Sacrificial and revered trees of the Karelian-Finnish border region (a study of materials dating to the late XIX century)

Revered trees and trees to which sacrifices are offered have been known from ancient times among different peoples. The most ancient “holy places” looked like a landscape of stones, water (i. e., a spring, stream or the shore of a water reservoir), and trees. Since the Middle Ages, on the shores of the Gulf of Finland, the Finns and Estonians had the sacrificial groves of hiisi. These were fenced areas of the forest where public sacrifices took place. Researchers are of the opinion that the hiisi were the centers of settlement complexes. Uno Holmberg-Harva suggests that the single revered trees near the dwelling houses that survived until the XX century are the remains of ancient groves similar to hiisi. However, this issue remains controversial to this day, so one of the objectives of this article is to introduce existing materials on this topic into scientific circulation (especially for the Russian-speaking audience). In Karelian villages on the border of Russia and Finland, back in the second half of the XIX century, there were sacrificial fir-trees, on the condition of which the welfare, health, and the very life of a family and clan members depended. Therefore, family members were to sacrifice to the trees (bring to the roots) part of all the food supplies that appeared in the house, as well as to treat the “spirit-owner of the tree” with food from the festive table. In addition to fir-trees, sacrificial pines, birches, mountain ash, and junipers were also known as sacrificial trees in the region. In many places, people sacrificed to them the first milk after calving a cow, poured the first blood of an animal slaughtered in autumn under the roots or brought them a cup of meat soup. All this suggests that there existed some special connection between sacrificial trees and livestock. The main function of the family tree was to protect not only the clan members, but the entire household economy. The tree acted as a representative of deceased relatives (the ancestors of the family) or natural forces (the spirits of forest and earth).