sisu, Time Law of Alta, Bergbukten, elevation of land, Same, Favdna, Bearwatcher, schottische, grouse-shooting, Brisingamen, lunula and gorget, menit-collar, elk season, Kalevala poems, bear hunting, bear ritual

Thus they come across at a glade in the woods of Kalevala

The Rough Mesikaemmen and the Big Sisukainen

They looked each other from toe to tuft again and again

The Rough Honeypaw took a step and then one more

The Big Sisuman kicked away twigs and stones

Step by step the heavy breaths come nearer

When the Swearing Sisukainen sensed the animal odour

He gripped his knife and directed some words to Ahti, Lord of Wood

"Listen now Ahti, never that I bad or appealed to you

But now Ahti, stay out of this fight! Perkele!"

Thus it ended as it ended

The Wordsplitter on the theme sisu from Seven brothers by Alexis Kivi

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The picture from Bergsbukten I, Alta in northern Norway shows most of sixty square meters big carving on the oldest layer from 4200 to 3600 BC. Originally the carving has been just above water level. At Alta the elevation of land is about five meters in a thousand years. They made their carvings and for epochs they had to move steps down to follow the water. Then figuring out a time line for the carvings is possible physically using these facts.

The carving is magnificent and one may understand the message about the year and days of folks at Alta six thousand years ago. At left in the middle we see they hunted the bear out of hibernation and in nature. Near the supposed winter quarter of the bear is a typical figure we normally call ship but not in use when hunting bear? Probably it stands for a period. Below that is a man with a pageant elk staff near a ritual den perhaps. The bear-hunt was at least in Scandinavia to our days the real thing when hunting the King of the woods.

Rituals and taboos surrounded it and only for men. Women had to see at the men thorough a ring because they went to another world as they said. Of course hunting the bear with the means man had at those times was very dangerous. A ritual was to remember exactly all the moments and surely also the delegated work in the team. To put on the bear guise was to think like the bear and rather be smarter. They used the same method in fight with the two legged whom they called a wolf or wolf guise if he were the enemy.

The group of symbols in the lower row may be some spring ceremony later than the hunt. We see a typical new moon maid symbol used everywhere to picture the spring or Candlemas in a warmer climate. The ship may stand for month or a period here too.

Next group above the bear's footprints is a maid and a rein dear with horns. Perhaps this is also a spring symbol as there is the IBAN symbol. That is a small boat with the seed of the Engender or "the child" of summer that I also read "to be in orbit".

Then follows perhaps a fish net that was also a symbol of spring and above it eight laying men. The light season was not longer than today, but it might have been a shorter winter because of a warmer climate then. They may be moons of the better part of the year. In Sumerian, Latin and Germanic language the root of moon and man is the same. On the top a pair dancing the schottische showed in the next picture. One remembers easily that our ancestors enjoyed the life as much as we do.

The London Majors bear a totem or pageant staff of our time. However, someone does perhaps not want to compare totems with the bear hunters with the elk staff. Some Samic tribes have stored the memory of the heavenly elk. Here I rather use the word Same since they want that instead of Lapp. It had Auriga as abdomen and the forepart was Perseus with Cassiopeia as horns. The heavenly hunter Favdna is our bear guise or the Bearwatcher Arcturus sometimes figured as an archer.

From about 4000 BC to the Viking Age some star of this constellation was used as star of spring equinoxes. This is due to precession that causes the equinox point to move a grade every seventy-one one year. The original period of elk at Alta ended about 3000 BC and then followed new ideas from the south.

Among the early figures is also a square that surely was meant as a symbolic vault of heaven. Later a cross symbolises the divided sun year or they had four idiomatic symbols for the four seasons. The square is found on Samic drums as late as from the nineteenth century. On them they were using the old dividing in eight plus four months or moons too.

On other carvings is a composition of a boat, a halibut and a rein deer probably as symbols for seasons. The fence consists of two parts and seems used to catch elk and rein deer. A pair of boats separates the pens, thus meaning something else than real boats. Most of them are rein deer but there are some elk cows too. The stitched line shows that the rock has sunk down and maybe they meant to illustrate when they hunted dears over a cliff.

Below the fenceless part are also a pair dolphin or porpoise and a footprint. On the fence is a footprint that I interpret "on" or "start here". On some places along the fence are some symbols that suggest that they had a collection of symbols more than six thousand years ago. I will not go so far that we should say that they created the symbols in Northern Scandinavia. Still, as far as we know these are the oldest compositions in Scandinavia. Many of them have the character of a ritual law done all at a time.

At a closer look at Bergsbukten we see ritual signs and symbols and may start to seek explanations. We may realise that their culture was more complex than we immediately imagine.

If I compare with my young days, history was mostly about Alexander the Great and all his followers to our days such as Napoleon, Karl XII, Hitler, Stalin and general Mac Arthur. We know that at least some of them were brought up with tales about heroes like Alexander. Perhaps they dreamt about being world emperor. Another part was our local kings, where I had some problem because they brought me up to be a Dane as well as Swede.

During the last centuries knowledge has increased rapidly and now we have facts enough to create models of ancient times. Thus we may also understand the rock carvings better because we know a lot about their living.

In Ireland and France we know that man had three seasons. Within their territory they moved around to fishing in the spring, gathering in summer and hunting in autumn when animals were fat and well feed. Depending on the landscape they searched for the driest and warmest landscape in winter because overall environment was more wet than in our days.

We should understand the Finnish word talvi maybe as "home in the dale" and so perhaps also the Germanic vinter. In south the mountain or the hill of origin was a symbol of winter when they had to depart from coming floods. Perhaps it was also a symbol for home besides the ocean of origin, because some sign's points to the idol Mother of the sea.

On Balkan and in the Sumerian cities near the sea are found idols showing a Fishman too. The Sumerians called him Oannes and other names and pictured an old man with a fish tail and thought he gave the first laws. They have found many remains from fish that infer offering in the deeper layer of the ancient cities.

We should use the prefix ur- as prefix to precise the ideas urmountain, urhill, urocean from daily speech and our outlook. In their mind they always referred to the first time or to the ur-ideas. That is because man always has to compare with something to know where he is.

When it comes to Northern Scandinavia, we have to keep in mind that growing the same crops as farther to the south is still impossible. Some Finnish agronomist is an optimist too and believes that the green house effect would make it possible for Finland to be a grain store. However the more practical scientists in north know at once that warmth is not enough because they also need light.

Another silly optimistic group is the Sires in Stockholm, which believe that they may claim for the grouse-shooting in Lappland. Nature is of course generous, but not that much. The law of nature is to reproduce as much as nature may feed and the other members of the house keep down the population. With modern riffles and methods a shooting gang may nearly root out the grouse for years. Said shortly, people living on hunting need a huge land to feed a family. Technologies developed to fit the climate have been the same for thousands of year.

In Northern Scandinavia climates restricted the developments. The Sames made most of the nature from the beginning. In mans civilisation he produces more than he uses for everyday life because he wants TV, car and so on. But the land and climate set the limits how much pure nature can give. If the law of nature is to preserve nature and the species the Sires are over consuming at least in Lappland.

The necklace was an early symbol I suppose for the field or nature worn by the moon goddess. They were in the beginning made by bear claws or pig dents. Women of nobility in Egypt and Sumer wore costly laces. In world of Edda the Brisingamen was that man had to give his beloved. That is surely the same as Celtic lunula and gorget and the breast plate of Innana. In Egypt they have the menit-collar.

We have to remember that the elk is still the ritual animal. When the elk season come Sweden stands still, they tell. The Kalevala poems tell about Hiisi and that elk was the real thing.

Yet to me is the real thing bear hunting although I would never hunt. My grandpa was one of the last hunters with sixty-three noses as trophies. One of a few memories about my grandma is that I see her dancing the bear dance with flying skirts. She tells me about her wedding as bride of the bear. In Kalevala and in Karelia the wedding ritual was the same as the bear ritual.

From my neighbouring Vaermland they tell that they also followed the old bear ritual. The bridegroom had to hide in the woods. Then the young men caught him and brought him to the wedding as the bear. On one of the golden horns from Gallehus South Jutland 400 AD we see a bear bride. In other artefacts are lots of other signs of the bear as mans real thing.

When speaking about roots, tribes and primitive matters I remember 1952 when I came from Denmark to a Swedish boarding school near Helsinki. Perhaps I do not want to remember if I as a half Dane gave a guise of superiority. However the boys from Auster-botten looked upon me and sometimes said it loudly "Do not think you are somebody".

Now I suppose we got the explanation when they found parts of the oldest inhabitant that appeared to be more than 70000 years old. Naturally one should not come as an outsider to natives with old roots. Now I hear that the genetic sciences have found that the Sames are the aborigines of Europe! Then follows that we Karelians with a tongue not far from that also are the original kind, I think? ... jokes away,

I spend my first Christmas in Finland in Austerbotten. On New Years eve I was in Vauraa and learned to dance "menuette", which is a collective folk dance originally from the ballrooms of nobility. In dancing shoes and fifteen-degree minus Celsius I walked some fifteen kilometres through the white Christmas landscapes to that experience.

I thought I had learned Swedish already but did not understand more than a few words when old people spoke dialect. I heard on TV a while ago that they use the dialect still. The world is much smaller than it was those days.

However as I am from Karelia, maybe I have closer roots with the boys from Austerbotten. Thus I may suck a little of their ur-heredity. ... shit the same, we Karelians have our fast mouth and of course Kalevala the Finns have borrowed from us. Nevertheless, as a mutual interest for us in Scandinavia it may be a good thing when we all may point 70000 years backwards.

Those with old stone culture do not want to realise that many old cities are ruins. The empire of Alexander lasted for thirteen years and the Indian people are still dark brown with raven black hair. That is in spite of the Aryans supposed to have found India. These were big jumps to and fro, but the fact is that we have also some symbols from India in our rock carvings.

This is only a little cut from a big rock-carving and they date it to 2700 -- 1700 BC. What do gods or abstract ideas look like? I don't know, but I think they tried to picture periods like half moons during the season in this picture. Maybe they got impressions from south and wanted to make their own moon calendar.

It is almost a law that in periods when mankind is not sure of the "time" or new ideas the pictures are non-figurative. Pablo Picasso was the latest in trying catching a new time … that of the machinery deforming mankind. Some of the figures maybe made in that way. Other in the Sumerian way in merging different images to something new. We also use strange words for novelties. The Norwegians are still "throwing around" their radio waves in the word "krinkasting".

The two way lines are surely Watergate and the Water-snake that orient us in the night sky. The big "fallen man" is of the same family as for instance the one at the Norrkauping calendar and why not the big crocodile in Egypt that was replaced with a young one at Ramadan.