Finnish paganism

Finnish paganism was the indigenous pagan religion in Finland, Estonia, and Karelia prior to Christianisation. It was a polytheistic religion, worshipping a number of different deities. The principal god was the god of thunder and the sky, Ukko; other important gods included Jumi, Ahti, and Tapio.

Finnish paganism shows many similarities with the religious practices of neighbouring cultures, such as Germanic, Norse and Baltic paganism. However, it has some distinct differences due to the Uralic and Finnic culture of the region.

Finnish paganism provided the inspiration for a contemporary pagan movement Suomenusko (Finnish: Finnish faith), which is an attempt to reconstruct the old religion of the Finns.

The Finnish pagans were polytheistic, believing in a number of different deities. Most of the deities ruled over a specific aspect of nature; for instance, 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, worshipping local nature deities at site-specific shrines to that particular deity.

Local animistic deities, known as haltijas, 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 the 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.

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