Were the “Kainulaiset” in the Kalix River valley Finnish or Swedish-speakers?

Abstract

The Norwegian ethnonym Kven and the Finnish ethnonym Kainulainen occurred at latest in the first millennium AD. A tacit truth held today is that the ethnonyms represent the same ancient Finnish-speaking group, only named differently by Norwegians and Finns. The aim of the article is to find out whether the ethnonyms have been used to designate different groups of people. The Finnish-speakers in the nearby Tornedalen has called the lower part of the Kalix River in northernmost Sweden the Kainuu River [Fin. Kainuunväylä] and the upper part Kaalasjoki after the original Sámi name of the river. According to theories on ethnicity they called the lower part the Kainuu River [Fin. Kainuunväylä] because they wanted to mark out a group of different ethnicity, who they called Kainulaiset. The latter mainly settled the lower part of the river in the Middle Ages and Finnish-speakers the upper part. The article reveals that the Sámi variety Gainolâš was used by the Sámi for depicting dominant majority populations of different ethnicity, especially Scandinavians, but sometimes also Finns. It also argues that Finnish settlers in southern Finland and northernmost Gulf of Bothnia used Kainulainen for depicting Swedish settlers when the two language groups first encountered.