Metsamees Family/Ancient beliefs

Ancient beliefs

Theyr ancient beliefs revolved around nature and balance with surroundings, also in personal evolution.
Gods did not exist, and nature itself wasnt held in revere as a god, nor was a object of worship.
Praying was non existent
Closest things to prayer was shamanic travel like rituals and meditation.
Training of physical body and educating the mind was held in high importance, and was seen nearly as a sacred task.
Physical labor was not shunned, even in higher status, kings and chieftains worked theyr own fields for example.
All people were educated in theyr childhood at meny different traits,
commonly and primarily fighting (martial arts and different weapon usage, including ranged ones),hunting, fishing, herbalism, animal skinning and skin tanning.
Secondary were smithing, carpentry, masonry and such. (some of which were occasionally set aside to learn later when more time was available or skipped entirely).
Fighting (both armed and unarmed) were extensively practiced, and skill was improved through out life, as other traits once mastered werent usually perfected mutch further.

The reason for such extensive training and education, stood in theyr core beliefs.
Which didnt make human life more valuable than any other life,
and ones life was considered a privilege, not a right, if one is not able to defend it, one looses the right to own it.

Core beliefs

• Good and evil only exist in personal level, in higher view all actions are balanced, and have theyr positive effects aswell as negative ones in eccual proportion. (such as murder, definetly bad for the one killed, but some one profits from his death, and meny creatures he would had killed afterwards are spared, also meny creatures can eat his corpse and live further, while saving the named person from its demise will ensure the demise of other creatures the saved person will kill, and also mean a meal lost for some creatures).
• "One is its own lord/god" - one always rules over himself, is responsible for his own actions and the lack of them, thus also for his own course of life and death. (if one is killed that means he was to weak or unskilled to survive.)
• All life is eccual, life. (Meaning that a stag killed is same as a human killed).
• All life is holy (animal and plant), including ones owns life. (as such killing with a reason is acceptable, murdering life without a reason is unacceptable and considered a sacrilege, suicide is also some what sacrilegious act, if one is tired of life then he/she should venture in to a bears cave and let himself be mauled to death, thus effectively feeding a bear -> bear dosnt need to attack cattle for some time.
  Killing something without much of a legitimate reason was punished by anyone who wanted revenge, thusly the society's main justice organ was civilians own retribution and "own court").
• Ones life is it's own gift, if one can not protect it, on does not deserve to own it.
• Ones life's length is not meny decades but at most a week, and must be lengthened at the expense of other life's (plant draws the life from the world, a deer eats the plant and takes it from the plant, a man kills the deer and eats it - and gains the deers life to live longer.
  The remains of both man and meny deer he has eaten go back to the world, only to be drawn up by the plant eventually again, world dosnt lose life it only loans some of it out).

• Spirit and material make existence, which opposite is the void.
• Physical world is one. (all things are made of material, which exists in 4 specters (like white light can be divided in to meny color specters): air, watter, fire and earth. All things living and not living are made of those 4 elements, thus all things are drops of watter in a bucket of watter, with some places thicker than others)
• Spirit world is the other half of physical world. (spirit world is the other side of the coin, if this side is the physical world, thus all things are connected through spirit realm aswell.)

Sources of elements in theyr purest forms were considered the most holy places (water springs, volcanoes, big stone boulders, hill tops, mountains) forests were considered also holy places, aswell as some forest groves, or clearings for either natural beauty or spiritual pureness.
Shrines often temples were constructed at those spots, they were not for revering the element but to "exploit" them, in a good way.
Forest temples were considered spiritually pure places, good for meditation and clearing of ones mind.
Elementally pure places were used to draw power from them, smiths used water from those pure springs and ore from big mountains, to infuse the weapons or armor with the power from those elements, also blessing items in such places would draw power in to those items (blessing a sword at the volcano summit would grant the sword the fire elements power, as well as some hill tops the air elements power...).
Elements power was very rarely attempted to use on people them selves, as such drawd power would not be theyrs, would grant them a handle through which others could take hold over the person or bring weakness (towards the opposing element) along with it.
Temples themselves werent to magnificently built, and were never built so they would disturb or obstruct the places pureness or purpose.
Forest temples were the most meager, the trees grove was considered a temple enough, and was sometimes only decorated with stone circle or something modest of the like.

Life was considered to be a temporary loan, and the world will reclaim it once the time comes.
The world itself was considered to be alive, and all things in this world apart of it.
Once a person dies its body will become one with the elements again, and the spirit would be come one with the spirit world again.
Thus all the fallen would in some way live on with the world.
However, it was believed that the creatures who evolve enough (grow stronger and wise) during theyr life can avoid death, become "gods", breaking free from this world.
Those gods neednt necessarily be human.
Those gods could then overcome the hold of this world, and would adventualy evolve in to new worlds altogether.
A world is big as such simply roaming around himself is not efficient enough or to trouble some, and becomes a planet or a universe itself, thus creating life and letting it live upon it, and gains the experience wisdom and strength that life has gathered for himself.