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EESTI ELU reedel, 13. mail 2022 — Friday, May 13, 2022
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Global Estonian Insights: Pauliine Maasik’s Musings on the Camino de Santiago Vincent Teetsov Walking long distances shifts the primary incentive of movement away from getting from point to point quickly, as with other means of getting around. If you’re seeking men t al clarity, spiritual grounding, or a physical chal lenge, walking long distances could put you back on track, so to speak. Especially if you have only a few possessions and a backpack with you. This is what one may find on the Camino de Santiago (also known as the Way of St. James). The Camino de Santiago is a collection of seven official pilgrimage routes across the Iberian Peninsula that were first walked in the Middle Ages. At the end, in the city of Santiago de Compostela, is a shrine to St. James; one of the 12 Apostles, who is believed to have spread Christianity in Spain. Pilgrims historically walked to this city in Galicia to atone for their sins. Though, nowadays motivations are varied. According to Mountain IQ, “28.2% of walkers were simply looking for a new challenge, 28% were walking for a religious or spiritual purpose, 17.8% wanted to walk it in order to get away from the [busyness] of their everyday lives and connect with nature.” For the remaining people, this famous pilgrimage route is travelled to learn about local culture or for other undisclosed reasons. Pauliine Maasik, who is currently a freelance translator in the autonomous community of Galicia, first came to northern Spain in 2001, when she began working as an au pair for a local family. She had studied Spanish for two years at the University of Tartu, for which her studies included translating Galician legends and short stories. Finding work in the city of Santiago gave her the opportunity to speak Spanish, as well
as Galician, regularly. She ended up enjoying her time there so much that for four summers in a row, she hitchhiked down to the area for a folk music festival, owing to her additional study of the violin. In 2004, she completed the whole Camino de Santiago for the first time. On this first journey, she hitchhiked to the border of France and Spain, with a violin, a tent in her backpack, and no planned route. Though she did get lost along the way, fellow travellers and signage with the distinct scallop shell symbol of St. James would guide the way. She was also given a Credencial del Peregrino, a Camino Pilgrim Passport that is stamped to prove that each pilgrim has reached key stops along the way. For Maasik, her motivation to walk was to see more of northern Spain – with its green nature, mountains, and Celtic influence that contrast with the beaches and sunny lifestyle of southern Spain. The Camino provided new social interactions, too. Maasik says, “You will meet people randomly and have really important conver sations. Maybe you see them many days in a row after that. Or maybe you won’t see them ever again.” Wishing to experience life abroad for longer, in 2005, she made the leap and moved to Spain to study in a folk music academy. This move made it possible to complete the Camino in short sections, for a few days at a time. When she began walking the Camino, it was quite rare to find other Estonians. Looking through logbooks at each alber gue (hostel), she would sometimes see an Estonian name marked down several days before her. The last time she went on the Camino was in the spring of 2013 for three weeks, where she met Toomas Marley from Toronto. Aside from speaking
On Estonia’s recent ‘Teeme ära’ day – a nation-wide public volunteer effort to do a good thing together – the Estonian Heritage Society and the Estonian Flag Society placed over 1,000 flower on the graves of prominent Estonian’s from history. Photo: Jüri Trei
briefly with two Estonian women who were walking, Toomas was the first Estonian she got the chance to know on the Camino. She had heard five days prior that he was walking on the Camino and says that, from there, “it all developed naturally.” By the time she ran into him, she says “he was already kind of famous, sitting and eating with many people he had met.” They connected over the fact that they had mutual acquaintances, and also that he is a member of Korporatsioon Viro nia and she is a member of Korporatsioon Filiae Patriae. She spent many days on the Camino together with a large group that included Toomas and Antonio, another friend they had made. They walked together at the same rhythm until she had to leave early to return to work in Santiago. When they finally finished the Camino, she showed her new friends around the city. By now, the Camino has become very popular among Estonians, with a Facebook group that sees regular updates and interactions. Across languages, there are many apps and websites with resources to help one plan a journey. One of these is camino.ee, a site run by Eesti Jaakobitee, which provides info on the Estonian branch of the trans-European route to Santiago. Each route varies in what it offers. Maasik notes that “The French Way is the most traditional, popular, and known. It has the most infrastructure, including places where you can stay and eat.” Some routes offer more challenging mountain passages with higher elevation trails if you’re prepared for that. Distance-wise, the Camino can be from your front doorstep to the town of Santiago. But at minimum, the length of one’s route has to be 100 kilometres by foot or on horseback, or 200 kilometres by bike, to receive a Compostela, which certifies that you have completed the pilgri mage. For a first time trip, Maasik says that the Portuguese route is the easiest, without too many changes in elevation. It’s parti cularly popular among Esto nians these days. Regardless, it’s important to look up the routes beforehand to see what you can expect. Preparations are certainly recommended to enjoy the journey as much as possible. Maasik adds that “It’s not too difficult, but if you’re not used to walking a lot, walking up and down steep hills, then you should spend a few months practicing taking long walks.” She advises walkers not to bring too much along, emphasizing how “The first time I went, my right knee was really hurting, so I had to stop for five days... It was because I had too much weight, and I walked for
Toomas Marley, Pauliine Maasik, and their friend Antonio. Photo used with permission from Pauliine Maasik
too long one day, partially on concrete and other hard materials.” This was one of Maasik’s most difficult ex periences on the Camino, confirming how one has to know and not exceed one’s physical limits. No matter what happens, she insists, “I really don’t know anybody who tried it and didn’t like it at all.” At one point, when she ran out of money on her first excursion, she was
shown the possibilities of generosity. Seeing the violin Maasik brought, a priest invited her to perform in the local church. Afterwards, all of the money that was collected by the congregation was given to her. On another occasion, she and a musician from Italy played for a bachelorette party in a restaurant to sustain their travels. It seems that walking can open any situation to good fortune.
Reassessing…
and fragmentation...” At the same time, Dr. Hawass has argued for the repatriation of a number of significant artifacts from museums abroad back to Egypt. There is plenty of space to store artifacts just like the ones taken by Otto Friedrich von Richter. For instance, the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza, Egypt. Already, significant artifacts have been moved here from the old Museum of Egyptian Antiquities in Cairo. In April 2021, the BBC reported on the Pharaoh’s Golden Parade, in which 18 kings and four queens were transported in climate-controlled, “nitrogenfilled boxes to help protect them against external conditions.” Demonstrations of cultural pride like this make you wonder how we would respond to these questions if the remains or artifacts in question were Estonian. Dr. Anderson makes an excellent point about grappling with the ethics of the mummies held in Tartu, though. She writes, “The Mummy Chamber of the University of Tartu Art Museum aims to teach people how to look at the body with respect and with positive intentions – to see, behind each body, a life, and their various customs, traditions and beliefs... The problem is not that Egyptian mummies are on public display. The problem is that some members of the public can bring the wrong mindset to the encounter with them...” Ancient human remains and artifacts being transported far away from their places of origin creates a turbulent debate over heritage, ownership, and the consequences of the past. In the end, though, viewing these fragments of the past, in and of itself, is an act that requires us to reassess our relationship with death.
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larger of the two human mummies to the Ptolemaic period, between 332 BCE and 30 BCE, or later. Meanwhile, other attempts to analyze the remains over the years were destructive. A tooth, pieces of hair, and packaged organs were removed. Damage was inflicted to a lip and to toes. An autopsy from the early 1900s resulted in the removal of the right hand and forearm of the older of the two human mummies. It’s clear that this work was not done with respect. The mummies were moved to the University of Tartu’s Art Museum in 1980, and since then, researchers have en deavoured to be more careful. Contemporary research teams have taken smaller and less destructive samples, 34 in total, from the mummies. Analysis has ranged from chemical and textile analyses to DNA investigation. This has clarified details about the lives of the deceased, the mummification process, and even clues as to where the deceased were from. Their origin has been identified as either Memphis, Luxor, or the Faiyum Basin area, where many child mummies have been found. Still, it raises a difficult question: how much time must elapse before it is ethical for human remains to be exhumed, studied, and shown to the public? Prominent Egyptologist Dr. Zahi Hawass has spoken in favour of excavating mummies and artifacts and showing them in museums. In 2021, he insisted that “archaeologists work to immortalize these people, as they restore their coffins, graves and mummies, because the presence of these coffins inside the wells exposes them to decomposition
