Finnish paganism

Several key deities were venerated across nearly all of Finland, Ingria and Karelia. These pan-Finnic deities controlled many aspects of nature.

• The chief god was Ukko (also (thought to be) known as Perkele), who was the ruler over the sky and thunder. A corresponding figure is known in countless other cultures of the world.
• Another deity that appeared very significant to the Finnish pagans, but about whom modern scholars know very little, was Jumi, whose name is related to "Jumala", the modern Finnish language word for a monotheist God.
• There were many other important deities who ruled over a specific aspect of the natural world, and who have been referred to as "kings". The king of water was often called Ahti, and the king of the forest was Tapio.
• Other major deities included Äkräs, the god of fertility; Mielikki, the goddess of the forests and the hunt; Kuu, the goddess of the moon; and Lempo, the god of wilderness and archery.
• Great heroes, who had, in mythology, once been human, such as Väinämöinen and Ilmarinen, were also objects of worship, in a way similar to the Greek pagans' worship of mythical human heroes like Herakles.

Local animistic deities, known as haltijas or haltias, were also worshipped. These haltijas could be male or female, and could take a human or another animal's form. Haltijas could be found everywhere in nature, both in the biotic and abiotic parts. Every human has a haltija, usually called haltijasielu (haltija soul) or luontohaltija (nature haltija), which is one of the three parts of a person's soul. The tradition blends with the Swedish tomte: the Finnish tonttu was a being analogous to haltija, but which lives in a building, like a home (kotitonttu) or a sauna (saunatonttu).

Certain "haltiat", known as "maan haltija" (literally "tutelary of land"), guarded the property of an individual, including their house and livestock. Votive offerings would be given to these haltijas at a shrine, as thanks for the help given and also to prevent the haltija from causing harm.

Sometimes haltijas of certain families and farms acted against other families and their farms by stealing their wealth or making the animals infertile, for instance.

Many local haltijas were believed to have originally been the sacred spirits of ancestors. In some cases a haltija was the first inhabitant of a house. Sometimes while making a new house a local spirit of nature could be "employed" to work as a maan haltija.

Different elements and environments had their own haltijas. Haltijas were grouped into types or races called väki. "Väki" has multiple connected meanings of "strength", "force", "throng", "military troop"; in the magical context, it referred ambiguously to magical strength and numbers. There were, for instance, different väki of water, forests, and graveyards.

Väkis could become angry if people acted in a disrespectful manner in their area. For example, cursing close to water made the väki of water angry. When angry, väkis could cause diseases and other misfortune to befall the human victim. Some väkis were always angry, like the väki of fire, explaining why every time you touch fire it burns, no matter how respectful you are around it.

Each tribe of väkis belonged to specific environments and if they were misplaced, problems occurred. For example, most väkis were misplaced if they attached to a human being, and they made the human being ill because they were in the wrong place. Illnesses were removed by sending väkis back to their right places. Shamans who cured diseases were returning the cosmic balance. For example, it was believed that on contact with the ground, as in falling on one's face, diseases could spread to the human, caused by the "väki" of the earth. Similarly, löyly (sauna steam) was believed to contain a väki spirit (löylyn henki), which could cause open wounds to get infected.

According to the concept of väki being divided in two (into power and folk of haltijas) the ancient Finns believed that the world was totally animistic in that no force of nature or intelligent life existed without väkis or haltijas. In other words, nothing happened in the universe without it being caused by a group of spirits. Even a person's soul consisted of many spirits.

In Finnish mythology, there are 2 different theories on the creation of the universe and the earth. This includes the Sukeltajamyytti, in which the god sent a Black-throated loon into the Alkumeri (Finnish: Primeval sea) to collect mud and sand in order to build the earth. This theory is common in various Siberian (Chukchi, Yugaghir and Ainu), Tatar and North American native folklore.

Another creation theory is that the world was born from the egg of a waterfowl. This myth was originally said to be from India, however it had made its way to the Uralic peoples, however this myth was only well-known amongst the Sámi, Finns, Komi and Mordvins.[5][6]

There is said to be no Eschatology (the end of the world) in Finnish mythology. However based off similarities in other Uralic beliefs, it can be assumed that Finnish paganism included the idea that the world is in cyclicity and that it will be recurring at regular intervals.

The pagan Finnish belief about the soul dictated that the human soul is composed of three different parts: henki, luonto and itse. Each of the three were autonomous beings on their own. Similar beliefs about multiple autonomous souls are found amongst other peoples speaking Uralic languages, such as the Khanty and Mansi, who believe in two souls: the shadow and the lili (löyly).[7]

Henki (translated as "life", "breath" or "spirit", sometimes also referred to as löyly) was a person's life force, which presented itself as breathing, the beating of one's heart and the warmth of their body. Henki was received prior to birth and it left at the moment of death. The word hengetön (lit. "one without henki") can be used as a synonym for dead in the Finnish language even now.

Luonto (translated as "nature") was a guardian spirit or protector. Luonto has also been referred to as the haltija of a person. A strong willed, artistic or otherwise talented person was believed to have a strong haltija who granted them good luck and skills to complete their tasks well. A weak luonto could be strengthened by various spells and rituals. Luonto could leave a person's body without the person dying, but its lengthened absence would cause problems, such as alcoholism and other addictions. Unlike henki, luonto was not received prior to birth but instead either at the time of getting the first teeth or being given a name. A newborn child was thus considered to be particularly vulnerable. These concepts share similar basics with the idea of hamr (life force) and Hamingja (luck) in Norse belief.

Itse was a spirit received at the time of birth or a few days after. It was believed to define one's personality and receiving itse made one a person. In modern-day Finnish the word itse means "self", but in old days itse was different from one's self, minuus. Like luonto, itse could leave one's body without the person dying but long absence would cause illnesses and misery. Depressions, for instance, was seen as a result of having lost one's itse. If a person was diagnosed to be itsetön or luonnoton (without one's itse or without one's luonto), a shaman or a sage could try locating the missing part of the soul and bring it back. Although itse and luonto were usually lost after a traumatising event, it was possible to purposefully separate one's itse from their body. This was required if a missing part of the soul needed to be found. Itse could also leave the body to appear as an etiäinen (a sort of false arrival apparition). At the time of a person's death their itse joined the other deceased of the family or, in some cases, stayed among the living as a ghost; much like the Norse concept of Fylgja (follower).

In some traditions, it was a habit to pause at a half-way point while transporting the dead body, from the dwelling to the graveyard. Here, a karsikko-marking was made on a big pine tree. The marking was for people to remember the person; and in the event that the spirit were to awaken and try to make its way back home from the graveyard, it would see its own karsikko-marking, then realize that it is dead and instead try to find the path to the spirit realm. A forest with karsikko-marked trees was a kind of supernatural barrier between dwellings of the living and the burial grounds.

After a person died there was a transitional period of thirty to forty days while their soul searched Tuonela, the land of dead, and tried to find their place there. During this period, the soul could visit its living relatives either as a ghost or in the form of an animal.

The soul visited relatives especially if it was unhappy. To please an unhappy soul, one would show respect by not speaking ill of the deceased or by having a sacrifice in the spirit's name.

After this transitional period, the soul moved permanently into Tuonela. However, the soul could still come back if it were unhappy, or if it were asked to return by its relatives who needed help.

Some souls were not able to settle down or were not welcomed in Tuonela, and they continued haunting, i.e. bastard children who were killed and buried outside a cemetery usually ended up as permanent haunters of some place, typically screaming in terror, until someone digs up their bodies, blesses them, and buries them in a graveyard.

People were afraid of ghosts, but spirits of ancestors could also help their living relatives, and they were asked to help. A shaman could be sent to Tuonela to ask for knowledge of spirits or even to take a spirit to the world of living as luonto. A Spirit of the dead had to be honoured by giving him/her sacrifices. Places where sacrifices were given to ancestors were called Hiisi ( = sacred forest, also a kind of open air temple, often included the Offering-stone, uhrikivi, collective monument for the dead of the family). Christianity held hiisi to be evil creatures and places. The old sacred places were often desecrated by being used as the building sites for the churches of the new religion, and the old sacred trees were hacked down.

Lemminkäisen äiti by Akseli Gallen-Kallela. A depiction of the underworld, Tuonela, from a myth found in the Kalevala.

The Finns believed in a place of afterlife called Tuonela, or sometimes Manala. In most traditions it was situated underground or at the bottom of a lake, though sometimes it was said to exist on the other side of a dark river. Tuonela was ruled over by the god Tuoni, and his wife, the goddess Tuonetar.

Tuonela was a dark and lifeless place, where the dead were in a state of eternal sleep. Shamans were sometimes able to reach the spirits of their dead ancestors by traveling to Tuonela in a state of trance created by rituals. He had to make his way over the Tuonela river by tricking the ferryman. While in Tuonela, the shaman had to be careful not to get caught: the living were not welcome there. Shamans who were caught could end up decaying in the stomach of a giant pikefish with no hope of returning to normal life. If the shaman died during the trance ritual, it was believed that he had been caught by the guards at Tuonela.

An illustration of the hero Väinämöinen from Finnish mythology.

Rock paintings were common in Finnish paganism, and were often done with red clay during the Stone Age. These paintings would often symbolize common animals such as deer and fish, along with humans and palm prints.[8] Folk poetry may have also been preserved on these rocks, however they have not survived on these rock paintings, and instead have been carried through generations via oral tradition.[9] It is believed that most of these rock paintings were done by the Comb Ceramic culture.

Hiisi or sacred woods were places where people often went to during pilgrimages or served as a burial site to take sacrifices. Within these sacred woods, there would often be a special enclosed area for sacrifices, in which it was forbidden to enter, except for those who were doing the sacrificing to the deities.[10] In Finnish folklore, hiisi sites were also likened to be the creation of the Hiidet (giants), and through oral tradition, jotuni or giants were said to dwell in hiisi sites.[11]

Wetlands, such as bogs, swamps, springs and streams were holy places, especially for the use of sacrificing. The archeological findings of flint and tinderbox has shown that they have been used for the execution and disposal of those unwanted people in the tribe. Children who were born out of wedlock or those who had disabilities would also be killed in the wetlands.[12] The word "Suomi" (Finnish: Finland) is also thought to come from the word "Suo" (Finnish: Swamp/Bog).[13]