Re: [tied] Digest Number 1241

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "John L. Berry" <jlbassoc@...>
wrote:

> Dan Milton wrote:
>
> >Dan Milton
>
> Dan:
>
> I heartily second what you have written, and have read books to

this effect (New

> Sweden, 1639-1988? by?), and would be delighted if you could post

the references

> you are using. I hang onto a fond hope that one or two placenames

in the

> Delaware valley will turn out to be Finnish rather than native
> American(?Perkiomen?) . I experienced my first log cabin in

northern Finland in

> the 1950s,
> and in the area that was burned by the retreating Germans they were

still using

> what amounted to a form of swidden agricuture (drain the swamp,

burn it, plant

> it for a few years and move on). However, the timing of the events

you relate

> above seems a bit peculiar to me, and I'd like to read up on it.
>
> Which part of the Norway-Sweden border are you talking about?

Etymologically

> Finnish (Lappish?) names extend almost down to Dalarna in the

border area, but

> it was my understanding that they dated to the era before Swedish

settlement or

> control.
>
> The Finnish farmers reached Kajaani, 100 miles south of the Arctic

circle, in

> 1659. Within a very few years fairs were being held at Puolanka,

a few miles

> further north, with a large Rom presence (according to a monument

there).

> Which in my mind shows you how important the itinerant

traders/tinkers/etc./etc.

> were in the survival of the farmers. In 1957 farmers 100 miles

further North

> still kept tethered reindeer instead of cows (apropos recent

discussions on

> herding vs. farming). This may have been partially a result of the

fact that

> they were still recovering from the devastation of WWII - many of

the farms and

> even mills away from the roads had still not been rebuilt (at least

in the

> commune of Kuusamo).
>
>
> John

Sweden (9 mill.) still has a several hundred thousand strong Finnish
minority. As I gather from Swedish TV there was discontent recently
on the occasion of the discontinuance (shrinking number of students)
of Finnish classes in Trollhättan, 100 km north of Gothenburg. But
Swedes would know more on the subject.

Torsten