The Kalevala | Page 7

oculist
of long and varied experience, in all probability often consulted in Finland because of the
blinding snows and piercing winds of the north. Lemmas is a goddess in the mythology
of the Finns who dresses the wounds of her faithful sufferers, and subdues their pains.
Suonetar is another goddess of the human frame, and plays a curious and important part
in the restoration to life of the reckless Lemminkainen, as described in the following
runes. She busies herself in spinning veins, and in sewing up the wounded tissues of such
deserving worshipers as need her surgical skill.
Other deities associated with the welfare of mankind are the Sinettaret and Kankahattaret,
the goddesses respectively of dyeing and weaving. Matka-Teppo is their road-god, and
busies himself in caring for horses that are over-worked, and in looking after the interests
of weary travellers. Aarni is the guardian of hidden treasures. This important office is
also filled by a hideous old deity named Mammelainen, whom Renwall, the Finnish
lexicographer, describes as "femina maligna, matrix serpentis, divitiarum subterranearum
custos," a malignant woman, the mother of the snake, and the guardian of subterranean
treasures. From this conception it is evident that the idea of a kinship between serpents
and hidden treasures frequently met with in the myths of the Hungarians, Germans, and
Slavs, is not foreign to the Finns.
Nowhere are the inconsistencies of human theory and practice more curiously and
forcibly shown than in the custom in vogue among the clans of Finland who are not
believers in a future life, but, notwithstanding, perform such funereal ceremonies as the
burying in the graves of the dead, knives, hatchets, spears, bows, and arrows, kettles,
food, clothing, sledges and snow-shoes, thus bearing witness to their practical recognition
of some form of life beyond the grave. The ancient Finns occasionally craved advice and
assistance from the dead. Thus, as described in The Kalevala, when the hero of Wainola
needed three words of master-magic wherewith to finish the boat in which he was to sail
to win the mystic maiden of Sariola, he first looked in the brain of the white squirrel, then
in the mouth of the white-swan when dying, but all in vain; then he journeyed to the
kingdom of Tuoni, and failing there, he "struggled over the points of needles, over the
blades of swords, over the edges of hatchets" to the grave of the ancient wisdom-bard,
Antero Wipunen, where he "found the lost-words of the Master." In this legend of The
Kalevala, exceedingly interesting, instructive, and curious, are found, apparently, the
remote vestiges of ancient Masonry.
It would seem that the earliest beliefs of the Finns regarding the dead centred in this: that
their spirits remained in their graves until after the complete disintegration of their bodies,
over which Kalma, the god of the tombs, with his black and evil daughter, presided. After
their spirits had been fully purified, they were then admitted to the Kingdom of Manala in
the under world. Those journeying to Tuonela were required to voyage over nine seas,
and over one river, the Finnish Styx, black, deep, and violent, and filled with hungry

whirlpools, and angry waterfalls.
Like Helheim of Scandinavian mythology, Manala, or Tuonela, was considered as
corresponding to the upper world. The Sun and the Moon visited there; fen and forest
gave a home to the wolf, the bear, the elk, the serpent, and the songbird; the salmon, the
whiting, the perch, and the pike were sheltered in the "coal-black waters of Manala."
From the seed-grains of the death-land fields and forests, the Tuoni-worm (the serpent)
had taken its teeth. Tuoui, or Mana, the god of the under world, is represented as a
hard-hearted, and frightful, old personage with three iron-pointed fingers on each hand,
and wearing a hat drawn down to his shoulders. As in the original conception of Hades,
Tuoni was thought to be the leader of the dead to their subterranean home, as well as their
counsellor, guardian, and ruler. In the capacity of ruler he was assisted by his wife, a
hideous, horrible, old witch with "crooked, copper-fingers iron-pointed," with deformed
head and distorted features, and uniformly spoken of in irony in the Kalevala as "hyva
emanta," the good hostess; she feasted her guests on lizards, worms, toads, and writhing
serpents. Tuouen Poika, "The God of the Red Cheeks," so called because of his
bloodthirstiness and constant cruelties, is the son and accomplice of this merciless and
hideous pair.
Three daughters of Tuoni are mentioned in the runes, the first of whom, a tiny, black
maiden, but great in wickedness, once at least showed a touch of human kindness when
she vainly urged Wainamoinen not to cross the river of Tuoui, assuring the hero that
while many visit Manala, few return, because of their