Tuonela (; )Oinas, Felix J., and Juha Pentikäinen. "Tuonela." In ''Encyclopedia of Religion'', 2nd ed., edited by Lindsay Jones, 9396-9397. Vol. 14. Detroit, MI: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005. ''Gale eBooks'' (accessed January 3, 2021)

/ref> is the realm of the dead or the

Underworld The underworld, also known as the netherworld or hell, is the supernatural world of the dead in various religious traditions and myths, located below the world of the living. Chthonic is the technical adjective for things of the underworld. ...

Finnish mythology Finnish mythology is a commonly applied description of the folklore of Finnish paganism, of which a modern revival is practiced by a small percentage of the Finnish people. It has many features shared with Estonian and other Finnic mythologies, ...

. Tuonela, Tuoni (), Manala (, 'Underworld'), and Mana () are used synonymously. Similar realms appear in most Finnic cultural traditions, including among Karelian, Ingrian, and Estonian beliefs. In Estonian mythology, the realm is called Toonela or Manala. Tuonela can also refer to a grave or a graveyard.

Description

According to traditional Finnish religion, the fate of good and bad people is the same and the dead wander the afterlife as shadow-like ghosts.

Tuoni In Finnish mythology, Tuoni () was the god of Tuonela (the underworld), and darkness personified. He was the husband of Tuonetar. Their children included Kipu-Tyttö, Tuonenpoika, and Loviatar Loviatar (, alternative names Loveatar, Lovetar, Lov ...

, god of the dead, and his wife

Tuonetar Tuonetar () is the Queen of the Underworld in Finnish mythology. Tuonetar is the wife of Tuoni, with whom she rules over the Underworld Tuonela. In the 16th song of Kalevala, Väinämöinen Väinämöinen () is a demigod, hero and the ce ...

are the rulers of Tuonela. Although physical descriptions of Tuonela vary between different versions of the myth, a general description emerges from most. According to scholars Felix Oinas and

Juha Pentikäinen Juha Pentikäinen (born 1940) is a Finnish professor in the Department of Comparative Religion at the University of Helsinki. With a field-work oriented approach to the study of religious traditions he is especially interested in the oral history ...

, Tuonela is described as being at the northernmost part of the world but is sectioned apart from the world of the living by a great divide. In the divide flows the dark river of Tuonela. The river is wild, and the dead can be seen trying to swim across it. The dead must cross the river, either by a thread bridge, swimming, or taking a boat piloted by the daughter of Tuoni. The river is guarded by a black swan that sings death spells. At times living people visited Tuonela to gather information and spells. The journey required a trip through thorn thickets and dangerous woods, and the defeat of the monster Surma, a flesh-tearing monster that works for the goddess of decay, Kalma. Once in Tuonela, the living were not allowed to leave. They would be welcomed by Tuonetar, who would offer them a memory-erasing beer to erase their former lives.

Shamans Shamanism is a religious practice that involves a practitioner (shaman) interacting with what they believe to be a spirit world through altered states of consciousness, such as trance. The goal of this is usually to direct spirits or spiritu ...

could visit Tuonela by falling into a trance and tricking the guards.

Associated myths

Tuonela is best known for its appearance in the Finnish national epic

Kalevala The ''Kalevala'' ( fi, Kalevala, ) is a 19th-century work of epic poetry compiled by Elias Lönnrot from Karelian and Finnish oral folklore and mythology, telling an epic story about the Creation of the Earth, describing the controversies and r ...

. In the 19th song of

Väinämöinen Väinämöinen () is a demigod, hero and the central character in Finnish folklore and the main character in the national epic ''Kalevala'' by Elias Lönnrot. Väinämöinen was described as an old and wise man, and he possessed a potent, m ...

, a shamanistic hero, travels to Tuonela to seek the knowledge of the dead. On the journey, he meets the ferryman, a woman, Tuonen tytti / Tuonen tyttö (Tuoni’s girl), or Tuonen piika (Tuoni's maid), who takes him over the river of Tuoni. On the isle of Tuoni, however, he is not given the spells that he was looking for and he barely manages to escape the place by turning into a snake. After his return, he curses anyone trying to enter the place alive. Also in the Kalevala, the adventurer-shaman Lemminkäinen goes to

Pohjola Pohjola (; from 'base, bottom', but used in derived forms like ''pohjois-'' to mean 'north' + ''-'' 'place'), sometimes just Pohja (), is a mythical place, location in Finnish mythology. It is one of the two main polarities in the Finnish nationa ...

to woo the daughter of Louhi, a powerful old sorceress. Louhi gives Lemminkäinen three tasks he must complete to woo her daughter. While trying to complete the third task, killing the swan of Tuonela, Lemminkäinen is cut into pieces by a water snake and thrown into a whirlpool in the river of Tuonela.

Lemminkäinen's mother ''Lemminkäinen's Mother'' (''Lemminkäisen äiti'') is an 1897 Romantic nationalist painting by Finnish painter Akseli Gallen-Kallela. The painting illustrates a passage from the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic compiled by Elias Lönnrot in ...

is alerted of his death by a magical charm. She goes to the river, and rakes out the pieces of her son's body. With the help of a bee, Lemminkäinen's mother pieces together his body, and brings him back to life.Grossman, Joan Delaney. "The Power of the Word." In ''Ivan Konevskoi: "Wise Child" of Russian Symbolism'', 147-66. Brighton, MA: Academic Studies Press, 2010. Accessed January 4, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1zxsjgb.10. ''Tuonela'' is used as the translation for the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

word ᾍδης (

Hades Hades (; grc-gre, ᾍδης, Háidēs; ), in the ancient Greek religion and myth, is the god of the dead and the king of the underworld, with which his name became synonymous. Hades was the eldest son of Cronus and Rhea, although this also ...

) in Finnish translations of the

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...

. In Finnish

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...

it is often interpreted as the place of the dead before the

Last Judgement The Last Judgment, Final Judgment, Day of Reckoning, Day of Judgment, Judgment Day, Doomsday, Day of Resurrection or The Day of the Lord (; ar, یوم القيامة, translit=Yawm al-Qiyāmah or ar, یوم الدین, translit=Yawm ad-Dīn, ...

Description

Associated myths

References

See also