Ancient religions in Finland



Ancient religions in FinlandWhat does ancient religion even mean? Ancient religions are religions, which were commonly believed in all across the Finland before christianity arrived to Finland through crusades in the 13th century. Almost every village or tribe had their own version of the religion, so there wasn't any one and only religion in Finland before christianity. All of these religions were much related to the nature. People believed that there were many gods or spirits and each one had one element or essence they controlled. All the Finnish ancient religions are highly related to Kalevala, our national epic, even though Kalevala was written later on the 19th century. Understanding of the universePeople believed that world was a flat disk. The sky was a bowl over the disk: like a mug turned upside down against the table. There was a ''maailmanpylv?s''(World's pillar) which was holding the sky on it's place. Maailmapylv?s was linked from the sky to earth between the pole star in the sky and a very far away place in the north in earth. In the far away north was ''Pohjola'' the land on eternal coldness. It was a place full of unpleasant and evil things. There was a river know as ''Tuonen joki'' which leaded to ''manala''(place where bad people go after death). ''Manala'' was just one of the places where people would fo after death. People believed that there were many places you can go after death. It depended how good person you had been alive. These places were called ''Vainajala''. They were very different places: in one ''Vainajala'' people would sleep forever and in other they would party all the time. Some ''Vainajalas'' were like alternative worlds: same as our own, but without pain or sorrow. Gods in the ancient religionsLike I mentioned before, there were many different religions in Finland back in time. Even though there were many variations and fusions in the religions, all had basically the same backbone: nature was the number one thing for the people. They worshipped the dead, gods or spirits living in the forest with chants or prayers. One of these gods was Ahti, the god water, which controlled oceans and water. He also controlled the amount of fish people would be able to catch from his waters. The god of forest was Tapio. He decided how much animals people would be able to hunt down in the forest. Sometimes, when Tapio was mad at someone, he could trap the person in the forest forever with illusions and spells. Then there was Ukko. He was the god of weather, harvest and lighting. People believed that when it was lighting outside, Ukko was swinging his weapon know as ''ukonvasara''(Ukko's hammer) or ''ukonkirves''(Ukko's axe). When it was raining and stormy outside, people believed Ukko was having sex with his lady Akka, or he was riding the skies with his wagon. Ukko and Norwegian god Thor are very similar. Ukko was the most feared and respected god in the ancient religions. He was so feared that people didn't use his real name when they spoke about him. ''Ukko'' means ''guy'' or ''old man'' in english. Perkele was his real name, which nowdays is used as a curse word in Finland. ShamansIn every village there was a shaman: a local master of witchcraft who had ability of clairvoyance and spirit-walking. Clairvoyance is ability to see to the future and spirit-walking means ability to leave the physical body and travel to the spirit world, where shaman was able to chat with the dead, spirits and gods. Shamans served often also as doctors. They had interesting methods to cure people. People believed back in time that when one person got ill, it was because some evil spirit has travelled into his body and there were two ways to heal him. First one was the physical healing. The ill person was taken to the sauna and shaman put tar all over his skin. All kinds of herbs and roots were also used. Second was the spiritual healing. Because they believed illness was caused by evil spirit, they thought that if they bring the ill person back to the place where he got ill, the spirit will become homesick and leave the body. For example, if the person got ill near fire, they believed that an evil fire spirit has invaded his body and in order to remove the illness the ill person was brought near fire again. Sacred animals and placesBear is was the most respected and sacred animal in the ancient religions. Killing it provided much leather and food for the people. Also bones, nails and teeth were used to different purposes. After hunters had killed a bear, they brought it back to village and people had an event called ''karhunpeijajaiset''. They sang and did rituals to send bear's spirit back in sky, so it could return in another physical body. After this they brought the bear's skull back in to the forest, so the bear's spirit wouldn't be mad to hunters and allow them to kill him again. If the skull wasn't brought back to forest they believed that the bear's spirit would go in rage and attack the village in another, much stronger bear body. Bear was the only sacred animal but there were many sacred places in ancient religions in Finland. Certain rivers, swamps, trees, rocks, hills and lakes were very sacred places. People were allowed to go there only to perform rituals. One of the events was execution. They tied up criminals or bad people and threw them in to the swamp, which swallowed them inside drowning them. Back in time people also did this to babies born outside marriage or to babies with deformed bodies. PresentAt the moment there are many pagan religions in Finland, but only very small group believes to ancient religions. Today's believers don't use term Finland's ancient religion, they call it ''suomenusko''(Finlands belief). The membership of ''suomenusko'' has been rising in the past years. Investigators say that the main reasons for this rise are all the global issues related to nature: global warming, pollution of waters etc. I find that kind of strange, why should you believe in all this in order to respect nature? You can be atheist and respect nature as well. ................
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