Unique historical poor-boxes or let us say poor-man statues. This summer I have been driving around my country taking photos. One interesting thing that I found, were some peculiar statues beside churches or bell towers. They were men or women and always their hand or foot was missing, but anyway those statues looked fine. When examining them more closely I found hole in them. Then I realized that You can put coins into hole and inside there is box. Why these poor-boxes / poor-man wooden statues were set up, when?
All this begins 1649 when Swedish queen Kristina gave order to make poor logs and put them beside church doors, bell towers or some public places. Soon those poor-logs were modified to poor-man statues by local artists. In that time Finland was under administration of Sweden. In Europe wars raged around and many soldiers wounded in them losing foot or arm. When wounded in this way they had to return to their home.
In the 1700 and 1800 century people was very poor, but they visited church every Sunday faithfully, so the natural place for those poor-man statues was beside churches or bell towers. Maybe these poor-man statues helped most poor, but no statistics remains of course.
When travelling and photographing them I considered that those who were wealthy could at same time show their richness to other people when putting coins into hole. Nowadays we have similar poor-boxes in the entrance of superstores, but they have only one hand and we call them one-armed bandit. Yet nowadays we need coins to use them! What about money left in them? Is it going to the poor as in the 1700 and 1800 centuries? When loking these poor-man statues I photographed, You find that many looks charming and artistic, but some are gnawed by tooth of time.
Poor-man statue in Fagernas.
Poor-man statue in Himanka.
Poor-man statue in Isojoki.
Poor-man statue in Juupajoki.
Poor-man statue in Kalajoki.
Poor-man statue inside old church in Keuruu.
Poor-woman statue in parish of Kaarlela in Kokkola.
Poor-man statue in Lohtaja.
Poor-man statue in Oravainen.
Poor-man statue in Pirttikyla.
Poor-man statue in Peraseinajoki.
Poor-man statue in Alajarvi.
Poor-man statue in Kaustinen.
Poor-man statue in Kuortane.
Poor-man statue in Kuru.
Poor-man statue in Lappajarvi.
Your opinion, please, Su opinión, por favor, Votre opinion, s'il vous plaît
Back to english pages