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

Buildings as persons: relationality and the life of buildings in a northern periphery of early modern Sweden. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Introduction Matthew Johnson opened a paper two decades ago with the question,'Why is the study of vernacular architecture in England soboring?' (1990: 245). He emphasised that while the subject matteritself is fascinating, the problem lies with the'anti-theoretical' approaches conventionally employed withinthe study of vernacular architecture. Ordinary vernacular buildings inthe post-medieval western world may not exactly encourage unorthodoxthinking because the buildings and their historical context appearrelatively (or seemingly) familiar to us. This is particularly true, forexample, 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 quitesufficient for understanding these buildings. Although it is widely recognised that buildings resemble organismsin various ways in different cultures, and that the relationship betweenpeople and buildings is dynamic in nature (e.g. Rapoport 1969; Blier1983; 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 ametaphorical sense or in the minds of people (Rapoport 1987: 12-13).This thinking, with its dualistic and mechanistic assumptions, mayactually be a poor guide when it comes to understanding buildings andtheir relations with humans in seventeenth-century Europe, andespecially 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 clearlydrawn, and what might be called animistic-shamanistic concepts of theworld were preserved (see further Henry 2008; Herva & Ylimaunu 2009with references). These observations should also have implications forour understanding of buildings. This paper rethinks buildings in a northern periphery of earlymodern Sweden in the light of folk beliefs and relational thinking (asexplained below). The discussion revolves around the seventeenth-centurytown of Tornio, founded by the Swedish Crown in 1621 (although today inFinland) and located on the northernmost Gulf of Bothnia (Figure 1), andis loosely structured around the idea of object biography (e.g. Marshall& Gosden 1999; Thomasson 2004). Rather than a thorough or fullysubstantiated case study, this paper is an attempt to explorehuman-building relations at a more general level. The argument is notspecific to Tornio but concerns northern peripheral regions of earlymodern Sweden, and the approach discussed here has a much widerapplication. The main goal of the paper, then, is to outline a'relational perspective' on buildings and illustrate some ofits implications for archaeological interpretation through the case ofTornio. Folk beliefs and the relational constitution of the world Christianity spread into the northernmost Gulf of Bothnia in thefourteenth century, but elements of pre-Christian thought and folkbelief flourished in the northern periphery centuries after its nominalChristianisation (Luukko 1954: 256-65, 293-6; Paavola 1998: 28-9; seealso Wallerstrom 1995: 107-28; Toivo 2006). Popular beliefs indicatethat people co-inhabited their world with non-human beings, such astrolls, earthlings and manifold nature spirits, which were associatedwith various places and landscape elements in the wilderness.Extraordinary properties were attributed to the sea, forest, soil, theelements, and various materials and artefacts (e.g. Sarmela 1994; Eilola2003; Westerdahl 2005). The persistence of popular perceptions aboutnon-human beings and the extraordinary properties of ordinary things iswell established, but their nature and significance may have beenmisunderstood. The use of folklore and folk beliefs in the study of the earlymodern past is not without problems. First, the relevant data havemainly been collected in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, sogiven (sets of) beliefs cannot be projected back directly ontoparticular seventeenth-century contexts. However, there arecenturies-long continuities at a general level (see further Siikala1992; Sarmela 1994; Eilola 2003; Lahelma 2007). Second, there areregional and other variations in the distribution of beliefs, althoughthese can be discounted, since the aim here is not to link particularbeliefs to particular archaeological features, but to assess folkbeliefs at a more general level in order to gain insights into thedynamics of human-environment relations. Third, folk beliefs tend to beassociated with rural rather than urban communities, but folk beliefshave flourished also in towns, and life in seventeenth-century Tornioand other small towns in the northern periphery was in many ways ruralin 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 sufficientlygeneral level, folk beliefs can provide clues as to how early modernpeople perceived the world and engaged with it, and thus folk beliefscan help to develop new perspectives on archaeological interpretation(Herva & Ylimaunu 2009). This approach requires a reconsideration ofthe idea that folk beliefs are only about the 'inner' mentalworld, and relational thinking provides a means to that end. Relationalthinking proposes that organisms and things do not have any'essential nature' but are continuously changing or cominginto being in relation with the surrounding world (Ingold 2006). Thismeans that physical, biological, spatial, social, and otherrelationships between entities, rather than the physical constitution ofentities, determine what things 'are' in a given context ofinteraction (Gell 1998: 123; Bird-David 1999; Harvey 2005; Ingold 2006).The identities and properties of all entities are thereforecontext-dependent, and one and the same artefact or landscape element,for instance, can thus be a person-like being in one situation and amere passive object in another (Ingold 2000; Harvey 2005; Willerslev2007:116-18). When considered in the relational view, popular perceptions aboutnon-human beings and the extraordinary properties of ordinary things inthe early modern world cease to appear as mete misunderstandings about(the workings of) the world. That is, such concepts can be regarded asindications of two-way relatedness and sociality between people andcertain constituents of the environment (artefacts, landscape elements,etc.) in certain situations in the past. Furthermore, non-human beingsand extraordinary properties were perceived to be real rather thansomething that people just blindly believed in (see further Herva &Ylimaunu 2009). Encountering a nature spirit, for instance, was torecognise that a given tree, body of water, or other landscape elementbehaved in a manner analogous to sentient, conscious beings (cf. Ingold2000: 90-100, 2006: 16). Thus, folk beliefs about non-human beings andextraordinary properties were embedded in and arose from people'spractical everyday engagement with the world. This idea of'animistic ontology' would seem historically appropriate inthe north, where shamanistic-animistic conceptions characterised thepre-Christian cosmology and elements of this worldview survived wellinto 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 RiverTornio delta on the order of King Gustav II Adolf of Sweden. Historicalsources indicate that a few farmers owned land on Suensaari prior to thefounding of the town in 1621, and a major pre-urban market place mayalso have been located on the island (Mantyla 1971; Vahtola 1980: 503).Prior to the urbanisation boom of the seventeenth century, there hadbeen no urban settlements on the northern reaches of the Gulf ofBothnia, and the early inhabitants of Tornio were probably mainly localpeasants (see Mantyla 1971). The population of Tornio was about 250 inthe mid seventeenth century and around 500 at the end of the century(Mantyla 1971: 404-407, 418-23). Like other small towns, Tornio wasvillage-like and agrarian in character in the seventeenth century andits economy was largely based on such rural activities as keepinglivestock, fishing and hunting (see Mantyla 1971; Lilja 1995; Ylimaunu2007). Thus, a nominally urban life did not initially break the bonds oftraditional pre-urban ways, economically or in terms of the worldview. Several excavations have been conducted in Tornio over the last 15years, and the material discussed here derives mainly from thelarge-scale campaign of 2002 (Figure 2). Excavations have not revealedany pre-urban contexts or structures, but the earliest, pre-1650 phaseof urban settlement is relatively well represented. The architecture ofTornio was based on simple corner-joined timber buildings which in theseventeenth century were erected directly on the ground without stonefoundations. Tree trunks were apparently hewn into timber on the spot(Ylimaunu 2007: 31). It is not known who did the actual constructionwork, but it must be assumed that the peasant tradition dominated, whichwould mean that people constructed their own buildings, or at least weredirectly involved in the construction work. [FIGURE 2 OMITTED] The construction process can be understood as the transformation oftrees into buildings (cf. Gell 1998: 229). Converting trees into woodsignifies a new phase in the cultural biography of trees, which meansthat some (relationally constituted) properties of trees can bepreserved in wood and therefore influence the relations between humansand buildings (cf. Knight 1998). The evidence from folklore suggeststhat trees could be seen as responsive beings and could possessextraordinary 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 andtheir influence on human life (cf. Bird-David 1999; Harvey2005:104-106). In other words, human engagement with trees was not basedon the modernist objectification of the environment; people negotiatedtheir relationships with trees instead of understanding them reductivelyin terms of their material or symbolic utility. Pine was widely used as a building material in early modernnorthern Sweden (Ylimaunu 2007:32 with references). Four wood samplesfrom archaeologically documented seventeenth- and eighteenth-centurybuildings in Tornio were all pine (Zetterberg et al. 2004; Zetterberg& Lehtola 2005). In folklore, pine is a 'good' tree withconnotations of strength (Guenat 1994:120-25; Sarmela 1994: 38-43). Pineand spruce were also classified in folk-thought into male and femaleindividuals on the basis of their shape and other criteria (Guenat 1994:120-25). This shows deep attentiveness to, and 'folkknowledge' of, trees and may indicate that pine and spruce wereunderstood as animate and person-like in some respects (cf. Frazer 1993[1922]: 114). Something of the special properties of pine was perhapspreserved into the 'second life' of trees as buildings andthus charged architecture with power and meaning (cf. Knight 1998). The possible special powers of wood notwithstanding, buildings inTornio were subject to various hazards. For instance, the lack of stonefoundations exposed the lowest timber to decay, and fires ravaged thetown several times. The boundaries of households as physicosocial unitswere also considered permeable in early modern Sweden and thereforevulnerable to malicious agents and deeds (Eilola 2003: 314-15;Hukantaival 2007: 70-71). The vulnerability of households on the onehand, and their integral role in successful life on the other, wouldhave called for continuous maintenance and nurturing of buildings, byboth mechanical and non-mechanical means, and thereby promoted a senseof mutuality and reciprocity between people and buildings. This, Ipropose, is the key to understanding human-building relations inseventeenth-century Tornio and northern periphery of Sweden. Living (with) buildings Certain 'special deposits' were identified in associationwith several building remains in Tornio, including pots, bear claws, aniron bar and an axehead (Table 1; Figures 3 & 4). Some problems ofinterpretation are involved with all the objects listed in Table 1, butfive or six items can quite plausibly be interpreted as foundationdeposits 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 fromTornio have been documented in the Nordic countries (and beyond), andthey have often been interpreted as lucky charms and/or supernaturalprotection from evil powers and entities, but social interpretationshave also been advanced (see e.g. Merrifield 1987; Hoggard 2004;Hukantaival 2007; Falk 2008). Special building deposits, however, canalso be considered in a slightly different and somewhat broaderperspective which does not automatically preclude other, more specificinterpretations. [FIGURE 3 OMITTED] [FIGURE 4 OMITTED] To begin with, folklore shows that 'spirits' have beenassociated with houses and other buildings, such as saunas, barns andmills (Haavio 1942; Sarmela 1994:158-64; Jauhiainen 1999: 216-25).Household spirits were often ambiguous in character - they appear asinvisible forces, old men, and animals in folklore - and were sometimesidentified with the very structure of buildings, particularly thefireplace and occasionally timber (Haavio 1942: 171-7, 192-6; Sarmela1994:159-60; Jauhiainen 1999: 225). Spirits were identified with thefounder of the household, and while their birth is explained in variousways, the setting of the lower courses of timber and especially thelighting of the first fire are common themes (Sarmela 1994:159;Jauhiainen 1999:216). Spirits contributed to household work, warned orsaved people in danger, and guarded the morals of the household (Sarmela1994: 160, 163; Jauhiainen 1999:216-22). Moreover, spirits were sensedrather than merely imagined - people could hear the noises they made,for example - and they were also responsive and engaged with people (seeHaavio 1942: 72-109; Sarmela 1994: 162-3). If they were treated well,spirits took care of the household and ensured its success. Goodrelations were maintained with spirits, for instance, by giving themfood and drink (Jauhiainen 1999: 226-8). It is clear from folklore that household spirits were takenseriously, that is, considered real-world beings with which peoplecould, and did, engage in two-way interaction. The folklore of householdspirits, as documented especially in the nineteenth and early twentiethcentury, combines ancient ideas with Christian and quite recentfairytale traditions - the dominant image of household spirits asindependent elf-like beings living in buildings is probably of a laterdate (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 directassociation of spirits with the very structure of buildings are ofparticular interest here when considered in the relational perspective. It can be proposed that household spirits were not originallyconceived of as autonomous beings, but that the buildings themselveswere perceived of as living and person-like beings in certainsituations. This view, of course, is in harmony with the'traditional' northern animistic-shamanistic cosmologypreserved into the early modern period, as reflected in folklore, andthe idea that folk beliefs about the extraordinary properties ofordinary things make sense in terms of the relational understanding ofthe world (see further Herva 2009; Herva & Ylimaunu 2009). It can bespeculated that the transformation of household spirits from buildingswith special properties into autonomous non-humans reflects theinfluence of modernist thinking and dissociation of'spiritual' properties from the material world. This interpretation of the original form of household spiritualityprovides a new perspective on the special deposits associated withbuildings in Tornio. It seems clear, as the established views onbuilding deposits also suggest, that the things hidden in the structuresof the buildings were considered to have special properties; the powerof iron and the bear, for instance, are common themes in folklore,whereas the pot presumably embodied other special properties which madeits 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 thestructure of buildings would have infused architecture with whatever(relationally constituted) special properties the deposited things wereconsidered to possess (cf. Gell 1998: 142-3; Davies & Robb 2002;Herva 2005). The making of building deposits, then, was a means ofturning buildings into something more than 'just matter',which both strengthened architecture in some way and enabled people toconnect and engage with buildings by other than purely mechanical means.The latter would have facilitated sociality between people and buildingsand thus ultimately promoted the development of buildings into(potentially) living and person-like beings. The social life of the buildings, however, was not only contingentupon such practices as making foundation deposits, for they subsequentlyparticipated in the lives of the occupants at all levels (see alsoCarsten & 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 arein essence parts or extensions of the people who build and inhabit them(Carsten & Hugh-Jones 1995b: 2-3; cf. Turner 2000), and that mayhave been more keenly felt in seventeenth-century Tornio than in themodern world. The life and special properties of buildings were ofconcern, first, because living buildings would have been more able tocontribute, actively and passively, to the generation of successfulhuman life. Secondly, sociality between human and non-human componentsconsolidated the household as an organic people-plus-buildings unit, andtherefore made the household physically and socially more resistanttowards 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 isvery different from the conventional view. Rebuilding and recycling buildings Very few exceptions aside, only the lowermost course of timber andfloorboards of seventeenth-century buildings in Tornio survive. Sincethe wooden structures are usually not very well preserved either, thereis little direct evidence of the life cycles of specific buildings.However, at least three buildings show some traces of structuralmodification. The clearest evidence comes from Building B which had twophases of construction and use. A fireplace or some other installationwas added at some point, and a larger building (tentatively calledBuilding X in Table 1) was later built upon the remains of Building B.Building D was enlarged and partly renewed around the mid seventeenthcentury. 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 thebuildings, Nurmi 2004: 24-9; Haikonen 2008; see also Ylimaunu 2007). Buildings B and D produced possible special deposits which can beconnected with the said structural modifications (Table 1, Figure 3)(see further Herva & Ylimaunu 2009). The special character of thesefinds is somewhat more uncertain than that of the foundation depositsdiscussed earlier, but if they are indeed building deposits associatedwith the later biography of the associated buildings, they can beinterpreted as a means of renewing or reordering human-buildingrelationships at important moments in the life of these buildings. It isalso worth noticing that the function of Building B seems to havechanged at the structural modification from an outbuilding to a dwellinghouse (Haikonen 2008). Building materials were commonly recycled in early modern Sweden,and that was the case also in Tornio. The recycling of timber, inparticular, has been attested archaeologically, and while directevidence is scarce, there are several cases that are suggestive of usingold timber in new buildings (see Ylimaunu 2007: 31-2; Herva & Nurmi2009: 166). Additionally, the removing of stones from the foundations ofthe fireplaces of seventeenth-century houses implies reuse, and thereare also some signs of refitting and reusing windowpanes (Herva &Nurmi 2009: 166-7). Recycling was cost-efficient, of course, but it wasalso a meaningful practice; recycling, in the relational perspective,passed on something of the identity and properties of original buildingsand transplanted them into new ones, that is, distributed the lives ofbuildings, 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 couldresult in the transplanting of household spirits, although this theme ismore common in the case of ship spirits (Haavio 1942: 171-7). Conclusions It has been argued in this paper that buildings in the northernperiphery of seventeenth-century Sweden could acquire special propertiesand develop into living and person-like beings. Buildings were probablynot 'active' all the time, but the special properties ofbuildings enabled some degree of sociality between people and buildingsin certain situations; that is, people could engage with buildings inother than purely practical ways, and buildings could be perceived toact upon people. That houses in particular should develop intopersonlike beings is unsurprising because they were at the heart ofeveryday social life and therefore particularly prone to gainperson-like properties (cf. Gell 1998). Furthermore, the physical andsocial vulnerability of households promoted closeness and mutualitybetween people and buildings. This view, developed on the basis of folk beliefs and relationalthinking, has various implications for archaeological interpretation.Most clearly, the building deposits from seventeenth-century Tornio andother similar contexts can be understood as a means of investingbuildings with special properties which contributed to the developmentof buildings into person-like beings. Thus, special deposits facilitatedand/or maintained social relations between people and buildings. Therelevance of the relational view, however, extends beyond these specialfinds, as it offers a framework for reconsidering basically any aspectof the biography of buildings and, indeed, all archaeological material.Thus, for instance, there may have been more 'meaning' tobuilding materials and the recycling of buildings than is recognisedwithin 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 encouragingcomments and help. The research has been funded through a post-doctoralfellowship granted by the Academy of Finland. Received: 7 July 2009; Accepted: 24 September 2009; Revised: 13October 2009 References BERGGOLD, H., M. BACK, M. JOHANSSON, H. MENANDER, M. NIUKKANEN, C.TULKKI & U. WALLEBOM. 2004. Handled with care: on typology andsymbolism of redware pottery. Muinaistutkija 2/2004: 2-25. BIRD-DAVID, N. 1999. 'Animism' revisited: personhood,environment, and relational epistemology (with comments). CurrentAnthropology 40 (Supplement): 67-91. BLIER, S.P. 1983. Houses are human: architectural self-images ofAfrica's Tamberma. Journal of the Society of ArchitecturalHistorians 42(4): 371-82. BRADLEY, R. 2007. Houses, bodies and tombs, in A. Whittle & V.Cummings (ed.) 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LEHTOLA. 2005. Tornionkaupunkiarkeologisten kaivausten puuloytojen ianmaaritys, osa II,dendrokronologiset ajoitus FIL9703 ja FIL9705. Unpublished datingreport, Laboratory of Dendrochronology, University of Joensuu. 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 indicationsthat some more special deposits might be identifiable from theavailable data (R. Nurmi pers. comm.)Find Building Contextcooking pot A under NE corneriron bar A foundationbear claws B/border clay lining/borderbone spoon handle B fireplaceaxehead X foundation/under floorslag D foundationslag D between floorspottery, cannon balls etc. D cellar-pit fillslag E clay liningFind Type Datingcooking pot foundation deposit pre-1630iron bar foundation deposit pre-1630bear claws foundation/border deposit 1620-1660bone spoon handle rebuilding deposit 1660-1690axehead foundation deposit c.1700slag foundation deposit pre-1630slag rebuilding deposit 1630-1640pottery, cannon balls etc. rebuilding/closing deposit pre-1640slag foundation deposit 1650-1700