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Reasons to Hunt at Easter
Frank Motz
Just like Midsummer, Easter is an intricate
ode to Tea Mäkipää’s home country, its nature,
people and folk. It is a moral tale that relates pagan origins –
their unchallenged, partly inexplicable yet never meaningless religion
of nature and its appropriation by similarly meaningful Christian
celebrations – to contemporary holiday customs. Easter, the
most venerable and important of Christian celebrations, nearly coincides
with the vernal equinox, which simplified the transition of a pagan
tradition into the new religion. The sun as a purveyor of light
and a fountain of fertility was praised and thanked in pagan tradition
by means of spring celebrations and Easter bonfires. The increasing
light, the snowmelt and milder climate at the end of March did not
only announce the coming of springtime, but the rebirth of nature
and life were synonymous with the opening of the hunting season
for men and animals alike. When the bear woke from his half-sleep
and left his winter camp, Man knew what he had to do. After the
hunt, the skis were taken off, the prey was prepared and consumed
over a communal campfire. Ancient Finnish artefacts teach us that
the bear, as the “king of animals”, was the object of
a religious cult. Part of the ritual was the re-enactment of hunting
scenes – called “peijaiset” in Finnish. In this role-playing,
a man clad in the bearÕs fur played the part of the animal, whose
virtuous and courageous fight against his foe was thus honoured.
Such one-day celebrations are a living tradition in Finland.
Frank Motz is the founder/director of the
ACC Galerie in Weimar and the curator of Halle 14, Stiftung Federkiel
in Leipzig (Germany)
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Atlantis
