Itse

Itse ("self") is the soul that carried a person's sense of self and consciousness. It wasn't dependent of the body but the body was dependent of itse. Itse could leave the body but if it was gone for too long, the body would fall into a coma and die. Only a shaman could heal a person from this soul-losing illness by fetching his/her itse from the underworld where it had been trapped in. When in a trance, a shaman's itse left his body and turned into a familiar (in the form of a bird, a fish, a bear, etc.). The body soul löyly remained in the body to keep it alive.

Itse remained even after the death of the body if one died before their designated day of death. Attributes of itse were thought to be hereditary, passing down from their ancestors when they were given a name.

The word itse originates from Proto-Uralic *iće ~ *iśe, which meant the conscious mind.