History of Enrisuoma: Introduction

From legendary times until contemporary.

Enrisuoma Island is a unique example of a place which was never, in all its history, colonized by European or other empires. Its position is very different than every other island-countries; civilisation reached a very high level there, especially in the cultural dimension. Up until last years, academic society didn’t know anything about their existence.

The inhabitants of the Island created their own historiography, which is the base of this work. Some terms weren’t really translatable. For the needs of this publication we are going to use historical, cultural terms from the European cultural zone, together with Enrisuoma’s. The biggest problem with the description of the Enrisuoma history is chronology. They never used the Julian or the Gregorian calendar system. The calculation of time is based on the number 11 instead of the number 12, accustomed by most modern cultures. 22 hours in a day and 11 hours on a traditional clock-board, also only 11 months per year. So in this publication we are going to use the term ECHS – Enrisuomalainen Chronologic System. Researchers from outside have problems with naming or translating specific terms like historical eras, codification, names of traditions. The Island was isolated from every European or other known historical era. Although, the island’s historians divided their history in 5 stages:

1. Legendary times ( until 1 ECHS)

2. Ancient times (1 – 800 ECHS )

3. Early modern times (800 – 1720 ECHS)

4. Late modern times (1720 – 2180 ECHS)

5. Exploration era (2180 ECHS – current)