Karelians' religious and mythological ideas about kalma disease

This article covers the religious and mythological representations of the Karelians about kalma disease (‘a disease which, according to the Karelians' beliefs, originated from graves, cemeteries or the deceased') for the first time in the domestic ethnography. The aim of the study is a comprehensive analysis of kalma disease using comparative, ethnolinguistic and comparative-historical methods. In accordance with the goal, the following tasks were set: 1) to collect and systematize the names of the studied disease and determine their origins; 2) to reveal the disease etiology; 3) to compare the perceptions of kalma disease among the groups of the Karelians living in Karelia, as well as in the Tver and the Leningrad regions (the Tver Karelians and the Tikhvin Karelians, respectively). As a result, the conclusions were drawn which enabled to trace stable ideas about kalma disease only within some groups of the Karelians. The disease was preceded by incorrect behavior in places or with objects related to the world of the dead, which was typical of the mythological views of the Karelian ethnos.