Myth and Mentality: Studies in Folklore and Popular Thought, edited by Anna-Leena Siikala, is a collection of studies published in 2002. It looks at how mythology, folklore, and culture influence the way people think and feel. The book explains how myths shape cultural values, emotions, and collective ways of thinking. Hence the book covers a wide range of topics and ideas, from attitudes towards alcohol, love, social communication, folkloric narratives – the scope of the book is quite large.

Different scholars contributed to this work, covering topics like Finno-Ugric mythology, witchcraft, the Devil, proverbs, war legends, and ideas about love in folklore traditions. In the introduction, Siikala explains that myths help us understand how people thought in the past and how these ideas still influence culture today.

Sections of the Book Myth and Mentality

The book is divided into several sections, each focusing on a different theme:

Myth, Belief, and Worldview: This section talks about how myths show the shared beliefs and ideas of a culture, including their views of the universe.

Witchcraft and the Devil: Here, scholars explore how people in history viewed witchcraft and how they thought about the Devil in European folklore.

Values and Collective Emotions: This part looks at cultural values found in proverbs, legends, and folk songs.

Love: This section discusses how attitudes about love and social rules around relationships have changed in folklore over time.

The book connects mythology to cognitive anthropology by showing how myths contain ideas that guide people’s actions and beliefs. It also compares Finnish-Karelian traditions to other Finno-Ugric and European cultures.

Siikala’s Work Regarding Animal Ceremonialism and Shamanism

Siikala describes animal ceremonialism as a practice that comes from ancient hunting cultures where animals were seen as spiritual beings. These practices included treating animal bones and remains with care and respect to maintain harmony with the animal spirits. Some examples include:

• Keeping the bones safe or returning them to nature in a respectful way.
• Holding ritual feasts where special parts of animals were eaten or displayed with ceremony.
• Using myths to explain the relationship between humans and animals.

These rituals were an important part of shamanic beliefs, where shamans acted as the connection between people and the spirits of animals.

Animal Ceremonialism in Shamanism

Anna-Leena Siikala explored throughout her academic career how animal ceremonialism is connected to shamanism by looking at the spiritual traditions of ancient Finno-Ugric hunting cultures.

She describes animal ceremonialism as a set of rituals where humans honor animals’ spirits to maintain a good relationship with nature. These rituals often included offerings or sacrifices meant to please the spirits that protect the animals.

Ethnographic records show that these rituals involved carefully handling animal remains, such as bones or skulls. For example: The Khanty people of Siberia treated animal bones with great care so that the animal’s spirit could return to life. In Finno-Ugric traditions, special rituals were performed for bears to honor their spirit before and after hunting them. This practice is known as bear-ceremonialism and is ethnographically recorded in Europe, Eurasia / Siberia and North America.

Siikala explains that these practices were deeply connected to myths that described the relationships between humans and animals. Shamans played an important role in performing rituals and maintaining these connections.

Anna-Leena Siikala’s Life and Contributions

Anna-Leena Siikala (1943–2016) was a well-known Finnish folklorist who specialized in mythology, shamanism, oral traditions, and Finno-Ugric cultures. She completed her Ph.D. in 1978 with research on shamanic practices in Siberia. Throughout her career, she held teaching positions at Joensuu University from 1988 to 1995 and the University of Helsinki from 1995 to 2007. She also served as an Academy Professor from 1999 to 2004.

Siikala conducted fieldwork with Finnic-speaking peoples in Russia, including the Udmurts and the Khanty, and in the Cook Islands in Polynesia. Some of her major research projects included:

• Mythology of the Uralic Peoples: A project that documented myths from Finno-Ugric cultures.
• Myth, History, Society: A study of how ethnic traditions are influenced by globalization.

Her most important books include:

• The Rite Technique of the Siberian Shaman (1978)
• Interpreting Oral Narrative (1990)
• Mythic Images and Shamanism: A Perspective on Kalevala Poetry (2002)
• Itämerensuomalainen mytologia (Baltic-Finnic Mythology) (2012)

Siikala brought new ideas into folklore studies by showing how myths help shape the way people think. She also believed that fieldwork is essential for truly understanding religious practices in different cultures. All of these books and works deserve a blog article on their own and shall be published at a later time.

Anna-Leena Siikala’s work connects folklore studies with anthropology by showing how myths shape how people think, feel, and live their lives. In Myth and Mentality, she and other scholars look at how myths influence cultural ideas about life, witchcraft, values, love, and social rules.

Her research on animal ceremonialism shows how ancient people maintained a spiritual connection with nature through rituals that honored animals. These practices were based on myths and performed by shamans to ensure balance between humans and the natural world.

Siikala’s legacy is in her wide-ranging contributions to the study of Finno-Ugric traditions, her dedication to fieldwork, and her role in mentoring other scholars in folklore studies.