Tena,
a small village some 5 km from Vuokkiniemi, is important to the
poetic tradition, but not solely for the lines of poetry collected
there. It was a resident of Tena, Jyrki Kettunen, who led
the poetry collectors to Viena by singing long epic poems on his
trading trips to Finland. These songs were recorded and published
by Zacharias Topelius the Elder, who urged collectors to direct
their efforts towards the parish of Vuokkiniemi.
In the early 1800s, Tena was inhabited by the Kettunen family.
When Lönnrot went there for the first time, in 1833, the village
had only four houses. The village patriarch, Tena-Pekka, Pietari
Kettunen, had died three or four years earlier, and Lönnrot
failed to meet the other famous villager, Jyrki Kettunen, a cousin
of the former. Poems had already been collected from both of these
bards, however.
Pietari
Kettunen, who had a reputation for "making a song about whatever
he saw," sang his poems for A.J. Sjögren in Vuokkiniemi
on 15 August 1825. Pietari had lived in Finland for many years,
where he worked sewing fur-lined coverlets, sheepskin coats and
other articles of clothing for farmers. He was not only an accomplished
performer of folk poems, but a poet in his own right. The songs
which he composed had spread into Finland and many variants of them
had been recorded. As recently as the 1990s, bards have been found
in Uhtua who have inherited the oral tradition of "Kettunen's
song".
In the account of his fourth field trip, Lönnrot wrote the
following about Pietari Kettunen's talents:
Five or six years ago, several peasants from Archangel told
me that he could sing for at least two weeks without stopping
except to eat and sleep, and they were right. It is said that
even on his deathbed he spoke to his wife in verse and that he
bemoaned her fate with the following words:
Mari now widowed
"Swedish" woman full of sorrow
Now that I have gone my way
No longer of these lands
Pietari
had brought Mari back as his wife from Kiiminki on one of his trips
to Finland. She was Lönnrot's hostess when he visited Tena,
and Lönnrot followed the family's history with interest in
the accounts of his travels. Lönnrot was moved by the fate
of this woman, who had come to Karelia from very different circumstances
in Finland, and sympathized with her a great deal.
"Old Mari", as Lönnrot calls Perttunen's widow,
had two daughters who were married to men in Vuonninen. One of the
daughters, Miina, was mistress of the Teppola household; the other
was the daughter-in-law of Ontrei Malinen. It was through these
relations that Lönnrot ended up going to Vuonninen to meet
bards who would figure significantly in the composition of the Kalevala.
On his fifth field trip, Lönnrot met Jyrki Kettunen in Tena
and recorded a number of poems sung by him over the next two days.
The poems provided by Jyrki Kettunen were included in the first
edition of the Kalevala; those recorded from Pietari Kettunen were
used in compiling the second edition, after Lönnrot had Sjögren's
collections.
Of the later poetry collectors, at least Genetz and Berner are
known to have visited Tena, and Inha photographed the village
from the Köynäskoski Rapids.
The village of Tena, or Tenaniemi, lies northwest of
Vuokkiniemi on the shores of Lake Köynäsjärvi. By
the end of the 19th century, the village had 23 houses and a population
of over 100 persons. After the Second World War, the village was
completely vacated. There was no need to liquidate it, since the
authorities had not allowed anyone to return there after the war.
In the southeast corner of the lake, about half a kilometer from
the village, is a significant natural sight, Köynäskoski
Rapids. The rapids roar in a step-wise cascade down into Lake Köynäsjärvi,
which joins Lake Tenajärvi to Lake Lammasjärvi,
a link in turn to Viena's main artery, Lake Kuittijärvi. At
its other end, Lake Tenajärvi is connected to Lakes Venehjärvi
and Latvajärvi.
Tsena
What to see
Audio sample
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