Author Archives: Thomas Seli

Estonian Wallet Gifting

Background: The informant is a 51 year-old Estonian immigrant who lives in Los Angeles. She continues to participate in Estonian traditions and is a part of the “Estonian House” which is an Estonian community that resides in LA.

Context: The folklore was collected on a scheduled Zoom meeting in which I interviewed two native Estonians who immigrated to the United States and are close friends.

Main Piece: “When you give a wallet as a gift to someone, we believed to never give an empty wallet. Always put a little bit of money in it. Like even if it’s a couple of coins. You know for obvious reasons, because then more money will come in.”

Interpretation: This Estonian gift-giving superstition is another way of ensuring good luck for the future. Many of the Estonian gift-giving superstitions I am aware of deal heavily with good luck in the future when it comes to some form of material item. Insecurity it comes to money and food are both things that Estonians seem to be worried about from the various gift-giving customs I have been told about. However, this makes complete sense because Estonia is in no way known for a history of wealth and prosperity. Estonian history is one of subjugation and conquer. This is why many Estonian superstitions reflect an anxiety surrounding whether or not there will be plentiful food or money in the future.

Estonian Housewarming Gift

Context: The folklore was collected on a scheduled Zoom meeting in which I interviewed two native Estonians who immigrated to the United States and are close friends.

Background: The informant is a 51 year-old Estonian immigrant who lives in Los Angeles. She continues to participate in Estonian traditions and is a part of the “Estonian House” which is an Estonian community that resides in LA.

Main Piece:

Informant: “When you go to visit that person in their new home you’re always bring salt and bread, always. You always bring salt and bread, its called soolaleiba pidu (salt bread party) that’s like house warming party. You bring salt and bread only when going to someone’s house for the first time, a new house.”

Collector: “Do you eat the salt with the bread or…?”

Informant: “No, no, no. You just bring it. You can either just take, like regular, like you know, this kosher salt from the shelf or nice salt mill or whatever, but in old times, people they bake like special bread where in the middle there is little hole where you put the salt. You know it’s like such a tradition. But otherwise, yeah, you just take any like salt, because you know, in a house you always need salt and bread. It came like from the old times like, you know, they believed that then the hunger will never come to the House and you can make flavorful food. Because, if you have salt, then you have flavor for food. The bread represents plentiful food for the future. Especially, like, my grandma lived in the Leningrad Seige, so, you know, they lived in hunger for three years so I remember it wasn’t accepted that we wasted food, it was like such a treasure.”

Interpretation: This tradition is a housewarming tradition in Estonia where you are essentially blessing the new house with plentiful food and resources for the future through a gift of bread and salt. The bread is what represents the food itself, and the salt is a representative of utility. It can be used to make the food more flavorful or for cleaning purposes, or even medical purposes. In my interpretation this is a way of giving new home owners good luck for the future, and food seems to be a high concern for Estonians. This is likely because Estonia does have harsh climate during winter, so it makes sense that bread would be the first thing that you use to bless a new home. Furthermore, Estonian culture reflects simplicity as opposed to opulence and grandeur. Bread and salt are simple and effective housewarming gifts that fit right into the themes of Estonian culture and tradition, you will rarely see over-the-top, glamorous gifts being given between Estonians. This has its roots in Estonia’s history of slavery, persecution, and communism.

Estonian Proverb

Background: The informant is a 51 year-old Estonian immigrant who lives in Los Angeles. She continues to participate in Estonian traditions and is a part of the “Estonian House” which is an Estonian community that resides in LA.

Context: While I was having a discussion with the informant on a car ride, she told me about an Estonian proverb that related to the conversation.

Main Piece:

  • “Väiksed vargad ripuvad võllas, suured sõidavad tõllas.”
    • Transliterated Proverb:
      • Väiksed: Small
      • Vargad: Thieves
      • Ripuvad: Hanging
      • Võllas: Gallows
      • Suured: Large
      • Sõidavad: Driving
      • Tõllas: In the carriage
    • Translated Proverb: “Small thieves hang on a shaft, large ones fly on a chariot.”
  • Explanation: Essentially this proverb reflects on a corrupt justice system in which smaller criminals are punished and hanged for everyday crimes, such as stealing, whereas the large criminals who are committing the really heinous crimes are riding in their chariots. It insinuates that those who are in high places in society had to pull some strings or cut off some loose ends to get to where they are at in the social hierarchy. It also implies that the everyday thief, who is likely just a poor person trying to survive, is severely punished for minor crimes.

Interpretation: A common theme in Estonian history is the subjugation of the peasantry and the lower-class members of society. This proverb reflects how Estonians have viewed their justice system in the past to be corrupt and favor the large criminals (likely members of the upper class) and punish the lower criminals for simply stealing or committing minor crimes to survive. This proverb becomes especially significant when realizing that Estonia was a part of the Soviet Union which instilled communism. Perhaps proverbs like this reflect a deeply embedded attitude that Estonians have to upper class members or “large criminals” and how that was affected by years of communism under the Soviets.

Estonian ‘Regilaul’

Background: The informant is a 48-year-old woman who was born in Estonia and immigrated to the United States, and currently lives in California. She still participates in Estonian traditions by attending the “Estonian House” which is an Estonian community located in Los Angeles.

Context: The folklore was collected during a scheduled zoom meeting in which I interviewed two native Estonians who currently live in Los Angeles and who are close friends.

Main Piece:

Informant: “Estonia has a very strong tradition of ‘regilaul’, which is a song where there is a main singer that sings something meaningful and then at the very last word of that same… you know its like a continual song. The first singer gives an idea of what she sings and then the other singers catch up the last word and carry on the song. It is called ‘regilaul’ and it’s a very Estonian tradition, you can see lots of them on YouTube.”

Collector: “So is it improvised on the spot?”

Informant: “Yeah, many times yes. The most important thing is not the melody, the melody is always the same or repeating. Like it’s a very simple melody and usually like four or five notes or tones all together. But the most important thing in them is the words, not the melody or the rhythm. I don’t know if I’m saying it correctly, but its almost like a haiku. It came from the old times when at winter nights these women were sitting around and doing handcrafts and, you know, just to spend time when working.”

Interpretation: I have been to the Estonian House in Los Angeles countless times as I was growing up and have experienced Estonian folk culture for all of my life; however, I was never aware of this “regilaul” tradition. So, I went to YouTube and watched some videos about the topic and found that it is very similar to how described above. It is sang in groups of people where there is a few lines sang together, then one person will sing the next line and the whole group will pick up on the last word of the individual singer’s line and it goes around in a circle. It does not use many, if any, instruments and is almost like a poetic chant where there is monotonous singing, repetition, and parallelism heavily involved. I also found that “regilaul” is strictly passed down orally through tradition and is not written down like a poem or haiku, as referenced by the informant. However, it serves a very similar function to poetry by painting an image through words and also serves as a representation of unity where multiple people sing together to create more of a powerful, unifying chant then the melodic songs we here in the mainstream today.

For some examples of “regilaul” watch: