Finns are usually characterized as being quiet, serious, diligent and humble. This description is only partly true. Most Finns "know" that a Savolainen (a person originating from the Savo region) is chatty and convivial and a Karjalainen (a person originating from Karelia) is emotional and laughs very much.

Those are regional stereotypes, or heimoerot — or "tribal differences", as they are known in Finland. Americans know the stereotypes of Southerners and Hillbillies and others; Brits think that Scotts are misers who drink too much, the West Country is filled with "cider-addled yokels" and the South coast is saturated with sour-faced pensioners (Stereotypes). The Finns employ similar stereotypes.

What are the "tribes of Finland" and how are they stereotypically characterized? What is the origin of the stereotypes? Are they relevant in the context of Finnish culture in the 21st century?

The focus will be on the cultural differences of the Finnish speaking majority. Though the Sámi and the Swedish minorities¹ are not without characterizations in Finnish popular culture, they will remain a topic for another paper.

Nations as Imagined Communities

Sociologist Benedict Andersson calls nations imagined communities. The community is "imagined" because even the smallest nation is too large for one member to have personal contact with the majority of the community's members, yet still there is an illusion of a community in every member's mind. This sense of community is constructed, strengthened and reproduced by stories told in the community (in Ruuska 285). Stereotyped characterizations of the members of other communities are one such type of story.

What are these stereotypes, and how do they function? The Oxford English Dictionary defines 'stereotype' as

[A] preconceived and oversimplified idea of the characteristics which typify a person, situation, etc.; an attitude based on such a preconception. Also, a person who appears to conform closely to the idea of a type. (Oxford)

In the context of people and groups, the purpose of the stereotypes is to make a distinction between "us" and "them" or "other", with "them" or "other" being the people of the neighboring village, province, or another nation (Paasi). The stereotypes do not necessarily tell us what we are like, but rather what we are not like. All in all, stereotypes are building material for a common identity. Stereotypes are what people develop about others. Whether the stereotypes transfer into a recognizable set of characteristics displayed by the members of a particular group is another matter.

The Concept of 'Tribe'

When discussing Finnish tribal descriptions and tribal differences in Finland, one must start by defining the concept of 'tribe'. In the context of today's Finland, a tribe is a group of people who identify with a province of Finland (Pietilä 3). The terms 'regional' and 'provincial' will be used synonymously with 'tribal' in this paper. A tribe is not an ethnically distinct unit — genetically Finns are very homogenous — but a cultural and mental construction. These regional cultural differences have gradually faded in the creation of a united national identity in the 19th and 20th centuries, and in the process of the major structural change and urbanization in the 1960s and 1970s, which made Finnish culture more uniform than earlier. This development has been further strengthened by the nationwide radio and television channels which are slowly reducing the regional differences also in spoken language (Leiwo).

The tribal descriptions can be compared with the concept of 'national character': both 'tribal character' and 'national character' are oversimplified generalizations which suggest that the members of a certain nationality or a tribe share an identical set of characteristics, even if those characteristics have little or no basis in reality. However, Liisa Keltikangas-Järvinen, Professor of Psychology in the University of Helsinki, suggests that despite being unable to explain people's behavior exhaustively, 'national character' is an interesting concept in the way in which it can be used to describe the degree to which the surrounding culture can shape people's behavior, attitudes and values to be similar (in Pietilä 96). Indeed, Minttu Pietilä, who has studied the Finnish tribal descriptions in her master's thesis, writes that the origin of the stereotypes lies in the differences in the rules of social conduct and communicatio n between the 'tribes'. They have different ideas of humor, courtesy, acceptable social distance and desired behavior (97-98) and these differences may cause a cultural conflict similar to that between, for example, a Finn and an Italian.

Journalists Ilkka Malmberg and Tapio Vanhatalo, who have published the book Heimoerot esiin ja härnäämään, a collection of newspaper columns dealing with popularized tribal stereotypes, define 'tribe' as a conglomeration of learned attitudes and values which are passed on to future generations in the same area. In their opinion, the dominant culture in one's home results in tribal identification (Malmberg and Vanhatalo 36). The tribe is inherited partly from home, the parents, and partly from the surrounding society, and it is usually the tribe of the region which the person considers his or her home (Pietilä 4). Thus the tribe can be a constituent of the person's overall identity in the same way that an immigrant may identify with his or her country of origin despite having lived most or all of his or her life somewhere else.

Tribal descriptions are part of the collective consciousness of the Finns' stereotypes of each other (Pietilä 94). Children were taught stereotypical conceptions of other nations and of other Finns at school for generations. The descriptions of national and regional characteristics were commonplace in history, geography and Finnish language textbooks up to the 1970's. The children learned at an early stage that people in Finland and different parts of the world were not alike. Regional characterizations disappeared from schoolbooks in the 1970s along with the introduction of the comprehensive school, but their life has been prolonged by folklore. 'Tribes' as a scientific explanation for the differences in the mentality of the Finnish people lost its appeal decades ago, yet one generation after another has picked up these stereotypes from sayings, humor, literature and mass media.

Tribal Identities in Modern Finland

Finnish tribes and tribal identities have been studied very little. Minttu Pietilä has conducted one of the few studies. In her master's thesis for the Department of Folklore in the University of Helsinki, she has analyzed the results of a survey commissioned by the [Helsinki] University Almanac² for the year 1994. In the survey, people of all ages all around Finland were asked to tell what they thought were the characteristics of their own tribe, and then to describe the other tribes of Finland.

Being relatively recent and one of the few studies on this subject, Pietilä's thesis provides interesting pointers on how the tribal descriptions are perceived in present-day Finland. Views of whether the regional characterizations are still relevant to Finnish culture vary. Some respondents said they had not found proof of the tribal difference in real life; others were convinced they existed (Pietilä 89).

Pietilä found the Finnish tribal descriptions to be rather uniform from person to person, despite the differences of age, gender, occupation, place of residence and the respondent's "own" tribe. While many write that they do not identify with any particular tribe, they describe their "supposed" tribe (i.e. the tribe of their home region) with similar adjectives to those used by the people who identify with the same tribe (Pietilä 81-82). Also, many respondents say they do not believe in the existence of tribes, yet they are able to describe a given tribe with the same set of characteristics as the others (Pietilä 92). There was a strong agreement on the definition of the concept of "tribe": few replies referred to the Romany or Finnish-Swedish people (Pietilä 91-92). Pietilä concludes that these findings support the view that Finnish tribal stereotypes are still part of the collective culture and folklore in Finland (Pietilä 94).

The best known Finnish tribes are the Savolainen (the tribe of the Savo province), the Karjalainen (the tribe of the Karelia province), Hämäläinen (the tribe of the Häme province) and the Pohjalainen (the tribe of the Ostrobothnia province). These tribes have the most distinguished set of features and they are usually characterized with fixed sets of words (e.g. the merry Karjalainen, the slow Hämäläinen). Other, less-known tribes exist as well (e.g. the tribes of the Kainuu, Finland Proper and Satakunta provinces) but descriptions of those tribes are fewer and far less uniform. Pietilä suggests that the media and popular culture have reinforced the descriptions of the Karjalainen, the Savolainen, the Hämäläinen and the Pohjalainen tribes, since they are the tribes that are most commonly encountered in advertising, films, and literature (Pietilä 85, 87).

The Origin of Finnish Tribal Stereotypes

The origin of the tribal characterizations is not known. Archeological findings suggest that different tribes existed before the close of the Iron Age (1300 A.D.) and that neighboring peoples — the Estonians, Russians and Swedish — were familiar with the Finns of Finland Proper, the Häme Finns or Tavastians, the Karelians and the Sámi as separate groups (Erä-Esko). These tribes were most likely independent "coalitions" of local communities who cooperated in finance and defense. Each group had their own leader, cultural traditions and a dialect, and a sense of community existed within the tribe (Kirkinen 18). Jutikkala, Kirkinen, Nieminen and Valonen suggest that the tribes of Häme, Karelia and Finland Proper were the "nucleus tribes" from which the other tribes have developed. The tribes of Satakunta and Ostrobothnia have their origin in the tribe of Finland Proper. The tribe of Savo has its origin in the tribes of Karelia and Häme. The tribe of Häme has also contributed to the tribe of Kainuu, which is a cross between the tribes of Finland Proper and Häme (in Pietilä 23).

Zacharias Topelius and the Book of Our Land

Zacharias Topelius, a historian, participated in the National Romanticism Movement³ in the 19th century. Together with other writers of the period he developed Finnish literature and a basis for Finnish identity. The most important work of the National Romanticism movement in building Finnish identity was Topelius' Boken om Vårt Land ('The Book of Our Land'), published in 1875, with its Finnish translation, Maamme kirja, appearing a year later. The Book of Our Land is an illustrated book depicting the history, people, countryside and geography of Finland in a national romanticized fashion. The book was and still is popular: by the 1960s it had sold over 2.5 million copies (Topelius 576) and its last reissue was in 1998.

However, the importance of the Book of Our Land does not lie in the figures but in its place in the national school curricula. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of pupils have read it over the years. Topelius' book has also been a model for subsequent textbooks. In addition to having created many symbols for Finland, the Book of Our Land has become one itself. Leea Virtanen, a researcher of Finnish folklore, estimates that the tribal descriptio ns which Topelius has recorded in The Book of Our Land date back to the 17th and 18th centuries (Virtanen 20). According to Virtanen, Topelius is to be thanked for the survival of the tribal descriptions. If it had not been for his writings, says Virtanen, the characterizations would have been forgotten long ago (20).

The Book of Our Land is famous for its descriptions of the landscape and people of Finland. The landscapes that Topelius describes have become national symbols and are considered prime examples of the beautiful Finnish nature. The descriptions of the people are important in several aspects.

Firstly, Topelius taught his contemporaries who they were. He told his readers about their roots and their history. He depicted their homeland, which they could not explore themselves, and evoked their love for it. His book helped construct a sense of community among the Finnish people. The Book of Our Land is thus one of the stories of the imagined community, of the Finnish nation.

It is worth noting that Topelius was not aiming for an ethnically homogenous Finland. This is most likely a result of his own background: Topelius, a professor of history, came from a Swedish-speaking family, like many others in the nationalistic movement. In the 19th century, Finland was a multicultural society. In addition to the Finnish population, there were Swedish, Russian, German and Sámi people, among others. Hence, to Topelius, the definition of a Finn was:

. . . all who love this country and keep it as their fatherland, all who obey its laws and work for its cause; they are one nation. (165) [Translation by author]

Secondly, Topelius defines the qualities of the ideal Finn. They are the fear of God, industriousness and stamina, toughness, strength, patience, calmness, robust vitality, valor and military fitness, unyielding perseverance and persistence, a love for freedom and a desire for knowledge (Topelius 167-168). The same qualities began to appear in school textbooks invariably. The values conveyed were those of Topelius' own time and they have ever since been regarded highly in Finnish society.

Thirdly, Topelius rescued and perpetuated the idea of tribes and their differences for future generations. As explained earlier, the descriptions of national characteristics, regional characteristics and of the Finns themselves were commonplace in school textbooks for decades (Paasi). Millions were exposed to the teachings of Topelius; thus little by little, the concepts of both the ideal Finn and tribal differences became part of the everyday attitudes of the Finnish people (Varpio 14).

The East and West of the Finnish Tribes

Finland has been divided into eastern and western cultural areas in ethnology and cultural anthropology research. The western Finnish cultural area consists of Finland Proper, Häme, Ostrobothnia and Åland. The east Finnish cultural area covers the regions of Karelia, Savo, Kainuu and Lapland (Talve 349). These days most of the physical proof of the division, such as everyday household items, farming equipment and clothing, can only be seen in museums, but the difference can still be felt in food, language, the way people communicate and in the Finnish mentality.

The cultural disparity is a result of several factors. The different farming methods employed in the eastern and the western parts affected the structure of the society (Malmberg & Vanhatalo 21). Another factor was the different spheres of influence: the west had contacts with Sweden, Estonia and Germany; the east, particularly Karelia, was influenced by Novgorod and Russia (Kuoppamäki).

The Historical Provinces of Finland Åland Finland Proper Nylandia (Uusimaa*) Satakunda (Satakunta*) Tavastia (Häme*) Savonia (Savo*) Karelia Ostrobothnia Lapponia (Lapland*) * The names in parentheses are current usage. The borders of present-day Finland are marked in red. The dividing line between the east and west Finnish cultural areas is marked in blue.

Current Regions of Finland Uusimaa Finland Proper Åland Satakunta Häme Proper (or Tavastia Proper) Pirkanmaa Päijät-Häme (or Päijänne Tavastia) Kymenlaakso Southern Karelia Southern Savo Northern Savo Northern Karelia Central Finland Southern Ostrobothnia Ostrobothnia Central Ostrobothnia Northern Ostrobothnia Kainuu Lapland

The west was dominated by cultivation-based farming; their lifestyle was very similar to that of peasants elsewhere in Europe. In the east, the traditional slash-and-burn method of cultivation was dominant and it remained in use well into the 19th century. In slash-and-burn farming, the trees in an area are cut and then set on fire. The fire further clears the area and the minerals and alkali from the plants fertilize the area.

In the west, a hierarchical estate society developed. A village formed the basis of people's identity. Social acceptance was important and one could guarantee it by conforming to the community's written and unwritten rules. The discipline exerted by the community over an individual in the western Finnish village encouraged competitiveness between both people and villages.

In the east, houses stood further apart, and people were tied to their kin rather than to a village. The tight-knit group villages characteristic of the west did not form, since in the east people had to be ready to move farther in to the wilderness when the land would no longer provide a living. The mobility of the people affected many aspects of the eastern Finnish way of life. People had to be independent, since the new place for living could be very far from the existing settlements. People outside the family did not a exert similar social pressure over the individual as they did in the west, and there were no great economic differences between people. Neither the society's nor the church's moral rules bound the individual (Idän).

In the east, everybody lived the way they knew best. Material wealth, status symbols and the seeking of social position was not particularly favoured. The east Finnish culture developed to be more liberal towards the roles of the sexes and the overall attitude to life (Kotilainen in Siikala 69, 72).

The cultural division into eastern and western parts is also visible in the tribal descriptions supplied by the respondents in Pietilä's research. The eastern Finnish people are deemed to be more sociable: both the Savolainen and Karjalainen tribes are characterised as talkative, sociable and more casual than the western Pohjalainen and Hämäläinen tribes (Pietilä 83-84). In Finland, it is "common knowledge" that the people in western Finland are more efficient, industrious and active, but also more uptight, reserved with unfamiliar people and more concerned with financial matters and social acceptance. The eastern Finnish tribes, on the other hand, are known to have a more relaxed (some might call it lazy) attitude to life in general. They are less reserved, less performance-oriented, and not very interested in wealth and in seeking others' acceptance.

The East and West in Human Communication

It seems, however, that the regional differences can be felt most profoundly in human communication. There are linguistic differences, i.e. all the tribes have their own distinctive dialect. More interesting are the differences in the manner of communication between the east and the west. In the west, a straightforward and frank manner of communication is standard. Direct question is greeted with a direct and frank answer (Pietilä 77). In the east, the social function of the language is more prominent. Leea Virtanen, who has studied the verbal humor of the Savo region, says that the appreciation for verbal expression, humor and figures of speech in Savo originate from pre-modern times when people lived in dimly-lit smoke huts where they had to pass long winter evenings. Talking was an amusement and a way of passing time (Virtanen, Savolaisten 66). The west Finnish people think that the eastern tribes, especially the Savolainen tribe, waste time by waffling on for ages before really getting into the subject. The Savolainen on the other hand, thinks that it is rude not to chat first for a while (Virtanen 31-32).

To some extent, the differences in the manner of communication between the eastern and western cultural areas can be illustrated by drawing a comparison with the differences between the North American and the Latin American ways of communicating. A North American appreciates directness and efficiency and is primarily interested in reaching his or her goal. The Latin American, on the other hand, aims at establishing a personal relationship with the other person before starting to discuss the real subject at hand (Raija Malmberg 93-94). Both in Savo and in Latin America, it is considered rude to start talking about the business at hand straightaway without inquiring after the other's wellbeing (Virtanen 31-32, Raija Malmberg 93-94). In present-day Finland, suffused by western rationalism and protestant ethics, the Savo way of communicating is often considered evasive and unnecessary lip service. One chapter of Virtanen's book, where she explains the origins of and answers to popu lar Finnish folk beliefs, addresses the way of Savo speech as follows:

The evasion of the direct question is a form of popular courtesy. Ulla Lipponen from Kuopio [in Savo] says that in Savo the child is instructed to avoid direct, blunt answers. ... "Making an effort at answering is considered politeness, ... When people from Pori [a town on the Finnish west coast] ask me [Lipponen] why one can't give a short, uncomplicated answer they fail to understand that in Savo such an answer is considered an insult towards the person asking the question." (Virtanen 31) [Translation by author]

The western culture is the basis of modern Finnish culture and identity. When Mikael Agricola created the first form of written Finnish in the 16th century, he based it on the Turku dialect. Later developers of the language also drew mostly from the western sources. The Fennomans, the Karelianists and the National Romantics in the 19th and early 20th centuries drew from the east, Karelia in particular, to build their romanticized image of Finland. However, since independence in 1917, the eastern influence has been supplanted by western rationalism (Varpio 23). Hence the sense of guilt for idleness and pleasure, which is an important aspect in the Finnish mentality, is deemed to be essentially of western Finnish inheritance.

Tribes and Their Characteristics

Journalists Ilkka Malmberg and Tapio Vanhatalo have collected the following popular conceptions of the Finnish tribes in their book Heimoerot esiin ja härnäämään [Bring out the Tribal Differences and Start Provoking].

The Lively Karelian

"An Ostrobothnian wedding is drearier than a Karelian funeral." — Saying from Finnish Karelia

The Karelian tribe resides in the regions of Southern Karelia and Kymenlaakso. The Karelian is often described with such adjectives as 'lively', 'sociable' and 'unreserved'. The above saying illustrates that the Karelian tribe thinks that it is the most cheerful, light-hearted and optimistic of all the tribes (Pietilä 62-64). The Karelian and the Savolainen tribes together form the group of the eastern tribes.

The Karelian tribe is extroverted, which means that Karelians are talkative and genuinely and actively interested in other people. They are warm, open-hearted and unpretentious. Nevertheless, they are often perceived as being untrustworthy, especially in the west, because of their talkative nature (Pietilä 62-64). The Karelian tribe is also impulsive: unlike the Hämäläinen tribe and the typical Finn Karelians act upon their urges and do not worry about what others might think. The Karelian tribe is also tolerant of different people, ideas and ways of life and they are emotional and passionate. They are always ready for a good time, laughter and joy.

Mentally, the Karelian tribe are somewhere between Finland and Russia; after all, they have lived on the border zone of two cultures, the east and the west, for centuries. Their position between Russia and Sweden and the sufferings this location has brought upon the tribe over the centuries has refined the Karelian nature to be unyielding: they will bend but they will not break. The Russian influence was very strong until Finland's independence, and the area has been dominated by Eastern Orthodox Christianity, which is remarkably more mystical than the Protestant Christianity practiced elsewhere in Finland. It is in the Karelian tribe that the Slavic melancholy of the Finnish culture is most clearly present, for that and their ease of emotional expression they are not quite taken as being 100% Finnish. Malmberg and Vanhatalo write that it is this Karelian mysticism in Finnish culture that sets Finland apart from the rest of the Nordic countries (124).

Karelianism, the National Romanticism movement, and the writers of the Fennoman movement, Lönnrot and Topelius, did a lot to improve the image of the Karelian tribe in the eyes of the rest of Finland. To the Karelianists, the original and purest form of Finnishness was found in Karelia. Ever since Lönnrot's Kalevala and the Karelianism movement, Karelia and the Karelian tribe has been granted the honor of being the mythical birthplace of the Finns (Malmberg & Vanhatalo 124).

The Jovial Savolainen

The Savolainen, a member of the tribe of the Northern Savo and Southern Savo regions, is jovial and easy-going. A Savolainen is also a static person, as is his Hämäläinen counterpart: both would rather leave things be than try to change them (Pietilä 79). Whereas the Hämäläinen wants to avoid change because it has rarely brought anything good, the Savolainen wants to enjoy life, avoid stress and not worry about the future. A change is always a stressful situation because it requires active adaptation. In Savo, a wise and respectable person is intelligent enough to achieve his or her objectives with minimal effort. The western Finnish (especially Ostrobothnian) style, which boasts about toil and drudgery at work, will not be respected (Malmberg and Vanhatalo 102).

The easy-going and jovial nature of a Savolainen demonstrates itself in verbal expression. The Savolainen are sociable; to them the social aspect of speaking is just as important as conveying a message (see above). When a Savolainen speaks, he aims at making his listeners laugh. The Savo sense of humor, largely exhibited in puns and other kinds of verbal humor and therefore difficult to translate, is famous in Finland. Savolainen expressions are descriptive and humorous, playing with the sounds of words, for example. They invent new expressions as they speak: the life-span of such a disposable expression is often as short as the time that is needed to utter it (Virtanen, Savolaisten 68).

Generally speaking, Finland is a country where considerable weight is attached to the spoken word. Words are chosen carefully and for the purpose of delivering a message. Finns tend to say little and avoid small talk. On the other hand, when conversing in Savo small talk is important. A Savolainen also avoids asking a straightforward question and giving direct answers: it is standard to circle around the subject or talk about something completely unrelated before inquiring about the thing that is in one's mind. The reply will be given in a similar manner. Disregard for this code will arouse confusion in a Savolainen and may potentially be interpreted as rudeness (Virtanen, Ellun 20). In the same reply, a Savolainen may say both yes and no to a question. To the question "You did not go to the pub, did you?" a Savolainen can very well reply "Oh yes, I didn't." A famous Finnish saying has it: "When a Savolainen opens his or her mouth, the listener is left with the responsibility [for understanding what might come out]". The listener will just have to wait until the Savolainen is ready to air his or her genuine opinion.

Elsewhere in Finland this non-straightforward communication strategy has been given the paradoxical name, the “directness of the Savolainen." According to a popular view, the Savolainen are rarely to be trusted. Especially the members of the Pohjalainen tribe tend to think so (Pietilä 43). The talkative nature of the Savolainen does not mean complete openness and honesty; rather they seem to other Finns to just talk for the sake of talking. The Savolainen try to avoid conflicts, and hence they rather evade the subject altogether than say the harsh truth.

However, the Savolainen think they are a very funny and entertaining people, and they enjoy the attention their witty humor gets them. In Pietilä's research, some western Finnish people said that while the Savolainen crack jokes about other people, they get offended if the others make fun of them. The Savolainen, on the other hand, think they have the ability to laugh at themselves: humor in general and joking about their own misfortunes is their coping strategy (Pietilä 66).

The Slow Hämäläinen

The Hämäläinen tribe lives in the Häme Proper, Pirkanmaa and Päijät-Häme regions. Above all, the Hämäläinen are said to be slow. They are slow in speech and hence slow in thinking; slow at work and in making decisions. Even the dialect of the Häme region is said to be slow and rambling. Nevertheless, contrary to what one might think, the calmness and slowness of the Hämäläinen is an appreciated feature, since it implies that the Hämäläinen are deliberate in their actions, and this deliberate nature means they will do their job well (Pietilä 70), and that is a compliment of the highest order in Finland.

Also, a Hämäläinen is deemed to be trustworthy: a Hämäläinen is as solid as a rock. Already Topelius praised the Hämäläinen as the finest of the fine Finnish people, and Topelius is behind the Hämäläinen's dismissive yet praising image. Topelius writes that the Hämäläinen's qualities are the keys to the success of the Finns. Without the willf ul mind and the persistence of the Hämäläinen, the Finns would not have been able to survive on this barren land (Topelius 216).

The Hämäläinen are also withdrawn and taciturn, which in combination makes it difficult for them to make friends: getting to know the other person will take time. They do not show their emotions. The Hämäläinen are suspicious of new trends, people and inventions. In Häme, it is better to think thrice before setting about. Showing great enthusiasm or getting excited is not very advisable either, if one wants to get respect from the Hämäläinen. In their dialect, there are a number of disapproving names for a person who gets excited easily, e.g. hättäilijä, hosu ('a very hasty person'), and koohottaja or tohkaaja ('a person who is very excited and enthusiastic over something'), to mention only a few. In Häme, it is also good manners to undervalue oneself and one's achievements. A Hämäläinen child is taught by an early age that pride goes before fall.

In the Finnish films of the mid-20th century, i.e. the golden era of Finnish cinema, the representatives of the different Finnish tribes tended to be pictured in a very stereotypical fashion – all except the Hämäläinen. Veijo Hietala, senior lecturer of Media Studies in the University of Turku, points out that no specific stereotypical characteristics or regionalisations are attached to the Hämäläinen in these films (Honka-Halila in Pietilä 67; Hietala in Pietilä 98). A Hämäläinen is the generic Finn, to which the rest get compared. Indeed, the Finns are most often said to be reserved and taciturn, honest and trustworthy, and those are essentially the features of the Hämäläinen tribe.

The High and Mighty Pohjalainen

The Pohjalainen tribe reside in the regions of Ostrobothnia, Southern Ostrobothnia, Central Ostrobothnia and in the western parts of Northern Ostrobothnia. The Pohjalainen tribe is proud. Of all the tribes, they seem to have the strongest identity and highest self-esteem: the Pohjalainen do not apologize for their existence. This may be the reason why the rest of the Finns think that the Pohjalainen are "full of themselves". Ostrobothnia, the home region of the Pohjalainen tribe, is narrow-minded and not very tolerant towards different ways of life.

Pietilä's research shows that the Finns have a somewhat negative image of the Pohjalainen. What the Pohjalainen think are a positive aspect — their strong self-image — translates to others as a self-centered attitude, a feeling of superiority and a lack of respect for others. Their frankness is viewed as a lack of consideration for the feelings of others and they are said to be rude, stubborn and stand-offish (Pietilä 76). A Pohjalainen is thought to be serious and without a sense of humor. On the other hand, the Pohjalainen themselves think they have a very particular sense of humor, which the other tribes only fail to understand. Pohjalainen are also said to be industrious and short-tempered. The reputation for being short-tempered goes back to the 19th century, to a period of some 90 years when a wave of public disturbance, violence, and terror by juvenile delinquents armed with knives swept over Ostrobothnia, and the province was the most violent in the whole of Fi nland. The reputation has stuck, even though today Ostrobothnia is no more violent than any other region in Finland.

The Pohjalainen are trustworthy. On the other hand, they are also hot-blooded extremists, who willingly join political mass movements without really thinking. This reputation, too, has its roots in historical events, namely in the Finnish civil war in 1918 and the Lapua Movement in the 1920s and 1930s. The Pohjalainen are also thought to have rather conservative values and to lean to the right politically. The Pohjalainen tribe are also keen sportsmen, with Finnish baseball and Greco-Roman wrestling their most popular sports.

Are Tribal Descriptions Relevant in Present-Day Finland?

In the past few years, local cultures have become very popular in Finland. This popularity began with dialect dictionaries in the mid-1990s and spread to dialect cookbooks, comics and poetry. But organizations which cherished the old tribal/regional differences also appeared. In an increasingly transnational world, people have started to turn to their roots in search of identity. While the importance of the 'tribe' as a basis for a people's identity and stereotyping has diminished, other starting points for regional characterizations have emerged; these days, cities are a more common source for regional stereotypes (e.g. the inhabitants of Turku stick together and are churlish towards outsiders; the people of Tampere are rednecks).

Nowadays the word 'tribe' is rarely used to refer to Finland's regional characterizations, even if the idea of regionally distinct characters still lives in Finnish minds. Dialect dictionaries are marketed to "interested members of other tribes" in addition to the speakers of the dialect in question; in magazines, musicians, actors and writers are depicted with words that are almost identical to those of the tribal descriptions, even if the word 'tribe' is nowhere to be found in the articles.

In a recent edition of Image, a magazine aimed at hip, young urban Finns, there were several examples of tribal stereotypes. Former talk show host Ruben Stiller had written a column about the make-up of the Finnish identity and the mentality differences between the relaxed east and the uptight west. In his column, he repeated the most stereotypical characterisations of the four tribes mentioned above by saying:

How is it possible that the mentalities of Häme, Finland Proper, and Ostrobothnia [ie. seriousness, quietness, toiling] have become to dominate our conception of Finnish mentality? When were the joy and laughter of Karelia or the chatter and the word plays of Savo rooted out of the Finnish self-image? (Stiller)

Another writer in the same magazine, Risto Karisto, repeats the humorous but common belief that the intolerant and narrow-minded mentality is the reason behind the popularity of Greco-Roman wrestling in Ostrobothnia. According to Karisto, it is one of the few possibilities for young men to experience physical closeness in such an environment (Karisto).

However, Minttu Pietilä found that a part of the tribal descriptions did not conform to the characterizations of the majority; some, for example, described the Hämäläinen as straightforward, friendly, communicative and open, and the Karelian to be reserved with unfamiliar people. What is remarkable is that all of the non-uniform characterizations were provided by respondents who had been born in the 1960's or later (Pietilä 87).

This might suggest that while tribal descriptions are still an important key to understanding some aspects of Finnish mentality and popular culture, their importance may be slowly diminishing. However, regional or 'tribal' differences cannot be subjected to extensive scientific study, because they are products of people's minds. Therefore the stereotypes will continue to exist as long as people continue to perceive differences. Above all, they will exist as long as popular belief holds that regional tribal distinctions are the cause for the differences in human behavior that may be observed in the different communities of Finland.

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Notes

(1) Virtual Finland covers a wide variety of Finnish subjects, among others population and minorities. For more information on the Swedish minority of Finland see:

• Ekberg, Henrik. Swedish in Finland. 14 November 2001 Update. Virtual Finland, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland, 2003.

And for information on the Sámi (the Lapps) in Finland:

• Horn, Frank. National Minorities of Finland: The Saami (the Lapps). 25 August 2000 Update. Virtual Finland, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland, 2003.

(2) Until 1994, the University of Helsinki had the sole right to publish almanacs and calendars in Finland and the University Almanac was so popular that it was called the "people's almanac". It still is one of the most popular calendars in Finland. The first University Almanac was published in 1705. For more information, see the web site of the Almanac Office at the University of Helsinki

(3) For more information on the National Romanticism Movement, see

• Ylinen, Salla. National Romanticism in Finnish Literature, Painting and Architecture. 3 October 2002 Update. FAST Area Studies Program, Department of Translation Studies, University of Tampere.

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Works Cited

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• Idän ja lännen maa. Idän ja lännen maa: perinteinen maatalous Suomessa. A Virtual exhibition of the Vanhalinna Manor House, Turku University Foundation, University of Turku. Last Viewed 25 January 2004.

• Karisto, Risto. 25 totuutta urheilusta. Image 03/2004.

• Kirkinen, Heikki. Suomi kehittyy välimaastossa. Sukupolvien perintö 2: Talonpoikaiskulttuurin kasvu. Tampere: Kirjayhtymä, 1985. 7-18.

• Kuoppamäki, Pasi. Pre-history before 1100 A.D. A web history of Finland. March 2000 Update. Last viewed 5 January 2004

• Leiwo, Matti. Puhutaanko 2000-luvulla Suomea. Lecture in the seminar "Näkökulmia suomalaisuuden tutkimukseen ja ymmärtämiseen", Finnica. University of Jyväskylä & City of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä: 9 April 1999.

• Malmberg, Ilkka and Tapio Vanhatalo. Heimoerot esiin ja härnäämään! Espoo: Weilin+Göös, 1985.

• Malmberg, Raija. Minä, me ja muut. Me ja muut. Kulttuurienvälinen viestintä. Salo-Lee, Liisa & Raija Malmberg & Raimo Halinoja. Yleisradion opetuspalvelut: Jyväskylä, 1998. 88-98.

• Oxford English Dictionary. Second edition. Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1989. Stereotype (3b).

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• Pietilä, Minttu. Vilkkaat karjalaiset, hitaat hämäläiset, lupsakkaat savolaiset ja ylpeät pohjalaiset. Heimostereotypioiden tarkastelua. Master's Thesis. Department of Ethnology. University of Helsinki, 1997.

• Ruuska, Petri. Mennyt tulevaisuutena. Elävänä Euroopassa. Muuttuva suomalainen identiteetti. Ed. Pertti Alasuutari and Petri Ruuska. Tampere: Vastapaino, 1998. 281-311.

• Siikala, Anna-Leena. Oliko savolaisilla tunteita?. Elektroloristi (1/97). Suomen kansantietouden tutkijain seura, 1997. ISSN 1456-3010.

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• Stiller, Ruben. Anteeksi, oletteko n„hneet identiteetti„ni? Image 03/2004.

• Talve, Ilmar. Finnish Folk Culture. Helsinki: Finnish Literary Society, 1997.

• Topelius, Zacharias. Maamme kirja. Kansanpainos Paavo Cajanderin suomennoksen pohjalla 1981 ilmestyneestä loistopainoksesta. Ed. Vesa Mäkinen.WSOY: Juva, 1998.

• Varpio, Yrjö. Land of the North Star. Introduction to Finnish Literature and Culture. Tampere University Press: Vammala, 1999.

• Virrankoski, Pentti. Suomen historia. Ensimmäinen osa. Finnish Literary Society Helsinki: Jyväskylä, 2001. 49-52.

• Virtanen, Leea. Ellun kana ja Turusen pyssy - Kyllä kansa tietää. Juva: WSOY, 1999.

• - - - . Savolaisten luonnonväärät leuat. Olkaamme siis suomalaisia. Ed. Pekka Laaksonen and Sirkka-Liisa Mettomäki. Kalevalaseuran vuosikirja 75-76. Helsinki: Finnish Literary Society, 1996.

• Ylinen, Salla. National Romanticismin Finnish Literature, Painting and Architecture. 3 October 2002. FAST-FIN-1 (TREN PP3E) Student Paper, FAST Area Studies Program, Department of Translation Studies, University of Tampere. Last viewed 2 November 2003.

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