Baltic Finnic paganism
Baltic Finnic paganism included necrolatry (worship of the dead) and shamanism (tietäjä(t), literally "one who knows"), and the religion was not always uniform across the areas it was practiced, as customs and beliefs varied during different periods of time and regions.
These shrines are thought to be mainly "tree-gods": wooden statues or carvings done in trees or treestumps, depicting human figures, and have been scarcely preserved.
One confirmed Stone Age wooden statue has been found in Pohjankuru, and folklore about worshipping tree-gods has been documented.
[6][7][8] Another kind of shrine are "cup-stones" (Finnish: fi:kuppikivi), large natural stones into which cup-sized recesses have been drilled.
[15] Ukko was sometimes given the epithet Isäinen ylinen Luoja ('Fatherly Supreme Creator'), and Salo notes that this could also be related to the sky-god *Dyēus of Proto-Indo-European religion.
[15] Ukko is thought to have entered Baltic Finnic paganism in the first millennium BC, replacing other chief deities who were more unique per region, such as Taara in Estonia.
Memories of Ilmarinen's status as the sky deity have been preserved in Kalevala myths, such as the belief that he forged the firmament and the Sampo.
Tapio is a major deity in Baltic Finnic paganism (in its most recent form), he is the king and god of the forest and hunting.
Tapiola was a kingdom which Tapio ruled over, and was sometimes used as the name for Finland by the Baltic Finnic pagan believers during the Early Middle Ages.
[2][24] He is also described as a blacksmith and is thought to have gained his smith status through Proto-Finnic contact with iron-working cultures such as the Balts or Germanic people.
MENNINKÄISET [fi] myös heidän uhrinsa saivat, / koska lesket huolivat ja naivat.
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).
[citation needed] Certain "haltiat", known as "maan haltija" (literally "tutelary of land"), guarded the property of an individual, including their house and livestock.
Similarly, löyly (sauna steam) was believed to contain a väki spirit (löylyn henki), which could cause open wounds to get infected.
This includes the Sukeltajamyytti [fi], in which the god sent a Black-throated loon into the Alkumeri (Finnish: Primeval sea) to collect mud and sand to build the earth.
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.
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.
Itse share many similarities with the Norse concept of Hugr (mind, thought, willpower, courage), and to some extent also Vörðr (especially the false arrival apparition).
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.
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).
[29] Shamans were sometimes able to reach the spirits of their dead ancestors by traveling to Tuonela in a state of trance created by rituals.
[29] Shamans who were caught could end up decaying in the stomach of a giant pike fish with no hope of returning to normal life.
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.
The most usual Baltic Finnic word for bear in modern language, karhu, is just one of the many euphemisms, and it means "rough fur."
[4] A tietäjä (shaman, literally "one who knows") is a wise and respected person in the community, believed to have a special relationship with the spirit world.
Shamans were typically men of high standing in the local society, often landed peasants; it was thought that wealth was evidence of magic powers.
Christianity began to gain more influence and power to convert with the establishment of the Bishopric of Turku in 1276,[41] and with the Protestant Reformation, when Mikael Agricola translated the New Testament ("Se Wsi Testamenti") into the Finnish language.
With the conquests of East-Karelia by the Novgorod Republic and various Finnish-Novgorodian wars, Eastern Orthodoxy began to have influence over much of Karelia.
Written information about Baltic Finnic paganism began to be collected in the 1800s, especially in Karelia, when Christianity was already the main religion across much of the Finno-Ugric community.
[50] Among the current official mainstream holidays in Finland, Juhannus (known as Ukon juhla before Christianisation) and Kekri were originally celebrations that belonged to the pagan faith.
