Finnish paganism
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Finnish paganism was a pagan religion in Finland and Karelia before Finnish people were Christians. Finnish paganism is close to Scandinavian paganism and Baltic paganism. Finns believed that there are many gods.
Finnish paganism was animistic. This means that they believed that nature was full of little and big spirits. Biggest spirits were gods and they had names. God of sky was Ukko, god of forest was Tapio and god of water was Ahti. There were many more spirits with names.
Shaman was a wise person who could do magic, they beileved, when spirits helped him. He could heal ill people and curse enemies.
Human had many souls. "Self" and "me" were two different souls. If "self"-soul left human he was not dead, but very ill. Shaman could go to spirit world to take the soul back.
Bear was a holy animal to them. If bear was killed to make food, he or she was celebrated with ritual called Peijainen. Purpose and aim of the ritual was to make the sould of bear happy. Happy soul of bear wants to born in another body of bear. Then people can eat bears in the future, too. Swan was a holy bird. They believed if you killed a swan you died.
Some trees and stones were holy to them. Some forests were holy too. Close to holy places and things people made sacrifices. Sacrifice means that people gives a gift to a spirit. Gift makes spirit happy. Happy spirit then wants to help humans. For example happy spirit can give lots of fish to fisherman. At later times things that were given to spirits were small things like money, flowers, pieces of silver, alcohol or food. We do not know were people or animals killed to sacrifice them to gods.
Finns believed that Earth is flat like disc. Above Earth was sky-dome like a pot that is upside down. In the middle of Earth is a pillar that holds the sky making sky not to drop. North star is a nail in the top of this pillar. Land of dead people, Tuonela, was under Earth. Way to Tuonela was at the base of pillar that holds the sky. There was a great whirl of water called Kinahmi.
People hoped that their dead relatives goes to Tuonela because people did not like ghosts. However some times dead relatives were asked to help living people. Sometimes shamans went to Tuonela to ask souls to help.
