From a Fire-stick to the Spotlight | Eesti rahva muuseum
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HomeExhibitionTemporary exhibitionsFrom a Fire-stick to the Spotlight

From a Fire-stick to the Spotlight

It was the old women and men in the family who made the candles. The farmer and the farm-hand had no time to mess with such things; the farm-hand would have eaten the sheep fat and there would have been no candles. (ERM KV 232 Kadrina, 1969)

The adoption of fire nearly one million years ago was one of the crucial milestones in human history. In addition to warmth and processed food, it provided control over light. This is particularly important at northern latitudes where the sun shines only for a few brief hours during winter. For many centuries, fire from a hearth or a burning stick constituted the only sources of light. While the art of candle making had been known for 5000 years, only some of the wealthier peasants in Estonia at the end of the 18th century could afford to light a candle on special occasions, whereas the poorer inhabitants continued to use fire sticks until the beginning of the 20th century. The past 150 years have seen a rapid development of light sources, and the major advancements can be traced in the lamp collection of the ENM.

The ENM collection includes nearly 2,000 items related to lighting, including some 800 candlesticks. There are about 400 oil and gas lamps, over 200 candle chandeliers and 160 fire stick holders.

Most of the texts describing the items have been selected from the Ethnographic Archive of the Estonian National Museum (ERM EA) and from the Archive of Responses of Correspondents (ERM KV).

Curator: Ülle Jäe
Designer: Emma Eensalu

Some small Miserable lamps were used earlier, but I remember the Christmas Eve of 1894 when a large ceiling lamp with a white glass was lit in our family; that was really beautiful! I guess that the pretty lamp was brought from some shop. No other lamps were used after that. (ERM KV 109 Reigi, 1961)

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