Forest thresholds for the dead

When grief arrives, we often expect to handle it quickly and in private. But in the old traditions of Eastern Finland and Karelia, grief was handled more gently. Grief was shared out loud and held by trees as guardians and living signposts. 

Ethnographer Janne Vilkuna documented a practice called karsikko, which means creating a living memorial tree for someone who had passed away. During a funeral, as a horse-drawn cart carried the wooden coffin to the burial grounds, the procession would pause at a quiet spot in the forest. This was the border between the world of the living (tämä ilma) and the world beyond (tuonilmaiset). Men would trim (karsia) the branches of a large pine or spruce in specific ways to mark the person’s life. They would then slice away a piece of bark (pilkka) to carve the person’s initials, house sign (puumerkki), or years of life. This tree served as a gentle boundary. People believed that if a spirit tried to wander back home, seeing its mark on the tree would remind it that its journey had moved on, helping it find peace. As horse carts were replaced by cars, people began carving these marks into forest rocks (karsikkokallio) or wooden boards on buildings, keeping the memory rooted in the land.

While men carved the trees, women held the emotional space through vocal laments called itkuvirret. Preserved by Orthodox Baltic-Finnic groups like the Karelians and Ingrians, this practice was called eänel itkeminen (“lamenting with voice”). As folklorist Viliina Silvonen points out, this was never called singing. Calling a sacred lament “singing” felt disrespectful, as if reducing a deep ritual to simple entertainment. Laments guided the soul through every step of saying goodbye: as the body of the deceased was washed (usually in the sauna, the place where the spirits of the under and the upper world meet), the lamenter (itkijä) wept on behalf of the deceased, asking the washers to cleanse away earthly burdens of the soul. Food and water were left on the windowsill for the spirit, but no lamenting was allowed at night, out of respect for the natural need for rest.  As the coffin was carried away, the lamenter asked for forgiveness on the deceased’s behalf, apologizing to the house, the yard, the fields, and the nearby waters so no bad feelings were left behind. 

Rather than disconnecting the deceased from the family and loved ones who stayed behind while the deceased passed on to the heavens, these laments offered hope of staying connected in this world. Families didn’t view loss as a permanent goodbye; they sang to invite their loved one back as a bird visiting the window or a butterfly in the summer evening. Both the karsikko trees and vocal laments point to the usefulness of grief being expressed physically, in spoken words, and in shared form. Holding feelings inside hurts our health, but sharing our sorrow with nature brings us back into balance.

The people inhabiting the forest rich area of what is now known as Finland share more ancient traditions connected to the trees and the land. For instance, the tradition of pitämyspuut (or uhripuut or sacrifical guardian trees) represents one of the expressions of Finnish animistic folk belief. There is hiisi, a sacred grove, a hill, or a stone site where people gathered to honor spirits and ancestors. Folklore also describes metsänpeitto (“forest cover”), the mysterious idea that the deep woods could veil a person, blurring the lines between nature, spirit, and reality. Like karsikko trees and Karelian laments, these beliefs show a world where the forest was a living, responsive partner.

Coming from Häme, these are not my native regional traditions. The karsikko trees and vocal laments belong to Eastern Finnish, Karelian, and Orthodox Baltic-Finnic cultures. After World War II, many Karelians, including my maternal grandmother, were displaced and forced to adapt to Finnish society, often hiding their language and customs. Today, as more people explore laments for art or healing, remembering these roots is essential. Because these are delicate historical memories, and because Karelian heritage carries a painful history of marginalization, I do not speak on them as an authority. Instead, I share them with care and humilty as a student of nature connection. They show us how people, perhaps even my ancestors from my maternal grandmother’s side,  once honored life’s big transitions through song, wood, and sacred ground.

Sources:

Ranta, R. (2024). Pyhät puut: Suomalaisten puiden mytologiaa ja perinnettä. SKS Kirjat.

Roivainen, A. (2022, May 10). Vainajien karsikot Pöljällä. Pöljän kinkeripiiri. https://airaroivainen.blogspot.com/2022/05/vainajien-karsikot-poljalla.html

Silvonen, V. (2021, March 29). Miksi kutsua itkuvirttä? Folkloristiikka. Helsingin yliopisto. https://blogs.helsinki.fi/folkloristi/miksi-kutsua-itkuvirtta/

Vilkuna, Janne (1992). Suomalaiset vainajien karsikot ja ristipuut: Kansatieteellinen tapatutkimus. Scripta Historica 18 / Kansatieteellinen Arkisto 39. Helsinki: Suomen Muinaismuistoyhdistys.