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Kekri, or Köyry, was the deity of cattle, farming, and fertility. In vernacular language kekri also meant being the last in something, the end of something. Either the last shepherd to return home on All hallows eve or his cattle would be called köyri. Kekri, or köyri, was traditionally also the god of land. In Häme and Satakunta, people spoke of köyri’s crops or köyri’s rye. This was sown just before winter. Köyri’s crops were traditionally kept separate from other crops, and people used to sow some köyri grain among barley and turnips in hope of a good harvest, but that crop was never harvested. People believed that cattle prospered if they ate köyri’s crops. Köyri rye was the base of kylvöleipä or “sowing bread”. The harvester who made the last sheaf was called köyry.
Christmas preparations usually started around All Saints’ Day, when the harvest year was over and food was plentiful. The actual Christmas started on 21st December, and ended around Epiphany. This period was the equivalent of the Medieval Nordic “Christmas peace”.
“According to custom, people were allowed to be out on All hallows eve, but only if they dressed up as mysterious köyri people. Particularly in Savo, it was customary that a group of men and women in masks made of birch bark and dressed in upside-down fur coats went from house to house asking for food and drink. This took place on 2nd November, the “day of the souls”, that is, the day after All hallows. These people were called kekri(ä)tär, kekrihönttämä etc. The men could be dressed in women’s clothes and women vice versa. They visited the village houses, greeting every household with the phrase “Which will it be, köyri or the oven?” If they got no köyri - that is, no food and drink: a bit of beef, beer in a tankard, or booze from a bottle - they would “overturn the oven”. The underworldly character of köyri people shows in their upside-down clothes, and cross-dressing. You see, everything in the Underworld was the other way around.” (Rytkönen 1946, Kansan syvistä riveistä.)
In Western Finland, Christmas was the most important holiday of the year from early on, but in Eastern Finland, kekri and Easter were more important until late in the 19th century. Kekri had been the celebration of the end of a working period, which had had no fixed date in the calendar. The time of kekri varied from village to village, even from house to house. Kekri was the end of the harvest season, the harvest feast, and the start of a new year. Thus, the year ended in the autumn. Some kekri customs were transferred to Christmas and the New Year. In the 19th century kekri was settled at All Saints’ Day. |
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