A Sami hat and how it affected my view of culture

Photo by Elisabeth Eriksson, Nordiska museet

I have not posted in awhile due to a deadline of a grad school application on Monday (August 1st 2016). My PhD project involve Viking colonialism and therefore the concept of culture is at its center. It has a long tradition in archaeology and has from time to time been slightly misused, but more on that later, because first I want to tell you a little story.

The hat in the photo above is part of the Sami exhibition Sápmi at Nordiska museet (Nordic Museum) in Stockholm and it had a great influence on my view of cultural interactions. It is a traditional Samish hat intended to be borne by a little girl and it dates to the 1930's (or maybe 1940's, I do not remember the exact date the guide told us.). It is traditional in every way, but an older lady taking the same tour as myself seemed really surprised by the images from Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) in the front. She claimed it was not Sami, but the tour guide informed her that the Sami people did not live in any kind of vacuum either in the 1930's or today. They are just as much a part of the modern world as anyone else and like we are influenced by other cultures, so are they.

I had been influenced by Postcolonial Theory before this incident, so I was used to the hybrid concept of culture that they talk about, but I think this was the time when I realised how to define the term and also how it probably is best to view it.

The concept of culture as we know it today is actually to a greater extent a product of European imperialism and the foundation of the nation state in the 19th century. The archaeologist Bruce G. Trigger has made a very good overview both on the origin and development of the concept in his book A History of Archaeological Thought (2nd edition 2006, Cambride) which I found to be fruitful both for archaeologists and others. With time it was combined with Charles Darwin's theories about evolution given the concept a biological foundation. The borders of a culture was also equalled to the borders of a Nation State proclaiming its origin in a homogenous, biological entity (or a race). The biological evolution shown by Darwin was also used as model for cultural evolution and they were classified in a hierarchical structure from simple to complex (Of course with Western cultures on top!). (In a post from about a month ago I discussed how this imperialistic perspective also has shaped our view of the Stone Age.) This "biological" definition of culture has really had some terrible consequences throughout the last 200 years and I think it is about time that we talked about this issue.

What most people do not know is that Sweden was actually sort of "the inventor" of Scientific Racism as a academic discipline. The first institute in the world was opened in Uppsala in 1922 and was then spread across the world, not least to Nazi-Germany. So it has had really terrible consequences indeed...

Back to the Sami children's hat from the photo above. It is one of those artefacts that really can show us how cultures interact. It is made according to Sami tradition, but its use of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs makes it unique because it shows how traditions changes in the meeting with influences from some place else. Snow White was a popular children's movie when it first came out in 1937 just as any Disney film of today is. Therefore it should not be so surprising that even a Sami girl has seen it and probably liked it (Why would the maker otherwise include it in the hat?). To me it shows that cultures is much better seen as entirely social. I think it is ongoing negotiations of what works socially in different settings. Anything that carries a social value will be picked up and only the phenomena that looses their social value will disappear. It gives us a much more flexible and open-minded view of cultures which hopefully will not cause any trouble for anyone in the future.

And on that note: To me the biggest problem with Snow White on the Sami hat is that Snow White seems to be much smaller than the dwarfs...


Photo from http://digitaltmuseum.se/011023761482?query=m%C3%B6ssa%20samisk&pos=7

My Heroines: Katarina Örnfot

A union of the Nordic countries called the Kalmar union, was established by Queen Margareta in 1397 and in 1997 there was therefore a big jubliee in the Swedish town Kalmar (which gave its name to the union.
Swedish Television (SVT) has usually a special show for children in the mornings during the summer holidays. In 1997 the plot of that show told the story about Nils Svensson who has a great interest in knights and travels to Kalmar in 1997 to take part of the jubilee and through his mobile phone ends up in Kalmar 1397. There he befriends Erik of Pomerania who was crowned king in the last episode and the rather clumsy knight Riddare Rosenstråle. His best friend, however, is Katarina Örnfot (Anna Rydgren).

Katarina is the daughter of the knight Bengt Örnfot and most of her other family died from the plague. She has had a brother named Karl too. He was a squire. Bengt was injured in the war against the, so called, mecklenburgarna* and cannot fulfil his duties as a knight. Because of this Karl is given the task of representing him so the family can keep their position in the nobility. The big problem is that Karl died in battle with mecklenburgarna. This is kept a secret between Katarina and her father to not jeopardise their social position. Also because of this, Katarina takes on the role as squire and becomes the best rider in all of Kalmar. The reason why it has to be kept a secret is because women were not allowed to become knights, something they also clearify many times in the show. However Katarina's story might not have been so fictive as you might have thought.

The general picture of the woman in the Middle Ages have changed a lot in recent years and Katarina seems to reflect this. The portrayal of the woman in the Middle Ages was actually one of the main problems I had with SVT:s julkalender (christmas calender) Tusen år till julafton (1000 years to christmas eve) last year (2015).

Tusen år till julafton depicted the medieval woman as precluded from society, trapped in some castle all the time and boring in general. A picture that has been questioned a lot by researcher of the last decades. Katarina is a strong contrast to this picture. She is actually quite the opposite: colourful and independent. She takes an active role in her society and she is never overshadowed by her male companions in the show.

I like the plotpoint of her being a squire and later dubbed as a knight in her own name. I can also oversee with the anachronism of this because they explained that women were not allowed to become knights so much. It is a perfect example of how you, inside the frame of a fictive historical narrative can problematize an issue from the time period in which the story takes place. It legitimize the liberties taken by the people behind the story. This is one of the biggest issues (besides showing an outdated picture of the medieval woman) that I have with Tusen år till julafton as well. In the episode that portrayed the noble classes of the Middle Ages, they had both a woman being a knight and also a girl training to become one and they never revealed anything about the fact that women could not become knights! (In fact they were often rather hard on real historic girls in that calender, but that is a topic for another entry.)

In recent years a lot of research has shown that Katarina might not have been alone. There are quite a lot of female warriors and not least female defenders throughout the Middle Ages (There is actually a Swedish website called Kvinnliga krigare about them.). In fact Erik of Pomerania was surrounded by them. Margareta's way to all the Nordic thrones did not come easy and Erik's wife Philippa/Filippa (daughter of Henry IV of England) is known to have defended Copenhagen during an attack from the Hanseatic league in 1428. The medieval, European society seems to have required a man even during times when they were not present. A fact that Katarina depicts beautifully.

Unlike, for example, the character Brienne in Game of Thrones, Katarina is not reduced to being "just one other tomboyish female who gets to play knight" either. She also has a side to her that would probably be seen as traditionally female. She is caring and from time to time also quite motherly towards the boys in the show. She is allowed to show a much better and varied picture of a female character and I love characters like that! They are not reduced to stereotypes, which I think makes them seem more real. I also love how much research really seems to have gone into the show. Nils meets people that did really live in Kalmar during the late 14th century! They also seemed to have a plan on what they wanted to tell and how. It was more than just entertainment. Like with Horrible Histories, they wanted to educate children and managed to do so very well. It is a shame that there was not so much follow up to the interest the show got from the audience.

The theme of the show was the 14th century ballad Douce Dame Jolie by Guillaume de Machaut.

The autograph I got from the actress Anna Rydgren who
played Katarina.

I know I kind of bashed Tusen år till julafton a lot in this entry, but I was kind of disappointed even though they managed pretty good we a lot of things (e.g. with explaining the estates of the realm during the 17th century). My measurements for good educational shows about history are Salve and Horrible Histories and Katarina and the medieval women Horrible Histories portrays (for example Jeanne d'Arc and Black Agnes) are really so much better representations of what a woman of that time period was like. This is really why I have so much problem with the calendar's portrayal of them which I felt was prejudiced and also somewhat condescending.


*Mecklenburgare is the term used for the supporter of  Albrekt of Mechlenburg who ruled over Sweden before Margareta seized also the Swedish throne. They are depicted as the antagonists of the show.

Conn Iggulden - Wars of the Roses. Stormbird

The Wars of the Roses is a difficult period in the history of England. Conn Iggulden starts his series about the period with the death of Edward III in 1377. After that event, there was a messy fight for power among his sons that split the family into many different branches. York and Lancaster are the most important ones to understand the Wars of the Roses.

The power struggle after Edward's death led to Henry IV (part of the Lancaster branch) took the throne from his cousin Richard II. Henry was the father of Philippa who married the Nordic union king Erik of Pomerania in 1406 (I will return to her in later blog posts.). His oldest son Henry V inherited the English throne after him.

Henry V is seen as a hero by the English for beating the French in the battle of Agincourt in 1415. He, however, died young in 1422 leaving the throne to his very young son Henry VI. The latter is the king of England when Stormbird starts off in 1443.

Henry VI is nothing like his father. He is  young and sickly and wants peace. His spymaster Derry Brewer therefore gets the idea to marry him off to the French princess Margaret of Anjou in exchange for a truce and parts of France that had been counquered by the English during the 100 years war that Edward III started. This because he understands that Henry never will be able to keep them. Derry is one of a few fictional characters in Stormbird and Iggulden explains why he chose to follow this part at the end of the book in an appendix called  Historical notes (The main reason he gives is that Henry would have needed a person who knew the ways of the French court.)

Henry and Margaret marries and a fragile truce is initiated. The Frenchmen are, however pretty violent in their ways to take back controll over the parts Henry has returned to them and they meets some serious resistance in the English settlers (eg Thomas Woodchurch and his son Rowan). Henry's father's second cousin (if I have correctly understood the family tree), Richard, Duke of York gets upset over the whole affair and starts gathering support for claiming his right to the throne.

Henry is depicted as a credulous and mild man who does not quite grasp the life outside of the castle walls. This leads to courtiers surrounding him, taking liberties and titles and his subjects suffer. This is where the character Jack Cade walks into the story. He is the leader of a revolt in Kent and manages to get to London. Iggulden depicts him as if he could be a very good leader, but his abuse of alcohol makes him volatile. If he had managed in making the Londoners part of his revolt, he might have succeded better, but instead, he loots the city, turning them against him.

Iggulden tells the story from many different characters. This gets confusing from time to time and I think it would have been better if he used one character's perspective for an entire chapter (kind of like in the A Song of Ice and Fire books). At the same time the story also benefits from this changing perspective, giving the reader a chance to see the different types of power that comes into conflict.

The character I personally likes most to follow is queen Margaret. She has got a bad reputation in history because of Yorkish propaganda and I like that Iggulden has chosen to get away from the picture of her as "The she-wolf of France". Instead he portrays her as a product of the power vaccum in England at the time. She develops from a 14 year old princess to a strong queen prepared to fight for her position, her marriage and her son. Unfortunately, she is the only female among the main characters in a very male oriented plot (Richard of York's wife Cecily do appear from time to time, but seems less important to the plot.). This might have historical reasons, but I still think there most have been some other women present at the time.

The portrayal of violence is pretty good, but I mostly enjoyed how Iggulden takes a more humanistic approach to the events of the time. The scenes between Margaret and Henry and between Thomas Woodchurch and Rowan is depicted with tenderness and love and is a nice interruption to the otherwise pretty raw power struggles the book depicts.

Jennifer Kent - The Babadook

Essie Davis in The Babadook

The Babadook is an Australian horror film by Jennifer Kent and was also the first time I (consciously) saw Essie Davis who plays the main character Amelia.

Amelia is a single mother and has a six year old son named Samuel (Noah Wiseman). She was widowed when her husband died in a car crash while they were on the way to the hospital when Samuel was born. Samuel is quite difficult and gets expelled from school for bringing his homemade weapons. One day the mother and son find a book about the Babadook and start reading it. This is when you can say that all hell breaks loose for them.

Like so many others have done, I really enjoyed this film. I enjoyed that it left a lot to the imagination of the audience and did not use jump scares so much. I also enjoyed how psychological it was. I found the film scary from time to time, but the main feeling I had was sadness. I felt so sorry for Amelia and her son. They were pretty much isolated from the rest of the world and most people were quite mean to both of them. It is also a very beautiful film.

Essie Davis and Noah Wiseman in The Babadook

I can go on and on about how much I love Essie Davis as an actress (but I will not). I think she is amazing and as I said before, this was the film where I discovered her talents. If I had not read it I would not have thought that she was the same actress as is playing Phryne Fisher who I discovered because of this film, but who I today love even more. Noah Wisman is also wonderful! At first you get really angry and irritated since Samuel is very annoying, but as the film moves on and Amelia starts to get more and more insane, you start feel sorry for him.

I see the film more symbolically than literally and this might be why I was more sad than scared. To me it is a very good exploration of depression and repressed feelings. It shows a single parents struggle with life and a difficult child while suffering from sleep deprivation. I myself, grew up with a single mother and I can guarantee I have had many ups and downs throughout my life.

The film also reminded me of an episode in my hometown a couple of years back: A depressed single mother lost welfare help and first kept her two young sons home from school and then drowned them in the lake.

Essie Davis in The Babadook

Depression is really terrible. It changes everything inside you to an extent that is not entirely obvious to someone who has never been affected by it. Most often, you do not realise that you are depressed until it is too late. It is a hard condition and takes a long time to get better. The Babadook strives towards the light though. The ending is quite happy even though it also shows that the monsters do not go away all together.


I borrowed the pictures in this entry from the official Babadook site and I hope that was okay.

Savage Stone Age 2

One of the Motala skulls
Photo: Fredrik Hallgren,
Stiftelsen Kulturmiljövård

This post will be a follow up to the last one because I really want to tell you what I think we can learn from the Stone Age. I am mostly familiar with Scandinavia and this will reflect my point of view.

A couple of years ago I participated in an archaeological excavation of a settlement and burial site from the Mesolithic period in Motala in South-Eastern Sweden. The site is called Kanaljorden and you can find more information (in Swedish) here. Today the site consisted of a peat bog, but during the Mesolithic it was a shallow lake. In this lake was a large stone packing and among other some human skulls were found. At least some of these skulls seem to have been placed on sticks. To us, living in the Western world today, this might seem confusing, scary and awful, but it might not have been to the Mesolithic people that gathered in Motala 8000 years ago.

I do not think we should talk about evolution as something that is constantly striving to get better. This gives a hierarchy to cultures and societies both in the past and present and history is reduced to being a constant struggle to evolve (in a unilinear way and with our contemporary Western society as the norm for ultimate goal of evolution). I think it is better to think in terms of cultural differences. The Stone Age people were not more stupid than us. They just lived different lives.

But why do we need to study the Stone Age? Is it really relevant to us today? It was so long ago and their societis were so different.

Well first of all, not all Stone Age societies were hunter-gatherers. Remember the Neolithic was a time of farming. Besides there were cities in the Middle East and the Egyptians built their famous pyramids during the Stone Age. But there is a special way in which the Stone Age can be very useful for us today. We live in a time of climate change and the Stone Age people did the same. They were forced to invent a new way of living and looking at the world. That is something I think we all need to consider today as well. The big question is if we are willing to do so.

Savage Stone Age

Even if it cannot be seen on this blog (yet), I do have more nerdy favourites than Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries. My second largest is the British sketch show Horrible Histories. It is mainly aimed towards children, but it has a huge adult fan base as well, which is not really surprising. It is based on books by Terry Deary and to a Swedish audience it is probably best described as similar in its setup to the Swedish children's show Fem myror är fler än fyra elefanter. Both consist of educational sketches and songs and both also use humour to teach children about certain themes. Fem myror är fler än fyra elefanter teaches them to read and count and therefore has a somewhat younger audience than Horrible Histories, whichs main theme is history. And not just history taught in school which mainly involves years, wars and rulers. The show uses fun, weird and sometimes quite gruesome facts about time period, people or weird thing that happened.

The humour of the show is what I like the most. It is not like in so many other shows aimed both towards children and adults today, it usually trusts its audience to be smart enough to get the jokes and messages that it want to get across. For short: it treats even children like they have a brain and they can think for themselves. The jokes are seldom straight forward and often want to evoke a reflection process in the audience, which it also seem to manage. It encourages children to do their own research and also be quite source critical. I can go on and on in my praises of the show, but I also have some minor criticism about it. Mainly when it comes to how the Stone Age and the Neanderthals are portrayed. These themes are often quite stereotypically depicted and the extremely problematic term "cavemen" is used often during the shows Stone Age sketches. It also portrays people who barely can speak, especially when it comes to Neanderthals. The subject of Neanderthals speech abilities has been discussed among scholars a lot in recent years and we have not heard the last about it. However, there are great sketches about the Stone Age as well in the show. Sketches that really problematize the concept and the general picture of the Stone Age human. The best I think is the one illustrated by the pictures below.

Normally I prefer later time periods like the Iron Age and Middle Ages, but after participating in a huge archaeological excavation in Motala in Sweden a couple of years ago, I see myself as tiptoeing around in the Stone Age as well.
First of all, the Stone Age is, like every other historical time period, is a construction of later times mainly made by academics to sort through the mess that historical facts can be. Just the Stone Age is part of the so called Three-age System that the Danish antiquarian  Christian Jürgensen Thomsen put together for the archaeological collection at the National Museum of Copenhagen in the 1820's. Therefore it fits best for the Scandinavian prehistory and might be less convenient for other geographical areas. It is not all the time good and handy and can be very unwieldy. However, I still is the most practical way to handle it.

The Stone Age can be divided into three smaller chunks: The Paleolithic, (the older Stone Age), The Mesolithic, (the Middle Stone Age) and the Neolithic (the New Stone Age). These divisions is based mainly on livelihood, but also somewhat on climate changes. I think the Paleolithic in some cases can be stretched as far back as we can get, even long before our own speices, Homo Sapiens, did evolve. The Mesolithic is mainly used for Northern Europe which was covered by the ice during the Ice Age. During both of these periodes, humans were nomadic hunter gatherers. During the Neolithic on the other hand, people started settling down with agriculture and pets. Even though, dogs seems to have been domesticated already during the Mesolithic.

But enough about the period itself! What I want to talk about in this entry is the depiction of the time period in popular culture. What does the Stone Age generally mean to someone who is not an archaeologist and why is it depicted as it is?

Stone Age is probably the one period that brings out the contemporary evolutionistic biases of the Western world the most. The period was mainly created through Western colonial contact with other types of societies and analogies were used to make parallels between the distant past and the distant present.

Archaeology as a science has its roots in the antiquarian tradition of the 17th and 18th century, but was not really founded as a dicipline until the second half of the 19th century. Charles Darwin's theories of (biological) evolution played a huge part in the development of the dicipline and cultural evolution was seen as an extention of it. The process was unilinear and everything was seen as striving to evolve. This lead (Western) scholars to place different cultures into hiearchies based on the level of evolution. Of course the Western one was the ultimate goal as to which every other society would become. Hunter-gatherer groups of (especially America, and Australia) were placed at the bottom of the hiearchies. They were seen as the last remains of Paleolthic hunter gatherer groups and had not the means to evolve by themselves. Neither the Stone Age nor the contemporary hunter-gatherer groups were viewed as societies and cultures that were supposed to be studied in their own rights and contexts, but as a mean to exaggerate how evolved the Western world had become and also to legitimize Western imperialism since contemporary hunter-gatherer groups were not able to evolve without the influence of the Western society.

Unfortunately this colonially biased view of the Stone Age has remained in Western popular culture and can be seen in many of the Savage Stone Age sketches of Horrible Histories, but I really enjoyed the one shown by the pictures above. This because it problematized our view of the Stone Age and also showed that white men still carry prejudice towards other culture. The joke works because, on the contrary to much humour of today, it is not bullying on the people already lying on the ground. It is the white man, considering higher up in the hiearchy that is suffering for his prejudices instead. That is humour at its best!

Phryne and the Astrid girls

First of all I want to apologise becauce this entry will be really long, but I have had lots of thoughts about this, so I hope you will stick with me until the end.

The Honorable Phryne Fisher was first of the entries in my My Heroines series. She is the latest in a long line of female fictional character that I have looked up to for inspiration, strength or just comfort.

As a Swede watching Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, I have found myself thinking back to some of my other heroines from the past. Mainly the girls that Astrid Lindgren has written about. For example Madicken, Ronja rövardotter (Ronja, the robber's daughter), Pippi Långstrump (Pippi Longstocking) and, maybe the most obvious in relation to Phryne's profession: Eva-Lotta Lisander from the books about Mästerdetektiven Kalle Blomkvist (Kalle Blomkvist, the master detective).
 

Pippi Långstrump

If you have never encountered "the Astrid girls" before I can strongly recommend you to read the books and/or see the Swedish films about them. (I do not give much about the other adaptations of them besides the anime version of Ronja.) The best part is that they are all just as enjoyable for adults as they are for children.

My nerdiness for Phryne got me to reread both of the Madicken books and Ronja rövardotter. It also got me thinking about an article by Swedish writer and journalist Margareta Strömstedt in which she analyses the gender roles in Astrid Lindgren's authorship that I read awhile ago: "Du och ja, Alfred" - Om kärlekens kärna och om manligt och kvinnligt hos Astrid Lindgren (1996). She states that: "Det är svårt att få någon riktig ordning på könsrollerna i Astrid Lindgrens böcker." ("There is no real order to the gender roles in books by Astrid Lindgren"). A conclusion, I find to be true based on both Strömstedt's argumentations in the article mentioned above and on my own memories of both the female and male characters in Astrid Lindgren's "universe".
 

Ronja rövardotter

Madicken is often described as a boy and compared to her father on several occasions throughout both books (Her little sister Lisabet is compared to their mother.). She still however plays with dolls and loves to dress up from time to time.

Pippi has been discussed as a boy disguised as a girl by commentators, but they kind of miss the point. Even though she is outspoken, physically strong and care-free, she still harbour traditionally "female" characteristics. She is caring and motherly towards others and becomes like an extra mother to Tommy and Annika who's parents willingly leave their children in her care.

Eva-Lotta and Rasmus

Eva-Lotta is only a girl on Mondays. The rest of the week, she calls herself a boy being a knight of the White Roses together with Kalle and Anders. They play "war" (The war of the Roses) with the Red Roses Sixten, Benke and Jonte trying to get hold of the stone they call Stormumriken. Despite acting like a boy most of the time, she still loves puppies and babies and she is very brave revealing murderers and letting herself get kidnapped just so the little boy Rasmus will not be so scared.

Ronja lives her life in a robber's castle and spends all day out in the forest far away from any gender norms. She grows up with her parents Mattis and Lovis and the father's gang of robbers. The male robbers are the breadwinners and her mother is a housewife, but that still does not mean that Lovis is weak. Quite the contrary! Lovis might spend her days cooking and cleaning, but she does never take any of the robbers's shit. Both she and Ronja stands up for themselves and what they believe in when Mattis behaves like a pig and, for example kidnaps the enemy robber chief Borka's son Birk whom Ronja has befriended in secret.

 "Röva kan du göra, pengar och saker och vad skräp du vill, men människor, kan du inte röva, för då vill jag inte vara din dotter mer" ("You can steal. Money and things and whatever trash you want. But you cannot steal humans because then I do not want to be your daughter anymore")

~ Ronja rövardotter

There is a great deal of humanism in both the Astrid girls and Phryne. A willingness to put their own need aside for someone who is wunerable is often present in all of them for example. It is clear in Ronja's reaction to Mattis kidnapping Birk. Astrid gives us an important message in the quote above. Humans are something totally different than money and things. There is no defense for robbing anyone of their freedom.

In Madicken the humanistic approach is strong in Madicken's sense of justice and empathy for everyone. She does have prejudices towards her much poorer classmate Mia and Mia at the same time also has prejudices towards Madicken because Madicken comes from a wealthy family. This makes Mia acting as sort of an antagonist towards Madicken. They even get into a physical fight ending with Madicken getting a bloody nose. Both girls have to deal with their prejudice before they can become friends. I think this is a really great message and one that we need to address more than we do today. You cannot really blame people for being prejudiced. Everyone will always have some prejudice against others. I would even say it is perfectly normal to have them. It is how we deal with our prejudices when we face something that contradicts them that is most important. Are we letting them blind us or do we let the new facts challenge our view of the world and other people?

Madicken and Lisabet

Pippi already from the beginning stands up for the weaker, using her physical strength to throw up bullies in trees because, as she says herself: "Den som är väldigt stark måste också vara väldigt snäll. ("One who is very strong, also needs to be very kind."). She could easily use her strength to gain power, but instead she is very restricted in when or how she uses it. She is first and foremost loving, caring and kind. (Like with so many of the Astrid Lindgren characters, things just happen around her!)

 "I can't help you if you won't tell me the truth."

~ Phryne Fisher

Like the Astrid girls, Phryne's sense of humanity is shown in her compassionate nature. Not least for women exposed to different kinds of hardship. When Dot gets fired and questioned by the police, Phryne provides her with a home and a new job. She also takes the teenage girl Jane in under her wings and becomes a "guardian angel" for her. When a teenage girl is found murdered, she teaches Jane and her friends self-defense. (I love Phryne's facial expression in the picture bellow from when an old lady shows up at Wardlow claiming to be Jane's aunt. She clearly senses Jane's fear of the woman and her vulnerability is mirrored in Phryne's facial expression.) 
 

Phryne with Jane

One other aspect of Margareta Strömstedt's article described above that I find especially intriguing is that Strömstedt thinks Astrid Lindgren sort of "plays around" with the ideal woman that originated among the bourgeoisies in late 18th century Europe. The gender roles were, among the bourgeois, considered static traits. The woman was expected to fit into a family constellation in which the man was the sole breadwinner. The man was the one seen in society outside of the house. He was the one who built society, and he built it around himself. The female sphere was much more intimate; at home where the man could relax. The traits a good woman was supposed to have, were the ones that fittet the bourgeois male the most. She was supposed to be physically attractive, timid and fragile, wherefore she was in desperate need of male guidance. She was the man's subordinate in just about every aspect of life and was supposed to love him submissively. This is the type of woman Lindgren portrays (rather ironically) in Madicken's mother.

When you think about it, it is quite strange that these ideals spread so widely in society when experience from other social classes contradict the notion of women being weaker and less valuable to society than the men. A farmer's wife would never survive with the traits of the burgeois woman. In fact, the whole farm would probably collapse if she would just sit around playing piano and/or being bedridden because of a headache all day. In the farmers's world, in which Astrid grew up and in which she found her main inspiration, the woman was theoretically subordinated to the man, but practically his equal. She needed the same trait as the man. She needed to be practial, have strength and endurance. Lindgren herself was never an outspoken feminist, but she knew about the strength of women and was never late to tell people off for having prejudices against them. (For one thing, she became rather upset and declined contributing to an anthology of the diocese in Linköping during the 1960's because they were openly against female priests.)

Phryne Fisher

I find these ideals interesting also when it comes to Phryne. She is often considered to behave in an "un-womanly" fashion (Just ask her aunt Prudence!). She drives fast cars, climbs buildings, knows about sports like football, tennis and boxing and she handles a gun just like a man. Besides that, she is also sexually liberated, having sex just because she likes it with whomever she is attracted to at the moment. Phryne is a rather wealthy woman and belongs to the upper classes of society. However, this has not always been the case and she grew up in poverty with an alcoholic father (Much like Madicken's neighbour, the 15-year-old boy Abbe.). The differences in the expectations of woman in the different social classes in which she has found herself might actually be a clue to her personality. Not that I know much (or really anything) about the ideal of women in lower social classes in early 20th century Australia, but I can imagine it being similar to the Swedish famer's women and not so much to the ideal bourgeois woman.

Phryne's character is more similar to the Swedish farmer's women than the bourgeois's as described by Margareta Strömstedt. The money and title she has inheritade do not limit her freedom. Instead, the seem to provide her with the opportunity to pursue all her dreams. She certainly has the spirit of an Astrid girl: witty, adventurous, headstrong, kind, empathetic, somewhat quirky and totally loveable. I can definitely see her dreaming of becoming a pirate like Pippi or watch out to not fall into the river by the river (Because where else can you do that?!) like Ronja. Jumping across Helvetesgapet (The gap of hell) together with Jack Robinson, like Ronja does with Birk is probably also something she would love to try. (Even though I am not so sure Jack would be as willing to accompany her as Birk is...)

There is however one Astrid girl that I think she is a little more similar to than the others. The collage at the begining of this entry might give you an indication... Of course I am thinking about Madicken! (I have already written an entire post about her. If you want to know more, you can find the link above or here). They are almost contemporary (The Madicken books are set during the First World War and Miss Fisher in 1928-29) and both wear frilly dresses, but is so much more than that.

"Den ungen har aldrig haft förstånd att vara rädd" ("That child has never had sense enough to be scared")

~ Kajsa Engström, about Madicken

Both can also be somewhat reckless. For example do they both seem to have a fondness for climbing buildings, walking on roof-tops and flying. However, Phryne knows what a parachute is and never mixes it with an umbrella like Madicken does. The latter jumps of the roof of the woodshed ending up with a concussion because Abbe has told her they do jump out of airplanes with umbrellas in the war. Planes actually play a rather large part of both girls's lives. Phryne does fly them for real though. Madicken mainly hears about them from Abbe who dreams about being a pilot, but she also visits an airshow. She and her father are invited by the pilot to fly with him, but she gives away the chance, letting Abbe fly instead. Madicken also walks across the rooftop of the school house since Mia dares her to do it.

Phryne and Madicken also have one little sister each. Unfortunately, Phyrne's little sister Jane is kidnapped and killed while they are still children, a destiny Lisabet escapes. Unless you count that time when she and Madicken plays the biblical story of Joseph and Madicken sells Lisabet into slavery... Or when the crazy man Lindkvist takes her...

They both also have maids who are a huge part of their lives and who also become more like family members to them. In Phryne's case it is the strictly Catholic girl Dorothy (Dot) Williams and Madicken has Alva who really is like a third parent to her and Lisabet. (When Madicken gets into trouble that Alva thinks will limit her freedom, Alva keeps them secret from Madicken's parents.)

Social and moral issues are topics both girls deal with quite a lot. Madicken's father Jonas is the editor of the local newspaper and by the neghbour Farbror Nilsson called the Gentry Socialist. He wants to raise his daughters to be empathetic and show kindness and understanding towards all people, not just the rich. Madicken's mother Kajsa at first does not seem to stand behind her husband's ideals in this and she does not like the fact that Madicken spends so much time at the Nilssons. As said above, she is a somewhat ironic portrayal of a stereotypical bourgeois woman. During the course of the second book (Madicken och Junibackens Pims) she, however shows a different side of herself. She invites Alva to the Mayor's ball and she also stands totally firm in her invitation to Mia and her little sister Mattis helping them get rid of their lice together with Madicken (and Lisabet who does not really have any lice, but joins in anyway).

Phryne weaves together a family of friends from different social brackets: a strict Catholic girl, a Police Constable, her butler, two communist taxi drivers, a lesbian doctor, her noble aunt, a teenage girl she picks up from the street and last but certainly not least a Detective Inspector of the Melbourne police. Just like Madicken, she shows us that social classes do not matter so much. We can all live peacefully together and like each other. We just need to be openminded, understanding and first and foremost kind.

Contrary to Madicken, Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries is directed towards adults. This makes the social issues in the series about her much heavier. Like Madicken, it deals with poverty, but it also cleverly uses the 1920's to deal with topics like abortion, racism, homophobia, worker's rights etc. Topics that are still being discussed today.

Jack Robinson

As I have already discussed, both girls care a lot about other people and do not hesitate to stand up for the weaker ones. They have very big hearts and there are also one person (each) that those hearts beat for a little extra. In Madicken's case it is of course Abbe, but because she is only seven (and he is 15), he treats her more like a little sister and  from time to time Madicken seems to be quite scared that he will understand that she has a cruch on him.

Phryne has Detective Inspector Jack Robinson and it is quite obvious that he loves her back. Maybe a little too much, which makes him both scared, worried and even sad. Like when he believes Phryne to have killed herself in a car crash.

"And to the one as yet unsung hero, who has saved me over and over again"

~ Phryne Fisher

Jack really deserves his own entry in this blog, because I really like him as a character and also his relationship with Phryne. Therefore I will not go into him further here. I just have to include the fact that while Phryne is like a typical Astrid girl, Jack is quite like the typical Astrid boy.

Astrid Lindgren did not write boys the same way as she did girls! While the girls are real super heros from page one, the boys need to become heros going through hardship. There are a few exceptions to this (like her probably most famous boy, Emil i Lönneberga), but I will go into it here. This entry is way too long anyway.

The boys are often lonely after they have been abandoned in some way (mostly by one or both parents). This derives from a deep sorrow in Astrid Lindgren's own mind. Her (married) boss made her pregnant when she was just 18. This forced Lindgren to run away from her beloved home town Vimmerby and give birth in secret in Copenhagen where the only hospital in Scandinavia that allowed unmarried women to give birth in total discretion at the time (1926) was. Unlike many of the other single mothers who came there, Lindgren wanted nothing more than to be able to care for her son herself, but she was young and poor and had to leave him in a foster family in Copenhagen for three years. When he finally arrived in Sweden and they could live together, they were both quite miserable, especially him. This expericence is behind Lindgren's portrayal of lonely boys. The boys in her authorship is brooding, somewhat shy and introvert, but they rises to challenges. Given time, they become the super heros the Astrid girls are from the begining. Kind of like Jack! Jack does at first seem quite boring, aloof and brooding, but facing challenges he proves himself to be as worthy as superhero as Phryne.

"Det finns saker som man måste göra, även om det är farligt. Annars är man ingen människa utan bara en liten lort." ("There are things you have to do even though they are dangerous. Otherwise you are not a human being, only a piece of dirt.")

~ Jonatan Lejonhjärta, The Brothers Lionheart

I know this entry became very long and I'm glad you stuck with me until the end. This is some thoughts I have had since I started watching Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries a couple of months ago. The Miss Fisher-series is not so well known over here and the show is basically only spread through "mouth to mouth". No one talks about it and only the first two seasons have been shown on TV and can be found on Swedish Netflix. This is sad because I really think Miss Fisher would appeal to a Swedish audience if they knew her better. She shares many values with us, which her similarities to the Astrid girls show in a way.

I also would like to think that Phryne herself would like to come investigate murder cases in Sweden. The late 1920's was in Swedish history in fact rather interesting. I wrote more about that and the very excentric criminologist Harry Söderman who was Astrid Lindgren's boss on my Tumblr blog awhile back. He was a remarkable person and kind of someone I think Phryne (and Jack) would like to befriend.

Miss Fisher and human skulls

I have been wanting to do a Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries episodes analysis in order and this is not an entirely thorough analysis of episode 2x08 The Blood of Juana the Mad, but a small comment on an aspect of the episode that I have been thinking about. It might also be a little too confusing since I am really exhausted tonight. I have just started excavating a Viking Age burial ground and even though I am happy as can be over it (Burials and the Viking Age are my favourites!!!), this is something that I thought and wondered about. The thoughts might also derive from the fact that I am exposed to bones and skeletons (even more than usual!) because of my current work situation.

Hugh Collins finding the skull

The episode is about the murder of Professor Katz at the university and Phryne's best friend, the doctor Elizabeth MacMillan, calls in both her and Detective Inspector Jack Robinson to investigate. A human skull comes to play a rather important part in solving the case. I will not spoil who's skull it is or what part it plays in the investigation, because that is not really relevant in this case.

I am not an expert on early 20th century history, especially not in Australia. However, I think I know a thing or two about bones. I have studied Osteology and as an archaeologist I do come into contact with them a lot in my professional life. Lately I have also been interested in the skull collection of Anders and Gustaf Retzius since I have gained an interest in the more recent past from my research about colonialism and European imperialism.

As a human body decompose, it kind of falls apart in a rather predictable way. Among other things, the lower jaw gets detached from the skull, having been attached to the skull only by muscles and soft tissues. In the episode 2x08, The Blood of Juana the Mad however, on the skulls left on display in the university, all the lower jaws are left attached. There is even a moment, when Phryne breaks them apart and Professor Bradbury gets irritated because of it.

I have been trying to find out what the norm for lower jaws in osteological collections was at the time. I have not been able to find much information about it, but based on photos and oral and written sources I have manage to find out that normally the skulls were the main focus of cranial collections and the lower jaw were not seldom left out. If the skulls were put on display, the lower jaw often accompanied it by being placed underneath. It was attached (with a metal thread) if the whole skeleton was put together for displaying and research purposes and the like. Taken away from the rest of the jaw might still be attached to the skull.

There are no good enough pictures of the skull important for the plot to see if there are any metal threads attached to it. When Mac is handling it in the picture above, the lower jaw is definitely attached to the skull in question. When it comes to the jaw Phryne breaks apart there seems to be some sort of metal screw to it in the middle of the upper jaw. If this was used to hold the lower jaw is not clear. They obviously knew the skull and lower jaw to be seperated in episode 2x02, Death comes knocking. This was also a buried body and not one on display.

This probably is not exactly relevant to anything and it certainly does not say anything about the case or episode, but it got me thinking because it was something that might go against my schooling and thought about.

Johanne Hildebrandt - Idun. Sagan om Valhalla

In Norse Mythology, Idun (or Iðunn) is the wife of Brage (who she also marries in the book) and seems to be one of the lesser known deities of the Norse pantheon. She is connected to apples and youth and one myth tells how she is kidnapped by the giant Þjazi (Swedish: Tjatse) after having been tricked to walk outside of Asgard by Loki.

Idun is also the second installment of the Sagan om Valahalla series  by Johanne Hildebrandt. Like with the entry about Freja, I do not intend to do a full review of the book, but rather use this entry to discuss a topic from the book that got me thinking.

Just like with Freja, I was still a teenager when Idun was first published back in 2003 and also like with Freja, my maturity and archaeological training afterwards have made me see the book in a different light.

In the entry about Freja, I talked a little about how Swedes in general lack knowledge and understanding of Scandinavian prehistory. As an archaeologist I feel strongly for this topic and there are much more that I feel to be said about it. However, I refrain from doing so here because there is another aspect of Idun that I want to discuss because it got me thinking even more. But lets start at the beginning!

Idun is the daughter of Freja and Tor and not really anything like her mother. Freja is independent, confident, outspoken and quite fearless. She also has the ability to see and talk to gods and spirits and is a highly ranked priestess. Idun, on the other hand, is scared, timid, shy and introvert. She has not inherit Freja's supernatural powers and is not at all popular among the men during the fertility rituals. Freja sees her as a disappointment and therefore treats her poorly. With this background it might not be so hard to guess why she falls a little too fast and hard for the beautiful youngling Brage when he shows up with Tor and a dying Frej.

Contrary to her mother and aunt Gefjyn, Idun has many traits traditionally ascribed to women. She is caring and nurturing of all living things. Like the goddess, she cares for the apple trees, which makes the fruits taste better according to Freja. She also adores children. She cared for her little sister Hnoss who died before the book started and she is also a favourite to the queen of Alheim, Alfhild's daughters Ingvild and Svea. Her greatest dream seems to be a wish to give birth to daughters so she can show her mother that she is capable of something.

I find the contrast between Freja's and Idun's characters to be really interesting. Not so much because they are mother and daughter and seem to be so different in character, but because it puts a finger on depiction of female characters in popular culture and who's considered "strong" or "weak".

In general, there are two "criteras" for who are considered "good female role models" in popular cultures of today. One is that she is like Freja. She breaks away from the traditional role of the woman, being limited to the home. She is a priestess and does not have time or interest in housework like cooking and cleaning. The other criteria is not so much a trait of Freja, but traits that her sister Gefjyn exhibits. Gefjyn is trained to be a warrior and therefore kind of a female version of the "macho man". Neither of the sisters are especially motherly or loving even though they show empathy towards others from time to time. Idun, on the other hand, shows a lot of the traits traditionally ascribed to females being both of them. She is not the strong, independent priestess Freja has been waiting for and she therefore sees Idun as a shame to the family, something that I also see as common in feminism in general today.

I did touch upon this subject a little in my Heroines entry about my most recent heroine Phryne Fisher from the TV series Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries. Of course women should not be limited to the home, but I do not think it is wise to patronize women who wants to take care of their family either. In fact I would like to broaden that role so it can be a man who stays home caring for his family. The same goes to the question of characteristics. I cannot see any problems with Idun being motherly and caring. In fact we need more role models to be kind. There is no good that can come to female's situation by forcing traditionally male traits of violence and ignorance upon them. That will not change any patriarchal structures. Quite the contrary! It will only enforce masculinity and crush femininty. Besides, it will also only encourage violent behaviour while at the same time afflict traits like for example kindness. We do need more kind, caring and loving people of all gender, not violent, aloof ones!

Actually Hildebrandt deals with this problem in the book, weaving it into the plot. A dangerous decease is spreading at an alarming speed among both the Æsirs and the Vanírs. Tor seeks Freja's help to fight against the witch who has caused it. Freja refuses and Tor, realising that Idun is his daughter, brings Idun home to Idunvallen. There is a Swedish expression saying that one does not miss the cow until the stall is empty (Man saknar inte kon förrän båset är tomt.) and it is kind of fitting for Freja. Not until Idun has left with Tor does she realise that she has been unfair. Her own daughter therefore forces her to face her prejudices towards women who show traditional female traits and what is considered to be "strong women". This turn of event actually had me liking Freja even more. Hildebrandt lets her be flawed. She makes mistakes, but she also tries to change when she realises this. However it is not as easy to make amends with Idun as Freja thinks...

Egtvedpigen

For the Freja entry, I used a picture of a rock carving as a symbol of the Scandinavian Bronze Age and for Idun, I have chosen a picture of the probably most famous of the Danish oak coffin burials dating to the Bronze Age, Egtvedpigen (The Egtved Girl). I thought she fitted well into the context of Idun, but to not spoil anyone, I will leave the reason a secret. You can read more about the find on the National Museum of Denmark's webpage here.

Johanne Hildebrandt - Freja. Sagan om Valhalla

Freja is probably the most famous among the goddesses in Norse mythology. She belongs to the Vanir family and is the goddess of female fertility and sexuality, but she also has a connection to death. She is the leader of the valkyries, female spirits who walks around the battle field picking up fallen warriors. She then splits them with Odín taking half of them to her home Folkvang.

Johanne Hildebrandt's Freja is however not a goddess but a human being. She is a young priestess in Vanaheim during the Scandinavian Bronze Age. Her mother is Åse, queen of Vanaheim, but Freja has been raised by her aunt Gullveig, the high priestess of Vanaheim. One day they hear of a threat to their world, the Æsirs is pillaging Vanir farms and for the first time ever, Freja gets to leave Vanaheim to mediate in the conflict between them and the Æsirs together with Gullveig and Snotra. At the Æsirs farm Idunvallen, Freja meets Tor. He is the son of Oden, the leader of the Æsirs, and they fall in love. A war however breaks out and Tor is captured by the Vanirs.


Freja was first published in 2002 which was when I first read it. I was only 18 back then and as with so much other literature I read when I was a teenager or in my early twenties I have a somewhat different reaction to it now. In the case of Freja, my choice of profession probably plays a part in this.

Rock Carving of a sun horse from Tanum, Sweden

As a Scandinavian archaeologist, I love the fact that Hildebrandt chose to set her story in the Scandinavian prehistory. Besides the Viking Age, not many un-archaeologists in Sweden knows that much about the first couple of thousands of years after the latest Ice Age. The time before the Viking Age is generally seen as boring and not related to anything we do today. When talking about "ancient history" we generally go all the way down to the Mediterannean with Greeks and Romans taking their cultural heritage more in account than the one present in our own geographical sphere. This is sad, because there are many stories hidden within our own past. We just need to stop measuring societies by marbe temples.

To be completely honest, the Bronze Age is not really my favourite time period. This because I have heard to much about rock carvings during my educations. Do not get me wrong! Rock carvings are very beautiful and mysteriously fun, but if it is the only thing you hear about for three years and your main research interest is elsewhere in the past, you start to feel a little fed up after awhile. But I really enjoy Hildebrandt's Bronze Age. Both the physical and the spiritual. She has turned it into a matriarchy with women being the brain and with both the spiritual and the practical powers while men providing the muscles. Hildebrandt also portrays women as better suited for power than men. This is evident in for example the fact that the patriarchal Æsirs needs help in providing foods for their people. They have abandonned the mother goddess for the war god Tiwatz which might be seen symbolical as to their priorities.

I also enjoyed that Hildebrandt creates a mythological past to Freja's world with mentioning of what seems to be the Ice Age (even if the term is never used). There is a small mentioning of a battle between the Vanirs and what seems to be Stone Age people (maybe hunter-gatherers of the Paleolithic and/or Mesolithic eras) in the book called "the old people".

"Det gamla folket undvek människorna. Det sades att när Frejas folk kom seglande till detta land, vägledda av Gudinnan som räddade dem undan den stora katastrofen hade vanerna stridit mot det gamla folket, bronssvärd mot yxor av sten.

Vanerna hade segrat och sedan den dagen var det gamla folket försvunnet."

("The old people avoided the humans. They said that when Freja's people came sailing to this land, guided by the Goddess who saved them from the big catastrophe, the Vanirs had fought against the old people, bronze swords against stone axes.

The Vanirs were victorious and from that on, the old people had disappeared." )

At first I was not entirely sure I enjoyed this depiction of meetings between cultures. It seems very imperialistic. Cultures normally does not clash like that when they meet. However, as I continued on reading, I realised that there might still be a point in this depiction and that it might even be good and telling of the worldview of both Freja's society and our own. It is actually a pretty good description about the Western view of "cultural clashes" and how the West handled other "more primitive" people (not seldom groups of hunter-gatherers) during the European imperialism of later history. Seeing that this is a story about the past in Freja's world it provides a good example of how history is used to emphasize one group's past, making it more victorious and glorious than it might have been. And just like the non-Western groups the European met in the areas they colonized in the more recent past, "the old people" do not disappear completely. Freja thinks she sees them during her journey. This might be reading to much into nothing, but Hildebrandt does not portray the relations between the Vanirs and the Æsirs in this way. There are, of course, frictions between them at first, but none of them destroys the other completely. Instead, they start sorting out differences, creating new ways of living and interacting that is beneficial for all. This, I think, is a much better depiction of what cultural meetings really are in reality as opposed to in historical narratives.

Freja is the first in the series Sagan om Valhalla. There are much more to say about her and the stories, but it will become much clearer in later books. Therefore I will leave my analysis here at the moment and start rereading the book about Freja's daughter Idun.

The four Valhalla-books that have been published until this date (6/6 2016)

PS. Before you ask: YES! Of course my bedspread has skulls on it!!! I am an archaeologist. I see dead people!

Moa Martinson - Fjäderbrevet

When I was little there were this series of very small children's books called Pixiböcker (Pixi books) with short stories and lots of pictures. I have really fond memories of them and was therefore pleasantly surprised when I noticed the small short story books by more or less famous writers from Novellix at Pocketshop. They are kind of like Pixibooks for adults!

I have been sick with a cold these past few days, so it was nice to relax with a short story in the meantime. I chose Moa Martinson's Fjäderbrevet (The feather letter)* mostly because I liked the cover, but it turned out to be a quite interesting read.

My past experiences with Martinson's authorship has actually been quite mixed. When I was 15 and was "forced" to read her book Mor gifter sig (1936) in school I found it quite boring which might be because I was so young and I read it as a school assignment. Therefore I will not talk much about it. The second book I read by Martinson was a much more pleasant read: Kvinnor och äppelträd (1933). It is definitely up there among my favourite books of all time and I will give it its own entry in the future.

Moa Martinson

Fjäderbrevet is an autobiographical text which was first published in the antalogy Armén vid horisonten (1942). It is about her grandparents (the soldier and his wife) going to the priest to get their unmarried daughter's newborn daughter (i.e. Moa) baptist in november 1890. Her grandfather has already fought to keep them at the croft before his granddaughter was born. Then there is a jump in time to nine years later when the child's aunt and uncle come to visit her, her mother and her stepfather and they follow them back to the widowed grandmother in the croft. In an interesting story telling technique, which I have never encountered before, Martinson lets the mother tell much of the plot to her child.

När mor berättade om knekttorpet, där både hon och jag var födda, och då hon drog sig till minnes historier hennes mormor som var född på sjuttonhundratalet hade berättat, så fick jag det intrycket att det var knekthustrurna, knetsystrarna och knektmödrarna som var armén (When mother told about the soldier's croft, where both she and I were born, and when she remembered stories her grandmother who was born during the 18th century hade told, I got the feeling that it was the soldiers's wives, sisters and mothers who were the army.)

I really enjoy Moa Martinson's language. Her portrayal of her contemporary society and the people at its bottom (especially the women) is so raw and straight forward. It really gets you into the hardship of the society of that time (late 19th-early 20th century Sweden). Martinson belongs to the Swedish working class authors of the first half of the 20th century and I think it is very important for people today to read that type of literature in a way. It is raw and humanistic and paints a picture of a society that people today are rather unaware of existed only about a 100 years ago. Yes, Martinson's main focus is the poor, but that does not mean that she does not have feelings for the rich. Quite the contrary actually:

Man står inte ut med ens i fantasin att en människa, okunnig om sin ondska, sin girighet och hårdhet, inte ska få tillfälle till bättring. Livets egen happy end är ju döden för varenda varelse som föds. (You cannot stand even in your imagination that a human being without knowledge of his/her malignity, his/her greed and hardness will never have the opportunity to do right. The life's own happy end is death for every living being that is born.)

*Urgent post delivery was up until the 1870's in Finland and Sweden marked by feathers and therefore called Fjäderbrev