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Illustration of Kirkonväki
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Galmee Lak. 034, 446 keessaa

Kirkonväki

Maqaa biraa: kirkkomaanväki, kalmanväki, churchyard folk, manalaiset

Kirkonväki is the Finnish name for the dead as a body, the population of the churchyard acting together. Finnish legend gives them corporeal form, as a congregation of decaying corpses that fills the church at night and mauls any living intruder, though everyday belief treated them more as an invisible, foul-smelling force. They enforced respect for graves and proper burial and could be weaponised by cunning folk. They are the closest thing in Finnish tradition to a horde of the walking dead.1

Lolsiisi
Yeroo jalqabaaf kan galmeeffame
1551
Related terms occur in Finnish sources from Mikael Agricola (1551) onward; most archive records date from the late 19th century to the 1960s
Ka'umsa
Finnish
Fiinlaand
Maaltu isa fida
Kan biroo
The collective dead of a churchyard, active as a crowd around the church and around any unburied corpse.
Akkamitti isa taata
The dead buried in the parish churchyard.
Akkamitti sochoo'a
Garagara
In legends they gather in the church at night as a solid crowd; in personal accounts they pass as a swarm of small figures in the air.
Beekumsa
Beekumsa muraasa
Bakkeewwan laafoo
  • precautions when crossing churchyard boundaries
  • leaving something behind: in one legend a man escapes by dropping his fur coat on the church threshold, and the dead tear the coat apart

Yoom jalqaba mul'ate?

Related terms occur in Finnish sources from Mikael Agricola (1551) onward; most archive records date from the late 19th century to the 1960s

yaadannoo dirree

Maddoonni maal jedhu

1

The word means 'churchyard folk', but väki also carries an older sense of 'force' or 'power'1

2

In legends they look like ordinary people or like rotting corpses and skeletons1

3

A migratory legend tells of the dead holding their own Christmas service and attacking a living person who walks in1

4

They reek of death; seers can see them, others only smell them1

5

Churchyard soil, bones or splinters of grave markers could be used to 'send' them against an enemy or set them on a thief1

6

Kaarina Koski's study draws on more than 2,000 records in the Finnish Literature Society's archives, richest in Ostrobothnia1

Fiigdee isa jalaa ba'uu dandeessaa?

Sadarkaa saffisaa akkaataa maddoonni itti ibsan irraa (garagara), safara miti.

Ati, deemaa gara 5 km/h (3.1 mph)
Ati, suuta fiigaa gara 10 km/h (6.2 mph)
Kirkonväki gara 10 km/h (6.2 mph)
Ga'eessa qaamaan jabaa kan ariitiin fiigu gara 24 km/h (15 mph)
Saayikilii oofaa ariifataa gara 37 km/h (23 mph)

Maddoota

  1. Kaarina Koski, 'Conceptual Analysis and Variation in Belief Tradition: A Case of Death-Related Beings', Folklore 38 (2008)

Dhugaan fuula kana irra jiru hundi maddoota kana irraa dhufe, jechoota keenyaan barreeffame. Dogoggora argitee? [email protected] irratti nutti himi.

Tuuta nyaachisi. Beeksisa hin jiru, hordoftuun hin jiru, nama tokkoon kaffalama. Gumaachi toora irra akka turu godha.Gumaacha kenni

Bara wal fakkaataa: 1500 hanga 1899

Tuuta nyaachisiGumaacha kenni