M&D was Re: Viking Zeitgeist

[Heikki Raudaskoski]

On Mon, 28 Apr 1997, Ted Samsel wrote:
>   If I recall correctly, the first well-made log cabins in N
> America  were made by the Swedes who settled in the area near
> the Delaware/PA boundary. See Terry Jordan's articles and a book
> or two on the log cabin as vernacular architecture... he's a
> geography professor, specializing in historical geography, at
> the University of Texas. He was at North Texas State but got
> away from 'em.

Oh, Mr Sompsell, I did hope nobody would mention Terry Jordan.
Some people think I'm holding the Swedes a grudge already.  
And this Finnish modesty... But I feel forced to introduce
Jordan's conclusions.

Jordan co-authored _The American Backwoods Frontier_ ('89) 
with Matti Kaups. It all started when Jordan wanted to find 
the origins of American log carpentry. First in Germany; no 
evidence of influence. Then in Sweden, testing the "long-
discarded notion that Swedish settlers of [...] New Sweden on 
the Delaware River had introduced the prototype of American log
construction." (xi-xii) In less than a week Jordan found in 
Sweden a carpetry that strongly resembled the American type.

This type was to be found in a region along the border of 
Sweden and Norway called the Finnskog, 'Finn Forest'. 
It's residents were chiefly Eastern Finnish immigrants,
who spoke Finnish until this century. (The occasional 
list contributor Mikko Keskinen comes from Saarijarvi, 
which belongs to the kernel area of migration. The other 
main source of migration is the funny-sounding North Finnish 
town called "Oulu", + its vicinity.) "Finnskog, a district 
that had contributed  abundantly to the New Sweden colony. 
The last glimmer of a German connection faded; Finns, not 
Swedes, held the key." (xii)

At this time Jordan, who doesn't know Finnish, started the
co-operation with the Finnish-Minnesotan Matti Kaups. They 
wanted to know if the Finns contributed not only to carpentry,
but also to other aspects of American backwoods frontier
culture.

Their conclusion after 247 pages: "A particular preadapted
immigrant European culture, practiced by Savo-Karelian Finns,
was, by pure chance, placed in the mesothermal forests of
North America, where it was joined to the indigeneous culture
of certain eastern woodland Indians, most notably the Delawares,
to yield all the essential ingredients of a syncretistic 
Midland American colonizing system. The Scotch-Irish subsequently
supplied the largest single genetic input to the backwoods
population, setting the colonizing machine in rapid westward
motion, but the material culture and techniques that allowed
successful forest colonization were largely of Finnish and
Indian origin." (247)

The Delaware tribe "called the Finns and Swedes 'akoores' or
'nittappi' ('friend', 'fellow tribesmen', or 'those like us'),
[...] they had a different collective word 'senaares' for the 
English,  Germans, and Dutch, whom they properly regarded as 
alien. No doubt [the Finns'] familiarity with forests, shamanism,
hunting, fishing, and slash-and-burn farming helped shape the
Indians' view of the Finns as a kindred people. In 1656, when
Dutch administrators attempted to block the disembarkation of
Finnish immigrants from a ship anchored in Delaware, local
Indians forcibly interceded to allow them to land." (89)

So it seems that, whatever their intentions were, the path-paving 
contribution of my fellow countrymen has been of great importance 
to the the New World imperialism, and, consequently, the genocide
of Native Americans. But it is quite imperialist of Pynchon, too,
if he mentions the Swedes only. Our man, who is usually so hip. 

Heikki