Finnish paganism - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Finnish paganism was the indigenous pagan

Paganism

Paganism is a blanket term, typically used to refer to non-Abrahamic, indigenous polytheistic religious traditions....

Religion

Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...

in Finland

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

, Estonia

Estonia

Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...

and Karelia

Karelia

Karelia , the land of the Karelian peoples, is an area in Northern Europe of historical significance for Finland, Russia, and Sweden...

prior to Christianization

Christianization

The historical phenomenon of Christianization is the conversion of individuals to Christianity or the conversion of entire peoples at once...

. It was a polytheistic

Polytheism

Polytheism is the belief of multiple deities also usually assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses, along with their own mythologies and rituals....

religion, worshipping a number of different deities. The principal god was the god of thunder and the sky, Ukko

Ukko

In Finnish mythology, Ukko, in Estonian mythology Uku, is a god of sky, weather, crops and other natural things. He is the most significant god in Finnish and Estonian mythologies, and created the goddess Ilmatar, creator of the world. The Finnish word ukkonen, thunderstorm, is derived from his...

, though other important gods included Jumi, Ahti

Ahti

This article is about the Finnish mythic hero. For the fictional city in the Star Wars universe, go to Manaan.In Finnish mythology, Ahti or Ahto is one of the heroic figures Elias Lönnrot compiled in the character of Lemminkäinen...

, and Tapio

Tapio

Tapio may refer to*Tapio, a Finnish male given name*Tapio, an East Finnish forest spirit or god. He lends his name in the form of*Forestry Development Centre Tapio, Finnish organisation, that produces solutions for sustainable forest management....

.

Finnish paganism shows many similarities with the religious practices of neighboring cultures, such as Germanic

Germanic paganism

Germanic paganism refers to the theology and religious practices of the Germanic peoples of north-western Europe from the Iron Age until their Christianization during the Medieval period...

, Norse

Norse paganism

Norse paganism is the religious traditions of the Norsemen, a Germanic people living in the Nordic countries. Norse paganism is therefore a subset of Germanic paganism, which was practiced in the lands inhabited by the Germanic tribes across most of Northern and Central Europe in the Viking Age...

and Baltic paganism. However, it has some distinct differences due to the Uralic

Uralic languages

The Uralic languages constitute a language family of some three dozen languages spoken by approximately 25 million people. The healthiest Uralic languages in terms of the number of native speakers are Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian, Mari and Udmurt...

and Finnic

Finnic

Finnic or Fennic can refer to:* Finnic languages* Finnic peoples...

culture of the region.

Finnish paganism provided the inspiration for the 20th century religion Finnish neopaganism

Finnish neopaganism

Finnish Neopaganism is a Neopagan religious system that attempts to revive old Finnish paganism, the pre-Christian polytheistic ethnic religion of the Finnish people....

, Suomenusko ( =Finnish religion ), which is an attempt to reconstruct the old religion of the Finns.

Deities

The Finnish pagans were polytheistic

Polytheism

Polytheism is the belief of multiple deities also usually assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses, along with their own mythologies and rituals....

, believing in a number of different deities. Most of the deities ruled over a specific aspect of nature; for instance, Ukko

Ukko

was the god of the sky and thunder. These deities were often pan-Finnic, being worshipped by many different tribes in different regions. The Finnish pagans were also animists

Animism

Animism refers to the belief that non-human entities are spiritual beings, or at least embody some kind of life-principle....

, worshipping local nature deities at site-specific shrines to that particular deity.

Major deities

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

The chief god was Ukko

Ukko

(also known as Perkele

Perkele

Perkele is the god associated with thunder in Finnish mythology, like Thor of Norse mythology. In modern Finnish perkele is a common swearword.-Origins:The name is of Indo-European origin...

), who was the ruler over the sky and thunder. A corresponding figure is known amongst other Scandinavia

Scandinavia

Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...

n, Sami

Sami people

The Sami people, also spelled Sámi, or Saami, are the arctic indigenous people inhabiting Sápmi, which today encompasses parts of far northern Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Kola Peninsula of Russia, and the border area between south and middle Sweden and Norway. The Sámi are Europe’s northernmost...

, and Baltic

Balts

The Balts or Baltic peoples , defined as speakers of one of the Baltic languages, a branch of the Indo-European language family, are descended from a group of Indo-European tribes who settled the area between the Jutland peninsula in the west and Moscow, Oka and Volga rivers basins in the east...

religions, such as the Norse

Norse paganism

Thor

In Norse mythology, Thor is a hammer-wielding god associated with thunder, lightning, storms, oak trees, strength, the protection of mankind, and also hallowing, healing, and fertility...

and Baltic Perkunas

Perkunas

Perkūnas was the common Baltic god of thunder, one of the most important deities in the Baltic pantheon. In both Lithuanian and Latvian mythology, he is documented as the god of thunder, rain, mountains, oak trees and the sky.-Etymology:...

.

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

Jumala

or or means "god" in Finnic languages and Volga-Finnic languages, both the Christian God and any other deity of any religion. The word is thought to have been the name of a sky god of the ancient Finnic-speaking peoples...

", the modern Finnish language

Finnish language

Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...

word for a monotheist

Monotheism

Monotheism is the belief in the existence of one and only one god. Monotheism is characteristic of the Baha'i Faith, Christianity, Druzism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Samaritanism, Sikhism and Zoroastrianism.While they profess the existence of only one deity, monotheistic religions may still...

God

God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....

.

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

Ahti

, and the king of the forest was Tapio

Tapio

.

Other major deities included Äkräs

Äkräs

Äkräs was the god of fertility in the Finnish mythology. He was also the god of turnip and the protector of beans, peas, cabbage, flax, and hemp. In Karelia he was called Pyhä Äkräs .-References:*...

, the god of fertility; Mielikki

Mielikki

Mielikki is the Finnish goddess of forests and the hunt. She is referred to in various tales as either the wife or the daughter-in-law of Tapio. She is said to have played a central role in the creation of the bear....

, the goddess of the forests and the hunt; Kuu

Kuu

Kuu was a moon goddess in Finnish mythology. According to the Kalevala, the daughter of the air Ilmatar allowed a teal to lay its egg on her knee as she floated in the abyss...

, the goddess of the moon; and Lempo

Lempo

Lempo is a sort of fiend from Finnish folklore and mythology, who appears in the Kalevala. Lempo is a demon, as are Hiisi and Piru.According to Mythologia Fennica by Christfrid Ganander, Lempo the evil fiend was also the ancient Finnish god of wilderness and archery...

, the god of wilderness and archery.

Great heroes, who had, in mythology, once been human, such as Väinämöinen

Väinämöinen

Väinämöinen is the central character in the Finnish folklore and the main character in the national epic Kalevala. His name comes from the Finnish word väinämö, meaning minstrel. Originally a Finnish god, he was described as an old and wise man, and he possessed a potent, magical...

and Ilmarinen

Ilmarinen

Seppo Ilmarinen, the Eternal Hammerer, blacksmith and inventor in the Kalevala, is an archetypal artificer from Finnish mythology. Immortal, he is capable of creating practically anything, but is portrayed as unlucky in love...

, were also objects of worship, in a way similar to the Greek pagans' worship of mythical human heroes like Herakles.

Haltija

Local animistic

Animism

Animism refers to the belief that non-human entities are spiritual beings, or at least embody some kind of life-principle....

deities, known as haltija

Haltija

Haltija is a spirit, gnome or elf-like creature in Finnish mythology, that guards, helps or protects something or somebody. The word is possibly derived from the Gothic *haltijar, and referred to the original settler of a homestead — although this is not the only possible etymology.In common...

s, were also worshipped. These haltijas could be male or female, and could take a human or another animal's form.

Maan Haltija

Certain haltijas, known as maan haltija (literally "tutelary of land"), guarded the property of an individual, including their house and livestock. Votive offering

Votive offering

A votive deposit or votive offering is one or more objects displayed or deposited, without the intention of recovery or use, in a sacred place for broadly religious purposes. Such items are a feature of modern and ancient societies and are generally made in order to gain favor with supernatural...

s would be given to these maan haltija at a shrine, in 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.

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

Luonto Haltija

Every individual had one or more personal protective haltija, known as luonto, (meaning "nature"). Haltijas came to a human when they were given their name or grew their first teeth. Before that, a baby was very vulnerable to supernatural threats. In the worst cases, a baby was replaced with a changeling

Changeling

A changeling is a creature found in Western European folklore and folk religion. It is typically described as being the offspring of a fairy, troll, elf or other legendary creature that has been secretly left in the place of a human child. Sometimes the term is also used to refer to the child who...

by an evil spirit, known as a maahinen.

Väki Haltija

Different elements and environments had their own haltijas. Haltijas were grouped into types or races called väki

Vaki

Vaki is a village in Vändra Parish, Pärnu County in southwestern Estonia. It has a population of 129 ....

. 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.

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.

Soul

The pagan Finnish belief about the soul

Soul

A soul in certain spiritual, philosophical, and psychological traditions is the incorporeal essence of a person or living thing or object. Many philosophical and spiritual systems teach that humans have souls, and others teach that all living things and even inanimate objects have souls. The...

of a human was different from that of most other cultures across the world, in that they believed the human soul to be composed of different parts, each of which were autonomous spirit beings in their own right.

The "personality" of a person was one of the beings that composed the human soul. It was the closest thing to the "soul" of Christianity

Christianity

Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

. Sometimes this being was called "itse" (today "itse" has a different meaning as the noun for "self" in the Finnish language

Finnish language

). However, more often itse was believed to be a shadow-soul, parallel to one's self, but a different being. This means that usually "me" and "self" were understood as different beings. Itse could be seen as an etiäinen

Etiäinen

In Finnish folklore, an Etiäinen is a spirit sent forth by a shaman or by a person in great distress in order to receive information. The spirit appears as directed by the summoner in order to contact a person with whom the sender has a strong emotional bond. The spirit manifests itself by...

, a Finnish doppelgänger

Doppelgänger

In fiction and folklore, a doppelgänger is a paranormal double of a living person, typically representing evil or misfortune...

.

It was believed that the soul could leave the human body whilst it was still alive. Epileptic fits

Epilepsy

Epilepsy is a common chronic neurological disorder characterized by seizures. These seizures are transient signs and/or symptoms of abnormal, excessive or hypersynchronous neuronal activity in the brain.About 50 million people worldwide have epilepsy, and nearly two out of every three new cases...

, unconsciousness, and paralysis were understood as cases where the soul left its human host. The soul could come back and the person would be healed, but it could also leave permanently, leaving the individual in a serious condition. If the soul was lost, a shaman could try to locate the soul in the spirit world and bring it back. Perhaps it was believed that the soul could also leave the body for a purpose, such as if the shaman needed to travel the spirit world.

Henki, (translated as "life", "breath" or "spirit"), was the power of life of a human being, like "stamina". Presence of henki in a body caused breath, blood circulation, and body warmth. Without a henki a person died.

Burial

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 in to 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 terror until someone digs up their body, blesses it, and buries it in a graveyard.

Ancestor Veneration

People were afraid of ghosts, but spirits of ancestors could also help his/her 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 made hiisi to mean evil creatures and places. The old, sacred places were often ashamed by taking them as the building sites for the churches of the new religion and the old, sacred trees were hacked down.

Afterlife

The Finns believed in an afterlife called Tuonela

Tuonela

Tuonela is the realm of the dead or the Underworld in Finnish and Estonian mythology. Tuonela, Tuoni, Manala and Mana are used synonymously. In Estonian mythology, it is called Toonela or Manala....

, or sometimes Manala

Manala

Manala may refer to:*Manala, Benin*Tuonela - Finnish mythology...

. 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

Tuoni

In Finnish mythology, Tuoni was the god of the Tuonela ....

, and his wife, the goddess Tuonetar

Tuonetar

Tuonetar , in Finnish mythology, is the Queen of the Underworld.She is the wife of Tuoni, with whom she rules over the Underworld, Tuonela...

.

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.

Mythology

Main article, see Finnish mythology
Finnish mythology
Finnish mythology is the mythology that went with Finnish paganism which was practised by the Finnish people prior to Christianisation. It has many features shared with fellow Finnic Estonian mythology and its non-Finnic neighbours, the Balts and the Scandinavians...

The pagan Finns had many myths about their gods and their great heroes. Because they lived in a non-literate society, the stories were taught orally as folklore

Folklore

Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...

, and they were not written down. Finnish mythology survived Christianisation by being told as myths. Many of these myths were later written down in the 19th century as the Kalevala
Kalevala
The Kalevala is a 19th century work of epic poetry compiled by Elias Lönnrot from Finnish and Karelian oral folklore and mythology.It is regarded as the national epic of Finland and is one of the most significant works of Finnish literature...

, which was created to be a national epic of Finland by Elias Lönnrot

Elias Lönnrot

Elias Lönnrot was a Finnish philologist and collector of traditional Finnish oral poetry. He is best known for compiling the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic compiled from national folklore.-Education and early life:...

Sacred animals

Because of the very nature of life in prehistoric, ancient, and mediaeval Finland, the Finns relied heavily on hunting for survival. As such the animals that they hunted became vital to their survival, and they were treated with respect.

The bear was considered sacred

Bear worship

Bear worship is the religious practice of the worshiping of bears found in many North American and North Eurasian ethnic circumpolar religions such as the Sami, Nivkh, Ainu, and pre-Christian Finns...

. The pagan Finns believed that it came from the sky and had the ability to reincarnate. A celebration known as Karhunpeijaiset (literally "celebration of the bear") was practised whenever a bear was killed and eaten. The ceremony was designed to convince the bear's soul to reincarnate back into the forest. After the flesh was eaten, the bones were buried, and the skull placed on a venerated pine tree known as kallohonka.

Before going hunting, the Finns would pray to the Emuus, or ancestral mothers of various animal species, for help.

From ancient drawings, petroglyph

Petroglyph

Petroglyphs are pictogram and logogram images created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, and abrading. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions of the technique to refer to such images...

s, it is clear that the elk was a very important animal. It appears much more than bears do, and it is theorised that the bear was such a holy animal that it was forbidden to depict it. Also, the bear's name was almost forbidden to say, so many euphemism

Euphemism

A euphemism is the substitution of a mild, inoffensive, relatively uncontroversial phrase for another more frank expression that might offend or otherwise suggest something unpleasant to the audience...

s were developed. The most usual Finnish word for bear in modern language, karhu, is just one of the many euphemisms, and it means "rough fur." Among the many names of bear otso is probably the original "real" name, as suggested by the wide spread of the word otso and related words amongst many of the Uralic languages

Uralic languages

. Many euphemisms for bear are local.

Many water birds were holy for Finns and other Finnic

Finnic peoples

The Finnic or Fennic peoples were historic ethnic groups who spoke various languages traditionally classified as Finno-Permic...

peoples. They were often depicted on petroglyphs. It was believed that if you killed a water bird, you died soon after. The holiest water bird was the swan. With its long neck, it could look to all the levels of the world, including Tuonela
Tuonela
Tuonela is the realm of the dead or the Underworld in Finnish and Estonian mythology. Tuonela, Tuoni, Manala and Mana are used synonymously. In Estonian mythology, it is called Toonela or Manala....

, the land of the dead. Birds are found often in Finnic mythology. For example, there are many stories about a bird creating the world. In many traditions it was believed that the world was created by the egg of a bird

World egg

A world egg or cosmic egg is a mythological motif found in the creation myths of many cultures and civilizations. Typically, the world egg is a beginning of some sort, and the universe or some primordial being comes into existence by "hatching" from the egg, sometimes lain on the primordial waters...

. In other traditions it was believed that the world was created on mud that bird took in its beak while diving.

In Karelia it was believed that a bird brings the soul to a newborn baby, and that the same bird takes the soul with it when person dies. This soul-carrying bird was called sielulintu, "soul-bird". In some traditions people carried artifacts depicting their sielulintu. Sielulintu was believed to guard their souls while they slept. After the person died, the artifact-bird was inserted to sit on the cross at the person's grave. Such crosses with soul birds still exist in graveyards in Karelia. This is one example how Christian and Pagan beliefs still existed side by side hundreds of years after the Christianization of the Finnish and Karelian people.

Shamanism

It is believed by some scholars that shamanism

Shamanism

Shamanism is an anthropological term referencing a range of beliefs and practices regarding communication with the spiritual world. To quote Eliade: "A first definition of this complex phenomenon, and perhaps the least hazardous, will be: shamanism = technique of ecstasy." Shamanism encompasses the...

played a big part in Finnish paganism, as it did (and still does) in the Siberian paganism to the east of Finland. A Shaman is a wise and respected person in the community, believed to have a special relationship with the spirit world. Shamans go into a trance

Altered state of consciousness

An altered state of consciousness , also named altered state of mind, is any condition which is significantly different from a normal waking beta wave state. The expression was used as early as 1966 by Arnold M. Ludwig and brought into common usage from 1969 by Charles Tart: it describes induced...

to commune with spirits and ancestors or to take a journey into the spirit realm. In trances shamans may ask their ancestors or various nature spirits for guidance. They believe that nature has the answers to all questions.

Among the Finns' western neighbours, the Norse

Norsemen

Norsemen is used to refer to the group of people as a whole who spoke what is now called the Old Norse language belonging to the North Germanic branch of Indo-European languages, especially Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese, Swedish and Danish in their earlier forms.The meaning of Norseman was "people...

of Scandinavia

Scandinavia

, it was a common belief that the Finns were wizards. In the Norse saga

Norse saga

The sagas are stories about ancient Scandinavian and Germanic history, about early Viking voyages, the battles that took place during the voyages, about migration to Iceland and of feuds between Icelandic families...

s, inclusion of a Finnish element almost always signifies a supernatural aspect to the story. However, "Finn" in some Norse sagas could also mean the Sami

Sami people

and not the Finns. Finns were also called Kvens.

According to tales, foreign seafarers bought ropes tied in knots from Finns. By opening the knot a bit, a seaman could raise a wind to make his ship go faster. However, opening it too fast would raise a storm. Finnish wizards were known and feared by neighbouring peoples around the Baltic Sea

Baltic Sea

The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...

Christianisation

Christian missionaries entered Finland in the 11th century. The native pagan religion still persisted, until Christianity

Christianity

Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

was strengthened under Swedish

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

influence in the 12th century. In the 13th century a "crusade" was launched against the last pagans in the country by Birger Jarl

Birger jarl

, or Birger Magnusson, was a Swedish statesman, Jarl of Sweden and a member of the House of Bjelbo, who played a pivotal role in the consolidation of Sweden. Birger also led the Second Swedish Crusade, which established Swedish rule in Finland. Additionally, he is traditionally attributed to have...

Finnish Neopaganism

In the 20th century, with the rise of the Neopagan movement across the world, Finnish Neopaganism

Finnish neopaganism

Finnish Neopaganism is a Neopagan religious system that attempts to revive old Finnish paganism, the pre-Christian polytheistic ethnic religion of the Finnish people....

arose as a reconstructed form of the old religion. Unlike those neopagan religions that take an eclectic view of the many pagan faiths, such as Wicca

Wicca

Wicca , is a modern Pagan religious movement. Developing in England in the first half of the 20th century, Wicca was popularised in the 1950s and early 1960s by a Wiccan High Priest named Gerald Gardner, who at the time called it the "witch cult" and "witchcraft," and its adherents "the Wica."...

and Neo-druidry, Finnish Neopaganism focuses on reconstructionism

Polytheistic reconstructionism

Polytheistic reconstructionism is an approach to Neopaganism first emerging in the late 1960s to early 1970s, and gathering momentum in the 1990s to 2000s...

to imitate the ancient religion as accurately as possible. It is still mainly practiced within Finland

Finland

, where it accounts only for a relatively small percentage of the population, the majority being members of the state Lutheran

Lutheranism

Lutheranism is a major branch of Western Christianity that identifies with the theology of Martin Luther, a German reformer. Luther's efforts to reform the theology and practice of the church launched the Protestant Reformation...

Church or professing no religion.

Deities

Major deities

Haltija

Maan Haltija

Luonto Haltija

Väki Haltija

Soul

Burial

Ancestor Veneration

Afterlife

Mythology

Sacred animals

Shamanism

Christianisation

Finnish Neopaganism

See also