Suomalainen sänky (The Finnish mattress ), by ethnologist Leena Sammallahti and researcher Marja-Liisa Lehto (SKS 2006), can be an illustrated history of obstructive sleeping structures, from basic chairs across the wall, once typical in most farmhouses, to elaborately carved and cushioned laps of luxury by upper-class homes. Sammallahti wished to put the bull bed into the spotlight that it deserves and because of this we now have a proven background of the Finnish bed. “Ever since I was a child I have not slept very well, so the mattress occupies my head inside this regard “,” Sammallahti says.
Her recently-published publication, Suomalainen sänky (“The Finnish Bed”) presents the development of Finnish beds from sound sleeping platforms to ornate bunk beds, and also to models which could also serve as sofas as well as of bunkbeds. The beds of the Tornio River Valley be noticeable in their magnificence says Sammallahti. “They’ve sophistication and elegance, which I’ve always loved”.
The artifacts of the publication had been sown from the late 1960s when Professor Niilo Valonena legend at Finnish ethnology, utilized college students to picture the insides of farm homes, producing an exemplified record. Sammallahti was one of the young university student assistants during the moment. “Once when I took images of furniture, then a salesman selling new furniture seemed. He considered I was a competitor. He would scarcely believe that everyone will be interested in old household furniture. At that period it had been used as firewood,” Sammallahti remembered. Along with her publication on Finnish beds, Sammallahti believes that she is now completed just one aspect of the important project that her mentor was not able to finishin hbislifetime. Valonen’s goal is to explore the villages, yards, buildings, and insides of farm surviving in Finland.
Sammallahti resides in Pori within a older row house originally built for mill employees. In Helsinki she has her”travel suite”, generated from the older sauna building at the trunk of some traditional 1950′s house at Herttoniemi. The furnishings of the domiciles give an sign of the livelihood of the man or woman who lives there. “Actually, just the computer is fresh”, she laughs. “previously as a school girl, ” I went to auctions, looking for older things.” The author’s favourite bed has been inherited from her grandmother. It is a version that opens from the side. The wood is painted, revealing pictures of doughnuts and snacks. But generally she sleeps in a pine bed from the 1920′s, because it is semi broad.
A bed is really where folks have been born, die, and also create really like. In ancient times, taking a bride to bed was really written into the legislationa union was considered valid only after it might be demonstrated that a couple had invested under the same sheets. Sammallahti’s reminiscences of mattress also surge with familiarity. “I recall how my grandmother’s sister, a midwife, shot mea child screaming for absence of sleep, adjacent for her underneath sheep-skin blankets. And my fiancé and I shared a Heteka steel frame mattress at the hot attic of the summer cottage.”
Sammallahti has been retired today for a couple decades but continues to do search. “immediately after being relieved of the obligations of my job, I have dived to the deep seas of the researcher” The aquatic metaphor isn’t a coincidence. The author may be that the descendant of the maritime family with origins within the outer islands at the Gulf of Finland, which Finland lost inside the war into the Soviet Union. “like a kid I had been allowed to sail in a boat incredibly openly. Throughout christmas, ” I had been let to go with my dad at a steamship to the harbours of all Europe.”
