Sauna (long, you have been warned)

From: Mikko Rintasaari <mikrin_at_...>
Date: Wed, 2 May 2001 08:32:26 +0300 (EET DST)


On Tue, 1 May 2001 bethexton_at_... wrote:

> wrote:

<snip>
> > A dry sauna/heat bath might even be preferable - sweat all ther
> toxins out
> > of your body, then scrape it all off with nice clean oil and a
> strigil.
> >
>
> Apparently none of the Finns have been following this thread yet, so
> having grown up with periodic visits to my Finnish grandfather and
> his traditional sauna, let me clarify something:

I have, but I don't want to get too pedantic over something this esoteric. And "steam bath" sounds about right. But parhaps there's a spesific meaning to "steam bath" that I'm not aware of? Does it mean what we call "Turkish sauna?", which is a lot wetter and cooler that the Finnish sweatlodge.

> A sauna is *not* a steam bath.
>
> Cheap north american imitation mostly don't get hot enough for
> maximum effect, so people use a lot of steam to get the same effect,
> but a proper sauna is not at all steamy. It is also so hot that the
> uninitiated had best breath carefully, move slowly, and not sit
> directly on the wood. You might dash a little water on the rocks for
> a surge of apparent heat, but I seem to recall my grandfather doing
> so almost never.

Hmm... your grandfather must have liked his sauna very hot and dry then. But there's a broad spectrum there. I recommend trying an authentic wood burning sauna called "savusauna" in finnish (savu = smoke), which is one of the most traditional ways to build one (and very rare now). The sauna is not actually smoky when used, but when heated there's not so many places the smoke can go, so the fire is put out, and the place aired before bathing. The "kiuas", that is the fireplace containing the hot rocks, is left hot enough for a large group of people to bathe and steam themselves for the next twelve hours. Before using the savusauna, the walls and benches are doused with water, because they too are way too hot for sitting.

> You sweat out the dirt, then the only question is how you get rid of
> the sweat. Water is traditional, but a cultural variation where you
> scrape yourself down after sweating would seem very appropriate to
> yelmalio types--fire (in the form of heat) drives out the impurities,
> and you scrape off the impurities AND water (in the form of sweat),
> rendering yourself that much more pure.

The suggested Solar dry-sauna, followed with a rough towel and clean scented (olive) oils sounds really clever to me. I think I'll adopt it for my Dara Happans, or at least those Yelmalioans that are descendant from Heortlings.

> One additional note for the culturally minded: from what I understand
> the sauna was also the traditional sick room.
<snip>

And more. Life both begun and ended in the Sauna. The place is _very_ sterile after warming (especially the savusauna, since the combination of heat, soot and carbon-monoxide kills almost anything. The indoors temperature of surfaces goes over 100 C during heating for a long time). So childbirth was naturally done in the Sauna (not while it was all that hot, of course), and the dead were cleaned and prepared for burial there.

Like with the native americans, the Finnish sauna was originally (way back) a tool of the sh�man, adopted from the saame people of Lapland. I suppose the cold climate of Finland soon made the Sauna a place for the common people too, and not just a place of sh�manistic visions and healing.

> The romans, the turks, and no doubt others used steam baths. Same
> generaly concept, but very different in feel. Much better for
> mysterious plotting however, especially if you go to extremes on the
> steam, so I'd vote for them being used in Dara Happa :)
>
> --Bryan

Both, I think. :) The traditional, dryer heat version, would be used for the stounch traditionalists, and the roman style steambaths for those soft, liberal, lunarized ones.

        -Adept : wishing he had a sauna in his flat

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