 216-22). The description of household spirits as invisible forces or entities, the vague characterisation of their physical presence, and the direct association of spirits with the very structure of buildings are of particular interest here when considered in the relational perspective.

It can be proposed that household spirits were not originally conceived of as autonomous beings, but that the buildings themselves were perceived of as living and person-like beings in certain situations. This view, of course, is in harmony with the 'traditional' northern animistic-shamanistic cosmology preserved into the early modern period, as reflected in folklore, and the idea that folk beliefs about the extraordinary properties of ordinary things make sense in terms of the relational understanding of the world (see further Herva 2009; Herva & Ylimaunu 2009). It can be speculated that the transformation of household spirits from buildings with special properties into autonomous non-humans reflects the influence of modernist thinking and dissociation of 'spiritual' properties from the material world.

This interpretation of the original form of household spirituality provides a new perspective on the special deposits associated with buildings in Tornio. It seems clear, as the established views on building deposits also suggest, that the things hidden in the structures of the buildings were considered to have special properties; the power of iron and the bear, for instance, are common themes in folklore, whereas the pot presumably embodied other special properties which made its deposition appropriate (see Table 1) (Sarmela 1994: 38-43, 131-3; Berggold et al. 2004). These powers, however, may not have been directed (only) outwards to some beings or forces external to households, but (also) to buildings themselves. The incorporation of objects into the structure of buildings would have infused architecture with whatever (relationally constituted) special properties the deposited things were considered to possess (cf. Gell 1998: 142-3; Davies & Robb 2002; Herva 2005). The making of building deposits, then, was a means of turning buildings into something more than 'just matter', which both strengthened architecture in some way and enabled people to connect and engage with buildings by other than purely mechanical means. The latter would have facilitated sociality between people and buildings and thus ultimately promoted the development of buildings into (potentially) living and person-like beings.

The social life of the buildings, however, was not only contingent upon such practices as making foundation deposits, for they subsequently participated in the lives of the occupants at all levels (see also Carsten & Hugh-Jones 1995b: 37). Houses, especially, are 'organic entities' by nature and, as a nexus of social life, deeply immersed in social relations (see Gell 1998: 252-3). Houses are in essence parts or extensions of the people who build and inhabit them (Carsten & Hugh-Jones 1995b: 2-3; cf. Turner 2000), and that may have been more keenly felt in seventeenth-century Tornio than in the modern world. The life and special properties of buildings were of concern, first, because living buildings would have been more able to contribute, actively and passively, to the generation of successful human life. Secondly, sociality between human and non-human components consolidated the household as an organic people-plus-buildings unit, and therefore made the household physically and socially more resistant towards the uncertainties and hazards of life. Ultimately, then, foundation deposits did serve to strengthen buildings and households, but the mechanism and scope of functionality in the relational view is very different from the conventional view.

Rebuilding and recycling buildings

Very few exceptions aside, only the lowermost course of timber and floorboards of seventeenth-century buildings in Tornio survive. Since the wooden structures are usually not very well preserved either, there is little direct evidence of the life cycles of specific buildings. However, at least three buildings show some traces of structural modification. The clearest evidence comes from Building B which had two phases of construction and use. A fireplace or some other installation was added at some point, and a larger building (tentatively called Building X in Table 1) was later built upon the remains of Building B. Building D was enlarged and partly renewed around the mid seventeenth century. The old cellar pit of the house was filled and a new one built. A small annex in Building A seems also to be a later addition (on the buildings, Nurmi 2004: 24-9; Haikonen 2008; see also Ylimaunu 2007).

Buildings B and D produced possible special deposits which can be connected with the said structural modifications (Table 1, Figure 3) (see further Herva & Ylimaunu 2009). The special character of these finds is somewhat more uncertain than that of the foundation deposits discussed earlier, but if they are indeed building deposits associated with the later biography of the associated buildings, they can be interpreted as a means of renewing or reordering human-building relationships at important moments in the life of these buildings. It is also worth noticing that the function of Building B seems to have changed at the structural modification from an outbuilding to a dwelling house (Haikonen 2008).

Building materials were commonly recycled in early modern Sweden, and that was the case also in Tornio. The recycling of timber, in particular, has been attested archaeologically, and while direct evidence is scarce, there are several cases that are suggestive of using old timber in new buildings (see Ylimaunu 2007: 31-2; Herva & Nurmi 2009: 166). Additionally, the removing of stones from the foundations of the fireplaces of seventeenth-century houses implies reuse, and there are also some signs of refitting and reusing windowpanes (Herva & Nurmi 2009: 166-7). Recycling was cost-efficient, of course, but it was also a meaningful practice; recycling, in the relational perspective, passed on something of the identity and properties of original buildings and transplanted them into new ones, that is, distributed the lives of buildings, and people associated with them, spatially and temporally (see Gell 1998: 222, 225-6; Hicks & Horning 2006: 287-92). Intriguingly, folklore also suggests that the recycling of timber could result in the transplanting of household spirits, although this theme is more common in the case of ship spirits (Haavio 1942: 171-7).

Conclusions

It has been argued in this paper that buildings in the northern periphery of seventeenth-century Sweden could acquire special properties and develop into living and person-like beings. Buildings were probably not 'active' all the time, but the special properties of buildings enabled some degree of sociality between people and buildings in certain situations; that is, people could engage with buildings in other than purely practical ways, and buildings could be perceived to act upon people. That houses in particular should develop into personlike beings is unsurprising because they were at the heart of everyday social life and therefore particularly prone to gain person-like properties (cf. Gell 1998). Furthermore, the physical and social vulnerability of households promoted closeness and mutuality between people and buildings.

This view, developed on the basis of folk beliefs and relational thinking, has various implications for archaeological interpretation. Most clearly, the building deposits from seventeenth-century Tornio and other similar contexts can be understood as a means of investing buildings with special properties which contributed to the development of buildings into person-like beings. Thus, special deposits facilitated and/or maintained social relations between people and buildings. The relevance of the relational view, however, extends beyond these special finds, as it offers a framework for reconsidering basically any aspect of the biography of buildings and, indeed, all archaeological material. Thus, for instance, there may have been more 'meaning' to building materials and the recycling of buildings than is recognised within conventional approaches to post-medieval vernacular architecture.

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Jarmo Kankaanpaa, Antti Lahelma, Mikael A. Manninen, Kerkko Nordqvist, Risto Nurmi, Tuija Rankama, James Symonds, Timo Ylimaunu and two reviewers for their critical and encouraging comments and help. The research has been funded through a post-doctoral fellowship granted by the Academy of Finland.

Received: 7 July 2009; Accepted: 24 September 2009; Revised: 13 October 2009

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Vesa-Pekka Herva, Department of Archaeology, University of Oulu, P.O. Box 1000, FI-90014 Finland (Email: vesa-pekka.herva@oulu.fi)

Table 1. Special deposits identified in Tornio. There are indications
that some more special deposits might be identifiable from the
available data (R. Nurmi pers. comm.)

Find                          Building   Context

cooking pot                   A          under NE corner
iron bar                      A          foundation
bear claws                    B/border   clay lining/border
bone spoon handle             B          fireplace
axehead                       X          foundation/under floor
slag                          D          foundation
slag                          D          between floors
pottery, cannon balls etc.    D          cellar-pit fill
slag                          E          clay lining

Find                          Type                         Dating

cooking pot                   foundation deposit           pre-1630
iron bar                      foundation deposit           pre-1630
bear claws                    foundation/border deposit    1620-1660
bone spoon handle             rebuilding deposit           1660-1690
axehead                       foundation deposit           c.1700
slag                          foundation deposit           pre-1630
slag                          rebuilding deposit           1630-1640
pottery, cannon balls etc.    rebuilding/closing deposit   pre-1640
slag                          foundation deposit           1650-1700