Memory and Fear of Pestilent in Northern Finland

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Burial, Space, and Memory of Unusual Death" session, at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

During the 17th and the 18th century Finland, then part of Sweden, suffered from raging plague epidemics. Miasma, the idea of diseases spreading through foul smelling air, caused people to fear illnesses and corpses that had died during the epidemics such as plague. The traditional final resting place under the protecting roofs of churches changed to become newly established graveyards or pits outside the residential areas of towns. This paper discusses how the pestilent were treated and buried, and how we nowadays remember their resting places. The fear of contagious diseases affected strongly even during the following decades after the epidemics, which can be seen in the stories from the 19th century describing what happened to people who handled corpses.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2019   •
• Burial, Space, and Memory of Unusual Death

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 246