RIGA - For 700 years, a custom has remained relatively constant in some southern Estonian funerals: halfway between the home of the deceased and the cemetery where he or she is buried, someone will etch a cross in a tree in the middle of a forest. Marju Koivupuu, a professor of culture studies at Tallinn University, has recently put together a photograph exhibit of these carvings for the Estonian Literary Museum in Tartu. Some of these carvings are 100 years old, some just a few months old. Some of the crosses are more striking than others. Some are elaborate and some are very simple. A few are carved onto dead trees. The photographs are interesting themselves, and one wonders about the very mystical effect these crosses would carry if they were experienced in person.
The custom originates in an old pagan belief prevalent in Estonia and Finland (where evidence of crosses can be found as well) that a tree "is a place for the spirit to be preserved," Koivupuu writes in an e-mail.
The tree marks a border between the area of the living, the path from the house to the tree, and the "area of spirits," the area from the tree to the cemetery. The cross was a "defensive sign against evil, so that an evil spirit, which came from the cemetery could not get past the cross-signed trees."
The tradition is still alive in southern Estonia. A good part of the exhibit is made up of her own photographs, but some friends helped her out last year when they were mapping out crosses throughout the country. The work is important. These crosses are part of her country's heritage and they're endangered.
"I am worried that the modern lifestyle won't take into account the existence of these trees and I want to draw the attention of ordinary people that these trees exist at all," Koivupuu says. In May last year, over 80 of these trees were cut down in Polvamaa in order to make way for road improvements. "It was possible…not to cut these sacred trees, but because of the ignorance of the road workers, they decided to use the easier way."
Koivupuu is 45 herself, and her own background is half southern Estonian and half northern Latvian. These trees are very much a part of where she grew up. When she began her studies in folklore at the University of Tartu before the end of Soviet rule, such interests were discouraged. Now, in studying these crosses, she feels she has an opportunity to say something new.
The tradition of carving crosses was particularly strong during the Soviet era when standard clerical burials were forbidden. Carving crosses on trees were a form of "compensation" for people who couldn't take comfort from the traditions of an old Christian ceremony.
Still some authorities did crack down on the practice in Latvia. "Sometimes people who carried the tradition of cutting a tree were punished, especially in northern Latvia."
The practice had a double meaning during the Soviet era, where the crosses were often meant to honor previous owners of forests before their land was expropriated by the state authority.
In other words, though the practice has remained constant, its meaning has changed in subtle ways. Perhaps, in the future, we will etch crosses on trees to remember trees with crosses.
"Crosses in Southeast Estonia"
Estonian Literary Museum
Tartu
Runs through March 31
More info: +372 7377700
