Page:The International Folk-Lore Congress of the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, July, 1893.djvu/88

66 before any one was allowed to taste it. In autumn, at harvest time, a birch-bark basket of every kind of corn was taken to the place of sacrifice; in the same manner they did with the crust of rye-bread. If at any time they had received a comparatively large sum of money, a small copper was taken to the place of sacrifice before they could use this money, to some other purpose.

The earliest change concerning the "karsikko," that took place was when they ceased to look upon the menials and servants as belonging to the family. They were not thought capable of doing harm in any way to the persons living at the farm. Another change in this custom took place, when they, by and by, ceased to snag a special tree for the children, and then later on they did it for no other grown up people than for the host and hostess, and generally also for the oldest son. In the course of time the grove of sacrifice was reduced to a single tree, which retained the name of "karsikko." In a suitable place in the vicinity of the farm, generally either by the road or at the sea-shore, a sturdy fir was chosen—hard-wood trees were never used—and the dry branches were snagged off from below, but the sound ones were left. When then at the farm an esteemed person died, for whom it was considered necessary to make a sacrifice, the lowest sound branch was lopped from the tree, and the sacrificing at the foot of the tree commenced. In the same manner a branch from the "karsikko" tree was lopped at the death of every one of the more esteemed members of the family, and thus that tree became the common "karsikko" of the dead. Such a tree has been found in the parish of Vütasaari in central Finland. It was an old fir, so thick that two men could barely measure its periphery with their arms. The tradition tells that it had been planted at the foundation of the farm, that always before some one in the family died, a branch fell down, and that when the last member of the family, an old woman died, the fir itself broke down.

When they now a days make a "karsikko," the tree is lopped along part of the stem from the lower end upwards, and from some place the bark is excorticated—sometimes the side is carved quite even— and in the bark the dead persons