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The Fenni were an ancient hunter-gatherer
Hunter-gatherer

A hunter-gatherer society is one whose primary List of subsistence techniques involves the direct procurement of edible plants and animals from the wild, foraging and hunting without significant recourse to the domestication of either....
 people described by Cornelius Tacitus in Germania
Germania (book)

The Germania , written by Tacitus around 98, is an ethnography work on the Germanic tribes outside the Roman Empire.This work survived only in one single manuscript that was found in Hersfeld Abbey, Holy Roman Empire and brought to Italy in 1455 where Enea Silvio Piccolomini, the later Pope Pius II, first examined and analyzed it, wher...
 in 97 A.D.

Ancient accounts
The Fenni are first mentioned by Cornelius Tacitus in Germania
Germania (book)

The Germania , written by Tacitus around 98, is an ethnography work on the Germanic tribes outside the Roman Empire.This work survived only in one single manuscript that was found in Hersfeld Abbey, Holy Roman Empire and brought to Italy in 1455 where Enea Silvio Piccolomini, the later Pope Pius II, first examined and analyzed it, wher...
 in 97 A.D. Their location is uncertain, due to the vagueness of Tacitus' account:"they (Venedi) overrun in their predatory excursions all the woody and mountainous tracts between the Peucini and the Fenni".






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The Fenni were an ancient hunter-gatherer
Hunter-gatherer

A hunter-gatherer society is one whose primary List of subsistence techniques involves the direct procurement of edible plants and animals from the wild, foraging and hunting without significant recourse to the domestication of either....
 people described by Cornelius Tacitus in Germania
Germania (book)

The Germania , written by Tacitus around 98, is an ethnography work on the Germanic tribes outside the Roman Empire.This work survived only in one single manuscript that was found in Hersfeld Abbey, Holy Roman Empire and brought to Italy in 1455 where Enea Silvio Piccolomini, the later Pope Pius II, first examined and analyzed it, wher...
 in 97 A.D.

Ancient accounts


The Fenni are first mentioned by Cornelius Tacitus in Germania
Germania (book)

The Germania , written by Tacitus around 98, is an ethnography work on the Germanic tribes outside the Roman Empire.This work survived only in one single manuscript that was found in Hersfeld Abbey, Holy Roman Empire and brought to Italy in 1455 where Enea Silvio Piccolomini, the later Pope Pius II, first examined and analyzed it, wher...
 in 97 A.D. Their location is uncertain, due to the vagueness of Tacitus' account:"they (Venedi) overrun in their predatory excursions all the woody and mountainous tracts between the Peucini and the Fenni". The Greco-Roman geographer Ptolemy
Ptolemy

Claudius Ptolemaeus , known in English as Ptolemy , was a Roman Greek mathematics, Greek astronomy, geographer and astrologer. He lived in History of Roman Egypt, and was probably born there in a town in the Thebaid called Ptolemais Hermiou; he died in Alexandria around 168 AD....
, who produced his Geographia in ca. 150 AD, mentions a people called the Phinnoi, generally believed to be synonymous with the Fenni. He locates them in two different areas: a northern group in northern Scandia (Scandinavia
Scandinavia

Scandinavia is a historical and geographical subregion in northern Europe that includes the Scandinavian Peninsula. It consists of the kingdoms of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark; some authorities also include Finland and some might even include Iceland....
), then believed to be an island; and a southern group, apparently dwelling to the East of the upper Vistula river (SE Poland). It is unclear whether the two groups were related, despite their identical name.

The next ancient mention of the Fenni/Finni is in the Getica of 6th-century chronicler Jordanes
Jordanes

Jordanes , was a 6th century Roman bureaucrat , who turned his hand to history later in life.Though he also wrote Romana , a book about the history of Rome, his most known work is his Getica, written in Constantinople about AD 551 ....
. In his description of the island of Scandza (Scandinavia), he mentions three groups with names similar to Ptolemy's Phinnoi, the Screrefennae, Finnaithae and mitissimi Finni ("softest Finns"). The Screrefennae are believed to mean the "skiing Finns" and are generally identified with Ptolemy's northern Phinnoi and today's Sami, as there is evidence of Sami skis from 2000 BC onwards. The Finnaithae have been identified with the Finnveden
Finnveden

Finnveden or Finnheden is one of the ancient small lands of Sm?land. It corresponded to the hundreds of Sunnerbo Hundred, ?stbo Hundred and V?stbo Hundred....
 of central Sweden. It is unclear who the Finni mitissimi were.

Ethno-linguistic affiliation


Tacitus was unsure whether to classify the Fenni as Germanic or Sarmatian. The vagueness of his account has left the identification of the Fenni open to a variety of theories. It has been suggested that the Romans may have used Fenni as a generic name, to denote the various non-Germanic (i.e. Balto-Slavic
Balto-Slavic

Balto-Slavic can refer to:* Balto-Slavic languages* Balto-Slavic peoples...
 and Finno-Ugric
Finno-Ugric

Finno-Ugric can refer to:* Finno-Ugric languages* Finno-Ugric peoplesExcess long comment to prevent listing on...
) tribes of NE Europe. Against this argument is the fact that Tacitus distinguishes the Fenni from other probably non-Germanic peoples of the region, such as the Aestii and the Venedi.

It has also been suggested that Tacitus' Fenni could be the ancestors of the modern Finnish people
Finnish people

The terms Finns and Finnish people are used in English to mean "a native or inhabitant of Finland". They are also used to refer to the ethnic group historically associated with Finland or Fennoscandia, and they are only used in that sense here....
. Juha Pentikäinen
Juha Pentikäinen

Juha Pentik?inen is a professor in the Department of Comparative Religion at the University of Helsinki. With a field-work oriented approach to the study of religious traditions he is especially interested in the oral history of languages, religions and cultures....
 writes that Tacitus may well have been describing the Lapps or the proto Finns when referring to the Fenni, noting some archeologists have identified these people as indigenous to Scandinavia.

Another theory is that Tacitus' Fenni and Ptolemy's northern Phinnoi were the same people and constituted the original Sami
SAMI

SAMI is a Microsoft accessibility initiative released in 1998. The structured markup language is designed to simplify creating captions for media playback on a PC, i.e....
 (Lapp) people of northern Fennoscandia
Fennoscandia

Fennoscandia and Fenno-Scandinavia are geographic and geological terms used to describe the Scandinavian Peninsula, the Kola Peninsula, Karelia and Finland....
, making Tacitus' description the first historical record of them. But while this may seem a plausible identification for the Phinnoi of north Scandinavia, it is dubious for Tacitus' Fenni. Tacitus' Fenni (and Ptolemy's southern Phinnoi) were clearly based in continental Europe, not in the Scandinavian peninsula, and were thus outside the modern range of the Sami. Against this, there is some archaeological evidence that the Sami range may have been wider in antiquity.

The uncertainties have led some scholars to conclude that Tacitus' Fenni is a meaningless label, impossible to ascribe to any particular region or ethnic group. But Tacitus appears to relate the Fenni geographically to the Peucini and the Venedi, albeit imprecisely, stating that the latter habitually raided the "forests and mountains" between the other two. He also gives a relatively detailed description of the Fenni's lifestyle.

Material culture


Fenni seems to have been a form of the proto-Germanic word finne, denoting "wanderers" or "hunting folk". Tacitus describes the Fenni as follows:

"In wonderful savageness live the nation of the Fenni, and in beastly poverty, destitute of arms, of horses, and of homes; their food, the common herbs; their apparel, skins; their bed, the earth; their only hope in their arrows, which for want of iron they point with bones. Their common support they have from the chase, women as well as men; for with these the former wander up and down, and crave a portion of the prey. Nor other shelter have they even for their babes, against the violence of tempests and ravening beasts, than to cover them with the branches of trees twisted together; this a reception for the old men, and hither resort the young. Such a condition they judge more happy than the painful occupation of cultivating the ground, than the labour of rearing houses, than the agitations of hope and fear attending the defense of their own property or the seizing that of others. Secure against the designs of men, secure against the malignity of the Gods, they have accomplished a thing of infinite difficulty; that to them nothing remains even to be wished."


This description is of a lifestyle much more primitive than that of the medieval Sami, who were pastoralists living off herds of reindeer and inhabiting sophisticated tents of deer-hide. But the archaeological evidence suggests that the proto-Sami and Proto-Finns had a lifestyle more akin to Tacitus' description.

Citations


Ancient


  • Jordanes
    Jordanes

    Jordanes , was a 6th century Roman bureaucrat , who turned his hand to history later in life.Though he also wrote Romana , a book about the history of Rome, his most known work is his Getica, written in Constantinople about AD 551 ....
     Getica (ca. 550 AD)
  • Ptolemy
    Ptolemy

    Claudius Ptolemaeus , known in English as Ptolemy , was a Roman Greek mathematics, Greek astronomy, geographer and astrologer. He lived in History of Roman Egypt, and was probably born there in a town in the Thebaid called Ptolemais Hermiou; he died in Alexandria around 168 AD....
     Geographia (ca. 150 AD)
  • Tacitus
    Tacitus

    Publius Cornelius Tacitus was a Roman Senate and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two major works—the Annals and the Histories —examine the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and those that reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors....
     Germania
    Germania

    Germania was the Latin language exonym for a geographical area of land on the east bank of the River Rhine , which included regions of Sarmatia as well as an area under Ancient Rome control on the west bank of the Rhine....
     (ca. 100 AD)


Modern

  • Anderson, J.G.D. (1958) Textual note to Tacitus' Germania
  • Bosi, Roberto (1960): The Lapps
  • Hansen, L.I. & Olsen, B. (2004): Samenes Historie fram til 1750
  • Kinsten, Silje Bergum (2000): (The Norway Post, 19 August 2000)
  • Pirinen, Kauko The settlement of Finland begins in Eino Jutikkala (ed.) A History of Finland (trans. Paul Sjoblom)
  • Tägil, Sven (1995): , ISBN 1850652392


See also

  • Finnic
    Finnic

    Finnic can refer to:* Finnic languages* Finnic peoples Adding long comment tag to protect...
  • Sitones
    Sitones

    Sitones were a people living somewhere in Northern Europe in the 1st century Common Era. They are only mentioned by Cornelius Tacitus in 97 CE in Germania ....
  • Finningia
    Finningia

    Finningia is an old Latin name for Finland, along with Fennia, Finnia and most often used Finlandia. The name first appears in the work of Olaus Magnus from 1539, who placed Finningia olim regnum on the Scandinavian Peninsula map to indicate the unhistorical past kingdom of Finland....
  • Phinnoi
    Phinnoi

    Phinnoi were one of the people living in Scandinavia , mentioned by a Greeks scientist Ptolemy in his Geographia around 150 CE. Ptolemy mentions them twice, but provides no other information on them....