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.