When a Robot Turns into a Totem: the RoboBeggar Case

Abstract

After her kingdom had been devastated by a prolonged famine in 1649, Queen Christina of Sweden commanded that wooden “beggar” statues be set up in the entrance of churches to collect money for the poor (Saariholma (a), 2001). Figure 1 shows two surviving examples of these wooden begging statues. These statues, known as “begging man/men” (vaivaisukko or vaivaisukot in Finnish), have slits through which donors are able to push coins. They continued to be used under the Russian domination of Finland and were, until a few decades ago, quite a common sight in the west of Finland where people still used them to deposit charitable donations. One hundred and eight examples of these wooden beggar statues are currently extant (Santaholma (b), 2001). Of these, only one, in the Lutheran Church at Soini (Etelamaki, 2000), has female features (Fides, 2002).