Museums in Estonia filled to the brim with examples of handicraft from the past that we tend to label 'folk art'. The men and women who once produced these things knew nothing about museums or the concept of folk art - these terms were devised by modern scholarly thought. We appreciate and systematise and try to figure out the connections between people and artefacts, which regrettably slip gradually further out of our reach and become all the harder to understand. The original causes and effects are pushed aside by present-day suppositions. We do after all, explain and decode in a system of signs that we can comprehend ourselves.

Thus it may happen that we overlook the most simple explanations: they made their pretty clothes, work tools, textiles or other useful artefacts both for observing focal points in their lives as well as for everyday use; they got married and celebrated weddings; they covertly compared their homespun lap robes and sleigh-blankets with those of their neighbours, or embroidered white patterns on white linen in a dark room lit only by the dim light from the flame of a wooden splinter.

'Fake' artefact of dubious taste or a touch of Estonian self-irony? In addition to the state decorations of the Republic of Estonia, Roman Tavast's workshop provided several curious products for Estonian handicraft enthusiast to debate over.

To show his love for a woman, a man would carve patterns on an engagement gift for her - this might be an ordinary laundry bat that bounded coarse work-trousers in the wash trough or was left soaking in soapy water.

If we concentrate on the general conception of the world of the crafter and the motivation behind his or her creativity, we can discard all debates on wether we are dealing with 'applied art' or simply 'handicraft'. It is this approach that could help us once again to focus on the artefacts themselves and perhaps offer a glimpse of their forgotten hidden message.

The Estonians like to think of themselves as one of the most ancient settled native peoples in Europe. Starting from the arrival of the earliest human inhabitants at the end of the last ice age, about 10 000 years or 400 generations ago, until the second half of 20th century, there is no evidence of any significant wave of immigration. People naturally moved to and from Estonia during and after various disasters - wars, epidemics, famines, etc. - but the Estonians' peasant village settlement usually absorbed the foreigners in the course of a few generations.

The persistence of the mentality of the native people is also reflected in the fact how often the memes inherited from their reindeer-hunting ancestors crop up in the expressions of collective self-conciousness of today's quite urbanised Estonians.

It is the ancient artefact unearthed by archeologists that have originally served as both example and inspiration for the 'antediluvian' images of water bird or world tree that keep sneaking into modern Estonian allied art and handicraft. Apparently, however, an even more substantial role has been played by such leading 'promoters of national mythology' as artist Kaljo Põllu, or writer and film-maker Lennart Meri, who have taken pains to disclose the meaning hidden in the age-old patterns to their countrymen.