Velisurmasta suvun muistoksi

The oral tradition of my family has preserved plenty of stories about fights, knifings and other crimes. One prominent character of these stories is Veikko, my grandfather’s brother, who stabbed his own brother to death. In this article, I examine this incident as it is represented in the relatives’ stories. For this study I relied on interviews I conducted on Veikko in 2001. I concentrate on the question of how the image of this incident is presented in reminiscences: why and how are stories about it told according to different generations? What sorts of inter- pretations and community values – also family values – do the stories of Veikko convey? And how is this incident possible to be seen as a part of divergent deaths. This article also highlights some of the difficulties arising when the researcher studies her own family traditions.