Already in 19^th century Finland, which after being a part of Sweden had become a Grand Duchy of Russia, was done an extensive work when collecting proverbs outside Russian area by missionaries, explorers and soldiers. The article focuses on one of these explorers’ work, namely on Edward Westermarck and proverbs he collected during his travels in Morocco.

Westermarck was a philosopher, sociologist and anthropologist who could put his knowledge and expertise to good use in the interdisciplinary work. His scientific work can be divided into three special areas: social anthropological presentations, moral philosophy and research based on Moroccan fieldwork. He was born in 1862 in a well-off family, part of the Swedish-speaking population of the autonomous Grand Duchy of Russia. He defended his doctoral thesis in 1890 at Imperial Alexander University in Helsinki. We can say Westermarck was a cosmopolitan: he lived in the Grand Duchy of Russia (later in independent Finland) as well as in Britain and Morocco. Also, he held professorships both in Finland and Britain but same time during the years 1898–1924 he lived quite long periods in Morocco. He died in 1936, six years after completing the “trilogy on the customs and ideas of the Moors, which is based on nine years’ experience among them in the course of more than three decades” as he wrote in the preface of the Wit and Wisdom in Morocco (1930). In this book he presents over 2000 proverbs from Morocco. However, he was above all a scientist who had knowledge and courage to challenge the bases of moral philosophy as well as scientific prevailing practices.