Maria Breaks Her Silence

by Nancy Mattson WRITING Run, little helper to the cottage of the tietaja This manuscript is a poetic biog- a poem about a famous man we all despise her except in distress raphy of a woman from Kauhava, is one thing: now that her husband has left her , who emigrated to Michi- Socrates Blake Three heavy lumbermen carry Paavo gan in 1886 and to Picasso a log filled with pain in 1891. his leg wrapped in sodden shirts The character Maria is based on but how to hymn a woman to Maria's kitchen her children standing around a real historical figure whom I whose voice was lost discovered while working where as she shifted continents She unwraps his foot my parents were born and where I languages dips her hands in the stream of blood spent all my childhood summers. I husbands seeks out the edges of his wound know the bare bones of Maria's names presses the slippery flesh together one dying into another skin to skin life,but I have had to invent details threads the rivers of blood since she left no letters, no diaries, whose letters were lost in vein to vein and no pictures, and her descen- oceans lifts her head to Ahto dants know very little about her. furrows utters these words: decades She had three husbands, all of Blood, blood, become a wall whom died before her, and three thicken, thicken, like a fence whose thoughts were lost in stay, stay, behind my hands children, one of whom died in in- sewing fancy. I have speculated that her washing stop, stop, beneath my thumbs! first marriage in Finland was making do As Maria chants what she knows, unhappy and that her second mar- chanting softly from under a tangle of genealogies riage to David Kautonen, the the lumberman Paavo, fearful as a rosebushes wounded bear founder of the New Finland settle- cloudberries falls quiet under her hands ment, was extremely happy. Her nettles When the sun falls, his blood sleeps third marriage occurred when she dries in thick threads and wooden scabs was 80 and her groom, a widower your voice, maria, whispering growing stronger and old friend, was 76. Maria rises, her hair matted I see Maria as a Finnish "ev- blood hardened on her dress erywoman," in some senses a com- congealed on her arms: a newborn calf covered with blood and TIETAJA: ONE WHO KNOWS posite of the Finnish women I've straw known. In many of the poems I've When Paavo, the seasoned lumberman incorporated elements of Finnish strikes his foot with an axe folk poetry and customs, historical the devil's axe seeking a tree root CROSSINGS details of the Finns in the old coun- finding instead Paavo's ankle through layers of boot and heavy sock try and the new, and some Finnish Here on this blunted border words and phrases which seem to between snow and snow When Paavo's eyes are swimming she is crossing blind fit in context. in blood and branches and clouds a crone clicks his own blood soaking earth and wood (The poem Tietaja: One Who her teeth on the tracks Prism What can he do but send for Maria, Knows was reprinted from 1 She remembers another crossing International, Vol. 26, No. 2). village blood-stopper?

38 CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIESLES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME the blood. Fora few days their milk will be they marry men who love them, this is a a rope thick as a woman's curdled, but soon they will offer smooth new land. wrist cut through milk again. The deer meat will be good. by salt scissor wind David quarters it, hangs it in the seppa David scrubs my back in the sauna moonlight a midwife shop. It is sweet and pungent and lean tickles me with the vihta ship adrift with the taste of wild grass. He's a good we throw cold water slowly man in my middle age. on the hot stones She tightens her belt prolonging the loyly What I must keep locked inside: Matt the stones laugh with steam around the sharp stone was seldom kind, though he struggled. our bodies soften and ripen of a wizened berry You saw in hiseyes what1 couldnot see, we go outside to cool off, recite the the withered grief of leaving home tried to warn me. But why did you and stars the train slows down mother close your door to me when I come in again for loyly stops for no reason married him? After sauna, the house is quiet the girls are asleep in the loft She hears through the steam The geese came down today from the we drink tea and look at each other north. David ran in to tell me he heard make love as slowly as we can her daughters' cries, "Maa maa" them honking and growling and filling the cool off and start again. her body their only country sky. He took me outside, we threw back she settles their heads our heads, laughedand called to the geese. We broke more land this year, 6 more on her empty womb They flew in a wide V from Vaasa, head- acres. The crop was healthy except for the the train pulses forward ing for warm islands. David sings to me of oats, maybe we got some bad seed. David from darkness to darkness the tropics, he went for asailor someof the has time now to build me a loom, the rugs years of his wandering. He ties up the from Kauhava are finally wearing out. horses with sailors' knots, tells me stories Take care of yourself, do not worry about in the sauna. me, but write to me again with news of New Finland Kauhava. What I cannot ask you: why did mother October 28, 1894 hurt you? You never spoke harsh words in return, but charmed and teased her With love, My dear father, out of her moods. your goose, your girl,

This is aletter to bless the day you were The girls are growing, they like David. born. I wish I could celebrate with you, eat He's carving them dolls for Christmas. I berry preserves and cake. I miss you, but wish they could see their grandpa. I hope I cannot say I'm lonely here in thisclump of Finns. They speak the same language my tongue learned when my tongue was unlocked. Sometimes the towns- people laugh at my Eng- lish, but I know enough to get along. It is cold here today, nearing winter. But I'm used to the cold: the Fame north wind, pohjan tuuli, blows from Kauhava across the pole to Canada on our huddle of buildings in Uusi Suomi. David shot a deer this morning for the girls and me. He is bleeding and gutting it, skinning its soft hide. He does it swiftly in the barn, the cows shift and tremble in their stalls, their Prairie women worked with the men in the fields. Family Hjelt, Steeledale, Saskatchewan, 1914. eyes roll when they smell Photo: Multicultural History Society of Ontario/ Ontario Archives.

VOLUME 9, NUMBER 2 39 on the lowest shelf waiting and thinking She's killed pigs before I was the first woman photographer in how would this baby be? but this one's too mean the west I looked at the knots in the wood and Mmknows she's getting old the one who captured women watched the flame in the lantern their lined faces, tired eyes Hitching her skirts above her boots children at their skirts Finally Maria would arrive: she strides off through the snow the ones buried in your trunks how come you get an old woman to the neighbor Lauttamus whose names you don't remember out of her warm cosy bed? to fetch young Gus the smith Oh well, now that I'm here he treated the sow last week This one was Maria let's see if there's a little one hiding for running sores in her eyes she had eyes like the glint of a bluebird's wing She sang as she stroked Old Juha is splitting wood fair hair braided and coiled my belly, legs, back his axe true, his forearms thick heavy as August wheat loosening the skin and nerves when he sees Maria she wiped my face with cool water his back straightens Her dress that day was a clear red made circles with her fingertips like a sapling slowly released if you look closely on my forehead and temples but she heads straight for the seppa you'll see tiny ovals on it her hands were rough from work shop little pointed eggs she wasn't afraid to use pressure without so much aspaivaa or grains of rice for the friend of her youth in a flowing pattern When the time came near she crouched below me "My son has gone to I posed her in front of the garden fence: kneading and stretching the walls to buy his animal medicines willow branches woven every time the pain bore down he won't be back for a week into a landscape of hills the sauna walls contracted come in for a coffee... her daughters had gathered wild flowers she told me to throw my pain What's the matter? stuck them into the fence here and there into the coals, throw it in the water Are you planning to murder the Czar?" let it steam away I caught her with one arm outstretched "I guess it has to be you, my friend beckoning to a wren She had a chant for breathing: the old sow's gone crazy Yksi, kaksi, wind goes in needs to be put down today - This is a picture of the girls kolme, nelja, hold it there are you sure you can do the job?" one was sprightly like her mother viisi, kuusi, shoo it out the other tall and serious after her father Another verse when she saw the baby's "Do you see that woodpile?" a study in contrasts head: Open up, my flower Never mind his years They helped me load the equipment into come out, my bird Juha is up for the task the buggy don't be afraid to leave your nest still on the green side of fourscore it was cool in the house if he can kill the sow clean I drank two dippers of cold spring water When the baby came she caught it maybe Maria will listen to him many cups of strong coffee cradled it, cleaned away the blood she always says they're both too old with honey-dipped buns laid it on my chest I closed my eyes' Maria skims the clean fat When her husband came in from the saw a lake, a sunrise, from the rendering pot field maybe a rainbow or northern lights the rotten silt settles on the bottom I could see where her joy came from heard music on the shore she thinks how good it is if I'd ever met a man llke that like a soft flute, huhuilua to be so useful after you're gone I'd have packed up my camera and We floated and rested on the waves haunches into salt pork tripod Maria rowed us back to shore thick skin for tanning settled down on this flat prairie gallons of fat for soap and learned how to make honey buns , MARIA MAKES SOAP "But this old sow's fat reeks of bitterness MIDWIFE "Eukko sika witch of a sow I'd better not add too much lye I nursed you as a runt or I'll burn the dishtowels The sauna is the best place for a birth now you trample the young of your when I boil them warm as a womb young I used to sit on a bed of towels with your wicked old hoofs!" Maybe I'll use this soap in the sauna

CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIESLES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME I my skin will crack off I 1 I'll be a newborn piglet underneath

Juha's a fine man for his age Some Reflections on Equality, he skiied both here and back the red tassel flying on his hat Democracy & Identity in he killed the old sow clean just one blow with Gus's hammer" Sweden & Canada

KANADALAINEN by Ingrid Ljungberg van Beinum

To have left behind the language that flowed like spring water The other day I read an article in a them to some examples, mainly from the easy seepage Swedish magazine about a woman who is Sweden but partly from Canada as well. of fresh words every hour an actress, dancer, educator, as well as many other things. Whatreally struck me Equality To have come to a land was her statement: "I'm Swedish, I'm of thorough drought black." These words triggered off a force- In Sweden there was alively discussion with a dry tongue - ful image because of their inherent strength in the late 1950s and early 1960s about and impossibility. Swedish people are equality in the field of education. The To have to pump the handle after all, mostly blond and blue-eyed. debate was largely about whetherequality like a child again Ingrained perceptions can be very de- means people are basically the same or lifted off the platform ceiving. Being blond, blue-eyed and whether equality means that people should by every upstroke Swedish myself, although I've lived in be treated equally although they are dif- the pump so stiff Canada for 10 years and outside of Swe- ferent. The debate led to a school system the well so dark den for 18 years, it reminded me of my allowing equal opportunities for dissimi- you doubt the alkali earth own identity and how it is linked to the lar people which included a compulsory 9 will ever release its sour water notions of equality and democracy, and year education for everyone. how these change over time. In Canada the Royal Commission on To hang a new pail In this discussion I will take the view Equality in Employment for women, na- from the knuckle that being sure of one's own identity is tive people, disabled persons and visible on the pump mouth necessary to understand equality and to minorities, which was chaired by Judge watching the water trickle be able to participate in a "real demo- Rosalie Abella, has expressed its views as slowly at first cratic" society. The threeconcepts are, as follows: equality "means that no one is then slowly faster I see it, positively correlated. denied opportunities for reasons that have until the pail is overflowing, Instead of following an academic dis- nothing to do with inherent ability." Fur- only to stumble on a root course of comprehensive definitions and ther,"discrimination ...means ...limiting an on the path to the house analyses of equality, democracy andiden- individual's or group's right to the op- tity, I will focus on more general and portunities generally available because of To watch the pumped water operational definitions as we use and attributed rather than actual characteris- settle and seep understand them in our daily reality. tics," and "sometimes equality means into insatiable Although I am very much aware that treating people the same, despite their Canadian earth these questions are pertinent to all the differences, and sometimes it means treat- different groups that make up society, I ing them as equals by accommodating To have believed the words will limit my remarks to women and men their differences."' would ever flow together and their relationship. I think that if we These are broadand humanedefinitions. into sentences cannot clarify the "equality and identity To treat people in a certain way does not, crisis" between men and women, we will per se, mean one does so out of an inner Nancy Mattson is a third-generation have little chance of making any progress conviction. It may well be theresult of en- Finnish-Canadian. She works as an edi- in improving the relationship between the vironmental forces such as legislation or tor &writing consultant, Dept. of Educa- various other groups in society. As the peer pressure. tional Administration, Univ. of Alberta. picture with regard to the latter is some- The point is that unless we recognize, She is active in the Finnish-Canadian what gloomy, learning about the role and understand and believe in equality as dis- community and has hadpoetrypublished relationship between women and men is a cussed in Judge Abella's report, we can- in various journals, including Canadian matter of urgency. not deal with it in a genuine fashion and Forum, CVII, Northward Journal , and I will begin with a few remarks about consequently society will have great dif- broadcast on CBC Radio and Finnish the meaning of the three concepts and ficulty in developing equality as an au- Radio Broadcasting Corporation. how I use them, and then I will try to link thentic cultural characteristic.

VOLUME 9, NUMBER 2 41