TATE’S HISTORY OF FINNISH CONQUEST The word hit Casciani’s Saturday afternoon with the numbing force of a March tramontana. Ulla had called from Canton late in the morning to say that Tate was dead. It was something much heavier than bad news. It wasn’t possible. He couldn’t leave us that suddenly. One-by-one the regulars drifted in and Keane or Marino cleared his throat and told them what had happened, Keane insisting for awhile that it had to be a mistake. We couldn’t imagine Barga without him, our big gentle Finn, back home after one of his job postings to a paper mill in China or the Malay Archipelago. After knowing Tate a few years, I had begun to develop my own definition of what made a Finn, an amalgam of the usual haphazard facts that enthrall journalists and the more important points that can only come from personal observation. Tate wasn’t my only source on that second front – it covered Ulla too, and nearly every other true Finn I’d met – but he was the pattern, the mold, the Platonic ideal of Finnishness, at least in my evolving definition of the breed. The facts have it that the Finns, like their distant cousins the Hungarians, migrated to Europe from the Asian steppes, both tribes speaking a tongue-twisting language related to none but their own and each other’s. A very small family. But that’s where the relationship ends. The Finns seem blessedly indifferent to the chest-thumping lists of rampaging warrior-kings and victorious battles that pre-occupy their cousins and every other tribe that claimed its piece of Europe with a sword. In short, nearly all other modern Europeans. In my Tate History of Finnish Conquest, the scenario went something like this: On a tranquil evening in the Bronze Age, a newcomer from the east quietly took up a spot at the bar in a simple caffe where Helsinki would one day rise. He couldn’t speak the local language worth a damn, but almost instantly he was at home. As soon as he mastered a few stumbling words, his first request was to order a round of drinks for the house. His second was to borrow a string instrument, and ask if someone would be kind enough to teach him a local tune. Tate was at home in Barga, from the moment he strolled into our lives, and we were at home with him in a way that seldom transpires outside the bonds of blood and nationality. Tate didn’t care about those things. That was what made him a truly free man, in a way that so many of us can scarcely imagine. Saturday evening, I caught myself looking at the far end of Marino’s bar, where he liked to stand, strumming Aristo’s banjo or mandolin and buying a glass of wine for the next arrival. I noticed Marino and the others looking at the same empty spot, their brows furrowed, as though some natural law had been violated. It had.
Frank Viviano
This is such sad news. I barely knew Tate, but it didn’t take long to establish that he was just plain nice. (Silvano’s harmonica was a gift from Tate, wasn’t it?)
I’ll remember him as a wink and a chuckle during some sort of carrying on inside Aristo’s.
what a blow!
years ago, at a time when he had almost settled in Barga (before his work and travels in Indonesia and China meant that he became an infrequent visitor), we all had the chance of really getting to know this great man.
The summer months spent together fixing the roof of Mario Milano’s capanna at the Trine were an eye-opener for me. No problem was unsurmountable: with a sparkle in hie eye and a wry smile he would take out his pocket knife and whittle away at the chestnut beams until he was satisfied that the fit was just right! All the while he would share with us (in his unique blend of pidgin Italian and broken English) the complex foundations of physical and mechanical science – making it all sound so straight forward and self evident.
His profound love and respect for the natural world was his trademark. He kept a meticulous record (with the finnish, english, italian and latin scientific names) of all the plants and animals he encountered during his long walks through the woods. No one – not even the likes of Silvano himself – possessed a more complete and profound knowledge of mushrooms and all the flora and fauna of the woodland surrounding Barga. The received wisdom was that if any of us was abandoned in the forest, we would probably succumb in a matter of days/weeks; but if you left Tate with just his trusty pocket knife, and then came back after a few months, you would find him sitting on the porch of a perfectly comfortable wood house, sipping on his latest home brew, trout would be curing in the smoke-hut, fire wood would be neatly stacked outside ready for the winter hardship and after an invigorating sauna you would be invited inside to share in a delicious combination of mushrooms, wild berries and fish. In fact, you would be hard pressed to convince him to leave this woodland paradise.
Like many of the Finns I encountered through him, his darker side would bubble to the surface during his bouts of heavy drinking – possibly an indication of the inherent conflicts generated by the incompatibility of this essentially natural free spirit with the confines of modern society. However drunk and incoherent, his face would always light-up when he saw me and I always had the absolute certainty that the strength of his friendship was undaunted – even after our respective paths began to diverge and we began to lose track of each other.
Thank-you Tate, for I feel truly honored to have known you! Now you are free at last to live your dream in the woods. My only hope is that at some point I too will stumble on your little clearing in the forest and once again we will share those simple but profound moments of true friendship which I recall with such fondness!
He was a Dear friend, one of us…
SONG TO TATE
Tate, my friend,
I wrote You a song,
more simple than simple
and not very long.
Everything must pass,
today and tomorrow.
Only word in the song
I wrote it is sorrow.
Tate, we miss You.
Words and music: Jukka Itkonen
Dear Tate,
I remember when we first met ‘dall’ Aristo’, I was still a ragazzino, and Barga vecchia was one deserted oasi for few locals… It was strange for me to think that among us calling ‘il giro’ there was a Finnish man that was just arrived from Cina, Malasya, Thailand or other parts of the planet. Your stories and good energy helped me to discover the
the world with my own eyes.. thank you!
Huli Huli
I learnt a new concept from Tate – SISU.
Sisu is a unique Finnish concept. It stands for the philosophy that what must be done will be done, regardless of what it takes. Sisu is a special strength and persistent determination and resolve to continue and overcome in the moment of adversity…an almost magical quality, a combination of stamina, perseverance, courage, and determination held in reserve for hard times.
The nearest equivalent in English could be “to have guts”, and indeed, the word derives from sisus, which means something inner or interior. However, sisu has a long-term element in it; it is not momentary courage, but the ability to sustain the same.
It is an appropriate invention for a cold northern land, dotted by thousands of lakes, and long under threat of being overwhelmed, militarily, linguistically and otherwise, by more powerful neighbours. Similar concepts exist among other cold-weather peoples, such as the Inuit and Chukchi.
Strange that I should learn of this concept from a man while we both stood at a bar in warm southern europe but through Tate I too ventured north and spent time in Finland meeting other good people. exchanging other concepts and new ideas and making friendships that have lasted now decades.
The only wood burning Finnish sauna in many kilometers is in my studio and this weekend the stove will be lit.
Kiitos Taisto
It’s worth recalling that the Finns held their own in a two-front war against both Stalin and Hitler. But Finns don’t bring that up. It’s simply sisu, as Doggybag points out. What it takes to be human. You could picture Tate doing his part in that war, had he been old enough, but never crowing about it. Sisu. What losses we’ve had:Tate and Silvano in the same year.
A Finn’s Wake
When you were nine or ten or eleven
Maybe your mother gave you a birthday celebration
Perhaps she gave you a gift
With which she hoped you would be happy
Most of all, she gave you her love
And hoped you would live a long and happy life
And tried not to give thought to her worst fear
That you would be taken before your time
Before anyone was ready.
Maybe she thought of the day
That many years ago when
She birthed you
The pain
The unmitigated joy
The fear and hope
All rolled into one.
And when you were taken
Before your time
Before anyone was ready
She is a Finn so she remained
Stoic and strong and stalwart
For that is the Finn’s way
It was not a mistake
You did not wake and
A wake is not a celebration
And were she me
She would keen and wail and cry
For that
Is the Irish way.
I’m so sorry to read this news. I’d had the pleasure of meeting Tate on a few occasions on every trip I’d made to Barga. He was a gentle warm man who radiated love and friendship to a person he didn’t really know all through the brightness and sincerity of his smile. I send my condolences to his family and to the people of Barga.
Per caso nelle vie di Barga vecchia, al Jazz Club, all’Osteria o più probabilmente dall’Aristo: non importa dove, ma quando incontravi Tate ti sentivi subito meglio.
Riusciva a trasmettere buonumore già con un semplice saluto.
Se poi avevi la fortuna di scambiare qualche parola con lui, potevi star certo che ti avrebbe regalato un punto di vista sempre interessante sui temi più disparati.
Ha ragione Frank quando dice che “Tate was at home in Barga”. Anche noi ci sentivamo più a casa: vederlo con i gomiti appoggiati sul banco vicino al Marino ti dava l’idea che ogni cosa fosse al posto giusto.
Senza di lui e senza il Silvano siamo tutti un po’ più soli.
Hearing this news came as a great shock.
I’ve known Tate for as long as I can remember. He was a friend of my family and the first times I met him were in Finland, but most of my memories of him are from places such as France and Barga. Tate was always a source of safety and comfort in the big outside world, a fellow Finn who somehow knew his way around every country and town imaginable.
Tate was always remarkably warm and calm, seeing him upset or angry was unimaginable. I will miss his openness and the way he always welcomed me and my parents as his friends.
Barga and Finland have both experienced a great loss.
Juho Itkonen, Helsinki, Finland
Some background information about the life of Taisto Kankainen has just been published on a Finnish site with some images of Tate as a young man … instantly recognisable … that Tate look was there right from the start it would seem