![]() ![]() The new-found popularity of both saunas and cold-water swimming has turned sauna tourism into Finland's number one attraction. It can also help when you're jumping from a cold-water swim into the heat of the sauna. ![]() Finns aspire to sisu, a personality trait that comes in handy when you're living in such a cold climate with long winters. Sisu was embraced in 1917 "by the new powers that be as a particularly Finnish quality, after the country gained independence, and is still seen as the 'social glue' that holds Finnish society together," O'Kelly writes. Sibelius refers to Jean Sibelius, the great 20th-Century composer of the patriotic Finlandia hymn). She thinks of the country's unofficial motto, "Sisu, sauna and Sibelius" as "intended to sum up the essence of the country and its identity". That Finnishness is also wrapped up in the 500-year-old philosophy of sisu, which Helsinki-based author Katja Pantzar describes in her book, Finding Sisu, as "the unique Finnish strength of will, a determination not to give up or take the easy way out". Unesco describes how "Sauna culture is an integral part of life for the majority of the population, and most people have their first sauna experience as babies". In 2020, Finnish sauna culture followed Estonia, making it on to Unesco's list. "Everyday practices are relevant to national identity also because over time they form a widely shared understanding of the culture and what it is like to be a citizen of a country," she adds, "It's said that sauna creates a basis for understanding what Finnishness is." In Finland, the sauna is "one of the key national symbols", says Lamminmäki, precisely because it's very much an everyday ritual for Finns, with 3.3 million saunas in a country of 5.5 million inhabitants. These are typically wooden huts with no chimney, where rocks are heated by an open fire to produce a soothing aroma. In 2013, the Estonian smoke sauna was placed on Unesco's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. ![]() Estonia, for example, has its own strong saun heritage. All of its core symbolism replicated the cycles of growth, interconnection and symbiosis, with the end goal of altered states, raised consciousness and rejuvenation."Īnd although the Finnish word sauna is thought to come from the Sámi word soudnje, meaning "pit in the ground", the Finns don't own the sauna. ![]() "It was a microcosm of the three levels of the universe: the upper realm, the sky world the middle realm, the Earth and the underworld of the dead. O'Kelly explains in her book that traditionally, the ancient Finns, like Native Americans, worshipped the four elements – air, water, fire, earth – in the sauna. The sauna's spiritual aspect was important. "The sauna was also a place to sleep and to meet someone in secret, and the role of weekly sauna was to cleanse people for church and the Sabbath, and to mark the change of one week to another," she adds. As well as a place to wash, they were used for cooking, drying flax and rye, making soap, doing the laundry, tending to the sick, washing the dead before burial, and giving birth, explains Lamminmäki. However, in bygone centuries, their role went far beyond creating a sense of well-being and a place to relax. From the Ottoman hammam and Mayan temazcal to the Japanese mushi-buro and kama-buro, from the banyas of Russia to the saunas of Finland, heat therapy has stood the test of time, waxing and waning in popularity, and crossing continents in various iterations". O'Kelly writes that, "every culture, through every age, has enjoyed its own form of sweat bathing. In Japan, "natural caves were used as sweat baths, and these evolved into bathhouses at temples and next to monasteries", explains Emma O'Kelly in her book Sauna – The Power of Deep Heat. According to a study by Harvard University, the Native American tradition of the sweat lodge involved ceremonies and rituals, including "rites of preparation, prayer, and purification". Saunas and sweat lodges were also prevalent in the ancient Islamic world as well as in the indigenous cultures of Mexico and North America. "Once the stones had warmed up, the pit was covered with wattle, thatch or peat, and then water was thrown on the stones, to create steam," explains Dalva Lamminmäki, folklorist and doctoral researcher of sauna culture at the University of Eastern Finland.Įarly sweat houses, dating back to the Bronze Age, are being unearthed all over the UK and Ireland. Their first manifestation was as a pit sauna, literally a pit dug into the ground, with a pile of stones at the bottom, which was heated with a campfire. The current sauna craze belies the fact that the sauna's origins are thought to go back 10,000 years. ![]()
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