20 - The religion
A LOT OF DIFFERENT RELIGIONS The population is overwhelmingly Protestant Lutheran. Lutherans: 73%. Orthodox: 1.1% Other Christians: 1.1% Practitioners of various religions: 1.6% No religion or unknown: 24.3% CHAMANISM The Arctic peoples, whose economic base was based on hunting, fishing, fartisanat and barter, adhered to a belief system that European ethnologists have grouped together under the term shamanism. Characterized by the cult of nature, ancestors and spirits, shamanism will survive in Lapland until the beginning of the 20th century. The shaman, a wise sorcerer, provided the link between the world of the living and the world of the spirits. Thanks to his knowledge and to certain techniques, qualified by the western world as magical, he enjoyed a real authority among the Ural-Altaic peoples. In this universe, gnomes and elves played an important role, as did certain deities such as the god of Thunder, Ukko, the god of Winds and Storms, llmarinen Ahti, and the god of