I’m interested in the various harvest traditions like Halloween, Samhain, Day of the Dead and whether those are still alive or not, from all over the world. Putting this post here, because these are traditions heavily tied to agriculture.

I’ll share the one local to myself: In Finland and Karelia there used to be a harvest festival called Kekri. Natopedia link

Kekri, also known as keyri, köyri, köyry (in Torne Valley) kööri and kegri (in Karelian),[1] is a Finnish and Karelian harvest festival, celebrated in the fall. Kekri was once widely celebrated in Finland and Karelia, but it has been largely eclipsed by Christmas, to which many old Kekri traditions have migrated. Historically, Kekri has also referred to a deity.

Kekri was the end of the years agricultural work. It was also when the farmhands and maids got their yearly wages and a week of freetime from work. Ancestors were symbolically bathed, fed and honored and there were many funny traditions like how the master of a house had to be drunk all Kekri to ensure good harvest the following year. The sower of the farm on the other hand had to be sober to ensure the same thing.

This part resembles Halloween quite a bit:

Masked visitors

On the second day of Kekri, people traditionally paid visits to friends and neighbors, dressed up as various types of masked characters, referred to as kekritärs (kekri-ess) or kekripukkis (kekri goat) (cf. souling). The masked visitors would demand hospitality, threatening to break the oven if their requests were not heeded. These Kekri characters of the past are commonly viewed as predecessors to Finland’s modern-day Santa Claus, Joulupukki (literally Yule Goat).

This tradition has survived near the Baltic in the West of Finland where this tradition of dressing up and going from house to house as “goats” moved to the 6th of January and became knows as going out as “nuuttipukki”. I grew up in a village that still does this and it was fun to have a sort of Halloween in January when nobody in Finland yet knew what Halloween is and definitely did not celebrate it. The only dress up thing that was nationwide was kids going out on Easter to give blessings and receive candy.

In the picture a kekripukki (kekri goat) likely preparing to break the oven, museum picture)

Interestingly this Kekri week was also a week of no gender norms, people would dress up as whatever they wanted.

What natopedia and other English sources fail to mention is that the traditions disappeared through the influence of Christianity. The church wanted to get rid of Kekri traditions as pagan.

At the Bishop’s Inspection in 1729, the priesthood was urged to advise the population to give up this pagan tradition. In fear of punishment, many started to do the celebrations in secret. The church also implemented the sacred days into the calendar and eventually the tradition became what is now called Christmas. The church influence also got rid of the sacred trees people had growing in their yards. The ban on Kekri was so strict that little by little the tradition was forgotten.

In the last ten years or so it has been making a comeback after the US style halloween has been pushed on the population more and more. Not everyone likes it and therefore people have started to look into local harvest traditions that have just been lost. The first Kekri thing I remember seeing was a Kekri food week in a rural school I was a substitute teacher in, the school lunches were made as dishes that would have been eaten during Kekri all week and the history of the foods was featured.

Did you know that in Finland people used to carve lanterns from turnips instead of pumpkins, but lanterns were indeed a part of the celebration.