Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1913-01-04


peasants dwellings Uttered with clean straw
and the cattle in their stalls have extra sup
plies of food. A popular observance is to
range inverted saucers around the festive board
One for each guest-under which placed
objects bearing significant meanings. Each per-
in turn raises saucer May be it has
cred a piece of red ribbon-that presages a
wound or some bodily injury; coin, riches;
key, for a girl the token of her direction
within twelXe-month of household, for a
boy the entrance on a commercial career; or a
piece of fuel, which fortells death; ring for
matrimony and forth.
The Christmas Buck" visits every home in
Finland He is old with long white hair
and beard and heavily clad in fur. He drives
his team of reindeer mountains and frozen
lakes and enters unannounced each doorway. He
makes a circuit of the family and inquiries
whether the children have been good bad.
Before leaving he throws down klapps for ALL
At Twelfth Night the Star Boys make their
appearance. They five young in fancy
dress Three represent the Three Holy Kings of
the Epiphany, is King Herod, and the last
a goat with hoofs and horns. They enact a
legendary play which has for its finale the death
of Herod, whilst the goat is thrust outside the
door. Wherever they go they collect aims for
poor people who have Christmas cheer.
After the gayeties of Christmas two months
eIapse during which is able to restore ones
digestive organs. and then comes Lent A dis
tinctive Lenten diet is blines and caviar; the
former the large thick pancakes which eaten
with butter, sour cream and fruit juice At mid
Lent fresh water fish is much esteemed-lake
it is called. 1t is caught in nets sunk through
holes in the ice rivers and lakes. 1t is boiled
in milk On Easter Eve everybody eats hard
boiled eggs.
The first of May ancient festival of gen.
eral observance. especially by. students and
youths They meet in the public parks of Hell
singfors, the capital, and in country market
places, there sing old foIk-songs to the spirit
of spring Then they drink deeply sweet
mead and consume vast quantities of struvor-
rich puff paste tarts-and then they dance and
frt with buxom maidens to their hearts
tent Midsummer day is of universal observance
in Finland. Birch trees planted at all the
house doors and twigs of birch stuck all
every room The sun sets in the eve at
eleven o'clock, and rises in the day at two Dur
ing those three brief hours the young people kim
die big fires. All are bent on dancing around and
above the blazing embers. They call the fires
kokko loves fame
Rye harvest is a very important season. On
the first day the laborer-farmers. with their
wives and families, foregather at the mansion OF
the landowner. They are divided into squads
one man. two and three children. To
each squad is assigned certain area wherein
the children CLEAN. They work from four in the
morning until eight at night. with intervals for
breakfast and dinner. These meals, together
with the supper the end of toll, substan-
tial in every They provided gratis
by the landowner and eaten at long tables
placed in front of the mansion, whereat the land
and his family After supper all
join in singing the plaintive national kale-
wala and then happy time is passed with
games and dances.
The rye crop, which provides the Firms with
their staff of life. does not dry in ordinary sea-
in the fields 1t is consequently carried to
the rias barns. and laid racks and rafters.
Fires kindled in each corner and the smoke
permeates the crop, fmparting much-loved and
peculiar flavor The country peoples diet
sists chiefly of talkumma, sort of porridge
made of rye. This is carried, when well set, in
birch bark knapsacks. 1t is also baked hard and
hung in great round, thin cakes with holes in
the center, the ceilings of the houses. Their
favorite beverage is coffee, which they brew to
perfection. Corn-rye brandy is liquor much
esteemed by all classes and sometimes INDUCED
The greatest refreshment of the Firms is the
BATH every homestead has a bath-house- 1t is
their unfailing remedy in sickness IF bath
and brandy fall" they say, then comes death
In the bath houses stone ovens wherein wood
fires kindled and every orifice is closed
After the fire has burnt itself out buckets of
water shovelfuls of snow dashed upon the
embers and red hot stones Dense clouds of
steam arise and into them the bathers plunge
The whole body is switched with birch rods, and
then follow thorough massage and rubbing down
with soap As the bather quits the bathhouse
sousings of cold water snow are administered:
sometimes a header into deep snow is preferred!
Then for while cool they all sit on benches
in the open air, and then they their
clothes. During harvest time such baths in COM
mon are taken every evening after work is done:
in winter the Saturday night tub sufaces- Few
spectacles be weird and astounding
for the traveller than. when driving night quar-.
ters he suddenly comes upon tss family at bath