Estonian traditional folk art lacks lush decorativeness, forceful dominance or playfulness of form and decoration, so typical of many other nations. On the other hand, there is no naivety either, something considered so characteristic to folk art.

A typical feature of the creative activity of this nation is an urge to kirjata 'to compose a pattern'. Throughout centuries people have used the Estonian term kiri 'writing' instead of the borrowed muster 'pattern' or ornament.

In ancient times, belt patterns were thought so powerful that they would protect you against the evil eye and a number of maladies related to witchcraft, including a snakebite.

In the 17th century, when the new rulers of Estonia, local administrators of the Protestant Kingdom of Sweden, opened schools for peasant Estonians, an alternative meaning of 'writing' started to take over. At these schools people learned to write digits and letters, and to compose numbers and words from them. That was a new system where every sign counted in order to convey a particular meaning; on the other hand, letters had to be grouped in correct sequences to render an idea, in most cases a single letter remained meaningless.

Apparently a farm-mark, a symbol traditionally marking ownership, conveyed a considerably larger amount of information. An owner's mark such as this, represented the whole family and the magic sign contained quite a particular power. These marks provided the user with strength and good health, protected against evil, and, in addition, quite simply looked pretty as an ornament or decoration.

First, when school education spread, Estonians started to write and read in two ways: writing based on the alphabet and writing based on traditional symbols. Yet, as time went on, the alphabet, richer in signs, gradually gained the upper hand. And along with that, signs and symbols changed; with the arrival of the new, linear writing, the old way of reading inevitably moved into the background, and the knowledge of the meaning of old kiri faded.

An essential role in the substitution of the old way of writing with the new one was played by the Moravian Brethren - a movement of religious awakening originating from Herrnhut in Saxony, which began to spread among Estonian peasants in the 1730s. It is possible that it was only this movement that truly awakened many Estonians to the actual acceptance of the Christian faith. Unfortunately for the ancient traditions, though, the freshly found religious zeal was often manifested in neglecting and actively rooting out everything 'pagan', be it folk poetry or traditional music, or 'vain', such as national costumes or household artefacts decorated with ancient ornaments. In their stead, the Brethren encouraged the spread of psalm singing, plain clothes and pious written culture among the peasants.

While there are numerous historical accounts of sacred objects and places - statues of fertility spirits, sacrificial stones and gardens, and other places of worship - in Estonian peasant households, by the mid-19th century, the efforts of the Moravian Brethren and the Pietist Lutheran clergy to eradicate every heathen or semi-heathen phenomenon from the minds of their countrymen was bearing results. Estonians, too, started to consider services in church or sermons in the meeting house to be the only acceptable forms of worship and the last remnants of the probably pre-Christian pühasenurk ('sacred corner' - a kind of home altar in the opposite corner from a stove) disappeared from the peasants' living rooms. Together with the retreat of 'the sacral' from everyday life, the knowledge of the meaning of protective and auspicious signs and symbols faded.

By the time the Estophile Baltic Germans and later the first Estonian linguists and ethnographers began taking an interest in the old writings of the county people, they were often presented with 'popular' pseudo-interpretations instead of the genuine traditional meanings. Provided the scholars' 'new-way-of-writing' background and their informants' 'old-way-of-writing' background would have allowed for any reciprocal understanding at all.

Yet, even when the original meaning has vanished into oblivion, the messages hidden in the shaping beauty and decorations still render a sense of something mystical. The same way as feelings expressed through song in a foreign tongue can still charm and impress a listener, even one who is unable to understand the meaning of the words.

The saying of our forefathers, "Südant ei saa sundida" ("The human heart cannot be forced"), tells a lot about Estonians' doggedness when it comes to the question of freedom of choice and preference - the people of this country continue to look toward both the museum and the wider world for inspiration. Hopefully, this healthy attitude is not on the wane.