Anthropology of Saami

Lähteet Liitteet: Liite 1. Kartat (2 s.) Liite 2. Valokuvat (4 s.) Liite 3. Kaavakuvat ja kaivauskartat (3 s.) Liite 4. Taulukot 3. ja 4. (6 s.) Kannen kuva: Gamajohka P 3, purnu 7 ja kaivauksenjohtaja Taarna Valtonen. (Kuva: Mikael A. Manninen)

When investigating the Elwha and Alta Dams, I have found the similarities to be a bit overwhelming. Not only are there environmental issues that have, and are being faced; there is also the respect factor of the indigenous people that have called the two areas home for thousands of years. In the research put into this paper, I seek to investigate and summarize not only the historical reliance of the Sami and Lower Elwha-Klallam Tribe on the Alta-Kautokeino and Elwha River areas for subsistence fishing, reindeer migration for herding, and established living areas to include villages; but also the lack of importance given their indigenous voice regarding their existence, future wellbeing as a people, and native knowledge of the areas to be developed and changed

The offering places of the Sámi people have a long tradition of use. Written sources and archaeological finds give a picture of offerings
from the late Iron Age to the beginning of the 20th century. But even today these places are meaningful and filled with memories for
various reasons and for various groups of people. In this article six sieidi offering stones from Finnish Lapland are approached in the
light of more recent finds that were documented during the excavations in the years 2008 and 2009. These included: coins, personal
objects, candles, quartzite, and flowers. Some of them might have been left by tourists that have visited the site and used the sieidi in a
similar way to a wish well. Other objects might be left by local people who experience the place in the frame of their cultural identity.
Especially quartzite, flowers and candles might also indicate visits of neo-pagans, who can hold the place to be sacred. These different
groups might have different and even conflicting interests. Nevertheless a multivocal interpretation of the offering sites is important if
we want to construct a full picture of their importance.

Tutkimukseni käsittelee porosaamelaisten Guhtur Maggan ja Gáddjá Nikodemuksen muuttoa Enontekiöltä Pohjois-Sodankylän kautta Inariin 1800-luvun jälkipuoliskolla. Yleisen taustan tapahtumille muodostaa lähes 200 vuotta kestänyt prosessi, jonka seurauksena Fennoskandian eri valtioiden pohjoisosien rajat määriteltiin. Tämä kosketti erityisesti alueen alkuperäistä saamelaista väestöä, jonka asuma-alueet jaettiin Norjan, Ruotsin, Suomen ja Venäjän kesken. Prosessin alkuna voidaan pitää vuoden 1751 Strömstadin sopimusta, jonka perusteella määriteltiin Ruotsin ja Norjan välinen raja. Porosaamelaisilla oli 1800-luvun puoleen väliin saakka oikeus käyttää porojen laidunmaina Ainakin 1500-luvun lopulta lähtien suurporonhoitajat olivat jutaneet porojen kanssa Suomen alueella sijainneilta talvilaitumilta kesiksi Jäämeren rannikolle Norjaan.

Vuoden 1852 Venäjän-Norjan ja 1889 Venäjän-Ruotsin rajasulut muuttivat tilanteen. Rajoja ei saanut enää ylittää. Norjan, Ruotsin ja Suomen porosaamelaisia muutti uusille asuinalueille. Muuttoliike alkoi 1800-luvun loppupuoliskolla ja loppui 1900-luvun alussa. Laajemmin ilmiötä voidaan kuvata pohjoissaamelaisen suuporonhoidon ekspansioksi, jonka seurauksena suurporonhoitoelinhieno levisi laajalle alueelle Skandinaviassa. Suomessa muutot kohdistuivat Pohjois-Sodankylän Sompion alueelle sekä Inarin Länsiosaan. Muuttajia saapui Enontekiöltä, Utsjoelta ja myös Norjan Koutokeinon alueelta. Suomen käsivarren alueen poronhoito joutui kriisiin, sillä laidunalueet ahtautuivat. Poronhoidon ja talonpoikaisen elinkeinon välillä oli myös maankäyttöön liittyviä ristiriitoja.

Aiemmassa tutkimuksessa rajasulkujen vaikutuksia ja suurporonhoidon ekspansiota on käsitelty yleisellä tasolla sangen kattavasti. Olen tarkastella muuttoa ja siihen vaikuttaneita syitä erityisesti Maggan ja Nikodemuksen sukujen kautta. Tutkimuksen keskeisinä henkilöinä ovat Guhtur Magga ja Gáddjá Nikodemus, joita koskevien henkilöhistoriallisten lähteiden kautta on mahdollista tarkastella yksityiskohtaisesti muuttoa sekä sitä edeltävää ajanjaksoa. Asiakirjalähteiden lisäksi käytössä on ollut Gáddjá Nikodemuksen haastattelu vuodelta 1911, jossa hän kuvaa monipuolisesti omaa elämäänsä ja myös muuttoon liittyviä seikkoja. Guhtur Maggan jälkeläisiltä on säilynyt myös haastatteluaineistoa, joissa kerrotaan muuttoon liittyvistä tapahtumista. Sukujen jäsenten säilyttämän historiallisen muistitiedon kautta on mahdollista saada uudenlainen saamelaissukujen sisäinen näkökulma tutkimuksen kohteena oleviin tapahtumiin.

Muuttoprosessi ei ollut vain siirtymistä uusille asuinalueille, vaan siihen liittyi myös laajempi elinkeinoon ja asumistapaan liittyvä muutos. Enontekiöllä Maggan ja Nikodemuksen suvut elivät poropaimentolaisina. Muuton jälkeen suurporonhoidon rinnalle otettiin myös talonpoikaiseen elinkeinoon kuuluvaa karjanhoitoa ja peltoviljelyä. Samalla asumistapa vaihtui liikkuvasta kotaelämästä pysyvään uudistilallisen elämänmuotoon. Inariin Ivalojoen rannalle siirtymisen jälkeen paikalle rakennettiin hirsitalo, joka oli nykyisen Kutturan kylän alku. Uudistilalliseksi siirtymisestä huolimatta poronhoito säilyi perheen pääelinkeinona. Haastatteluaineiston kautta on ollut mahdollista selvittää asuinpaikkaan liittyvien valintojen perusteita. Niissä korostuu erityisesti hyvien porolaidunalueiden merkitys. Yleisellä tasolla tutkimuksen tarkoituksena on ollut kuvata mikrohistoriallisen tarkastelun kautta porosaamelaisten sopeutumista moniin 1800-luvun lopun poliittisiin ja yhteiskunnallisiin muutoksiin.

Popular scientific paper presenting a tale about the Saami sacrificial site of Unna Sájvva (Lillsaivis) in Jiellevárre (Gällivare) municipality, Sweden, noted down in the Lule Saami Forest dialect in 1912. Two shorter texts, noted down at the same time, treat the Saami ceremonial drum and traditions related to the Saami bear cult.

Full reference: Kejonen, Olle. 2021. Om offer – en berättelse från 1912. In: Andersson, Kerstin (ed.). Unna Saiva – en skändad samisk offerplats. Stockholm: Vulkan. 24–27.

This study contends through a formal analysis of extant rules and material gaming pieces that the medieval board game hnefa-tafl served as an important example of cultural and historical record for the Icelandic Commonwealth. Due to the piecemeal and recondite nature of academic research concerning hnefa-tafl itself, an initial objective of this study is to propose a dice-based reconstruction that makes use of available archaeological and literary evidence originating from subsequent tafl games. Because detailed information about these descendant games survives in more complete fashion, the scant material relating to the rules and layout of hnefa-tafl found within earlier Icelandic sagas is supplemented in this diachronic study with conclusions drawn from later tafl games. Players must understand not only the logical rules of play, but also the cultural framework informing its representation. To this end, game mechanics and decision-making in hnefa-tafl are further explored through the cultural lens of saga literature, which serves as the principle source material for fully understanding how much of hnefa-tafl depended on player agency and to what end the incorporation of chance-based gameplay affected interpersonal relations between players. Evidence suggests that these interactions were characterised by an ex post facto distinction made from dice rolls distinguishing lucky and unlucky individuals, which in turn presupposed that fortune was inherent to the player as part of their personality, at once both the cause and the expression of socially recognised accomplishment or condemnation. Such fatalistic aspects inherent to tafl play are also identified in eschatological imagery recounting the development and demise of the Icelandic Commonwealth, which leads this study to conclude that hnefa-tafl constituted a mode of recollection specific to board games wherein societies invest material apparatus with connotations of their owners’ cultural identities.

An anthropological study on the Norwegian Saami by Halfdan Bryn. Interesting for its historical significance in the fields of physical anthropology and ethnography. Numerous photographic plates depict Saami people with certain cultural, anthropological and somatological attributes considered relevant to scientific research being conducted at the time. Measurement tables and illustrations are included through-out the text.

Bryn, H. (1932). Norwegische Samen. Eine anthropologische Studien. Mitteilungen der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien. LXII Band. 1/2 Heft. 1-74.

The Sámi are an indigenous Northern European people whose homeland, Sápmi, extends across the territories of four states: Finland, Norway, Russia and Sweden. For the Sámi of the Nordic countries, a long period of cultural repression gave way to a renaissance of sorts during the last half of the twentieth century. During the last decades of the century, their indigenous rights were recognized, they experienced a cultural and linguistic revival, and popularly elected Sámi parliaments were established in each of the three Nordic states. In contrast, the Soviet Sámi had little opportunity to develop independent ethno-political organizations and were largely isolated from their ethnic kin across the Norwegian border. The Soviet–Norwegian frontier was one of only two short stretches where the USSR and NATO shared a direct land border (the other being between Turkey and the USSR), and it remained tightly sealed until 1989. After the Soviet Union collapsed, its borders opened. In the decades that followed, the Russian Sámi attempted a linguistic revival; they began mending the Cold War scars across Sápmi and established their own independent ethno-political organizations. This period saw numerous struggles over the right to define the interests of the Russian Sámi and represent them, laying the foundations for current Russian Sámi politics. This book tells the story of what happened once the Soviet borders opened up. In this volume, we follow the development of an ethno-political movement on the periphery of the Russian Federation: the tensions that arise when a small people attempts to organize itself, reconstitute its culture and identity and reach out across the old Iron Curtain to ethnic kin in the West. As this border has been one of the most important dividing lines in modern history, the tale of the Sámi people and their efforts to mend their divisions is a case study of not only an indigenous movement, but indeed a microcosm of Russian–Western relations, replete with idealism, opportunism, misunderstandings, cultural exchange and intended and unintended consequences.

This paper describes the loss of a relative age distinction in the terms for maternal aunts and paternal uncles in several varieties of North Saami, Lule Saami and South Saami (Saamic, Uralic) spoken in Sweden and Norway. I conclude that there is a strong tendency for the words traditionally meaning ‘father’s younger brother’ and ‘mother’s younger sister’ to obtain a general meaning ‘father’s brother’ and ‘mother’s sister’ respectively, while the corresponding words for elder siblings of the parents are rendered obsolete. The analysis is based on original interviews, as well as on published and previously unpublished word collections.

Popular scientific text presenting four short stories about contagious diseases, noted down in Swedish in the Lule Saami forest area by clergyman Otto Lindgren (1884–1952) in the early 1900s.

Full reference: Kejonen, Olle. 2021. ”Tauta är ett levande väsen” – skogssamiska berättelser om sjukdom och smitta. Samefolket. 102 (5): 34–35.

Д.А. Золотарёв (1885–1935) – российский этнограф, антрополог, один из лидеров отечественной науки. Активный член Русского географического общества, профессор и популяризатор науки, член академических комиссий, руководитель многолетних комплексных экспедиции, собиратель и хранитель предметов традиционной культуры финно-угорских и великорусского народов северо-западных и центральных районов европейской России. Сторонник тесного сотрудничества с краеведами, создания стационарных этнографических станции, фотодокументации исследуемых явлений, междисциплинарного подхода к решению вопросов этнической истории, научного отражения динамических процессов в народной культуре. Руководитель этнографических научных подразделении, член редколлегии профильных журналов. Автор статей и монографий по физической антропологии русских, кольских саамов и карел, в том числе тверских. Скончался в лагере для политзаключенных, реабилитирован.
D.A. Zolotarev (1885–1935) – Russian ethnographer, anthropologist, one of the leaders of Russian science. An active member of the Russian Geographical Society, a professor and science- popularizer, the member of academic commissions, the head of multi-year complex expeditions, collector and custodian of the artifacts of the traditional culture of the Finno-Ugric and Great Russian peoples of the north-western and central regions of European Russia. A supporter of close cooperation with local lore specialists, creation of stationary ethnographic stations, photo documentation of the investigated phenomena, multydisciplinary approach to solving issues of ethnic history, scienti c re ection of the dynamic processes in the folk culture. Head of ethnographic scienti c units, member of the editorial board of pro le journals. Author of articles and monographs on the physical anthropology of the Russians, the Kola Sami and Karelians, including the Tver ones. He died in the camp for political prisoners, rehabilitated.

Tullâčalmaaš kirdâččij ‟The One Who Flew with the Fire-eyes‟ – Aanaar Sámi Music Culture as Interaction of the Local Tradition and Neighboring Cultures in the Beginning of the 20th Century

The district of Aanaar (Finnish: Inari) has been a meeting place of many cultures for centuries. The earliest written sources of Aanaar Sámi can be dated to the 16th century. Sources were produced when the people of Aanaar were taxed by the three neighbouring states, Russia, Sweden and Norway. From the 17th century onwards Finnish priests started converting Aanaar Sámi people to Christianity. Unfortunately, neither the members of the church nor the state officials left any literary information of the pre-Christian music culture of the Aanaar Sámi people. It was only at the end of the 19th century when sources of the Aanaar Sámi music culture began to appear. In 1886 A. V. Koskimies collected some twenty song-texts from Aanaar and in 1900 Frans Äimä gathered some additional literary material. Finally, in 1904, the first descriptions of the Aanaar Sámi music itself were made. Armas Launis transcribed some 200 melodies from this region. He however defined all the melodies as belonging to the Northern Sámi tradition, because he was not able to separate the Aanaar Sámi music tradition from the Northern Sámi music tradition. The first recordings of Aanaar Sámi melodies were made in Germany in 1911 and in Aanaar in 1913. The most notable collection of Aanaar Sámi music was collected during 1945–1946 when a Finnish collector and researcher A. O. Väisänen recorded with his phonogram nearly a hundred songs performed by Anna Briitta Mattus. After this, only a few recordings were made. Since the 1950s the Aanaar Sámi music was not an essential part of the various projects collecting the Finnish Sámi music traditions.
Thus, the Aanaar Sámi music culture practically disappeared from the knowledge of the Finnish researchers. It was not only the academic society who had difficulties to define the Aanaar Sámi music, but also the Aanaar Sámi people themselves began to believe that their music was lost during the second half of the 20th century. However, archive work of this study has now brought to light more than a hundred performances by Aanaar Sámi tradition holders. This material makes it possible to make a general description of the Aanaar Sámi music culture at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. The aim of my research indeed has been to describe and define the Aanaar Sámi historical music tradition and to understand how and why it was not recognised as a special local music culture. The analysis of the archive data shows that Aanaar Sámi music consisted of several musical genres of which the livĎe-tradition is the most notable. It is a genre of individual songs describing people, related to many other music traditions of Arctic people. The livĎe-tradition was also a communicative form of expression, with which important and personal issues could be commented. It also kept the memory of the local people alive. Animals were also objects of the livĎe texts. There exists a special melody type, which I have called the “Aanaar melody”, of which many examples can be found. Additionally there was a song tradition, which was a shared with the neighbouring people. This included Lutheran psalms and lullabies. Furthermore, Aanaar Sámi people knew the Northern Sámi yoik tradition.

In Northern Finland, by the rock painting of Värikallio (ca. 3000–500 BC), several echoes can be heard. The most remarkable of these appear to be originating from the painted rock itself. The article presents the first results of the research project that seeks to explore the role of sound in the development
and use of Finnish rock art and Sámi offering sites. Field recordings, made at the site of Värikallio in summer 2013, are analyzed with a sound analysis and visualization toolkit, and interpreted with the help of GIS data and a 3D model of the site. A probable depiction of a drummer, identified in the painting in the course of the fieldwork, provides a further clue to the significance of sound rituals at rock paintings.

Geyer, E. (1932). Die anthropologischen Ergebnisse der mit Unterstützung der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien veranstalteten Lappland-Expedition 1913 bis 1914. Mitteilungen der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien, Vienna. LXII Band. 3/4 Heft. 163-209.

When new discourses appear, they can cause a certain pressure to search for new meaning of past actions and therefore even change recollection. During a period of discursive transition, these processes of memory evolution can cause serious social rifts. These insights  from oral history theories are applied in this paper to the Sámi people in Russia, who all too of- ten are seen by outsiders as a homogeneous community. I seek to correct this distorted image by analyzing the several interconnected rifts crisscrossing the Russian Sámi society. The following social fault lines are identified: the generational, the gender, the siyt, and the Lovozero-and-the- rest rifts, as well as a rift of worldviews, which I describe through two conceptual poles called “activists” and “sovkhoists.” Thus, the article contributes to raising awareness about the po- tentially differing interests of the individuals who constitute what is usually called the Russian Sámi “community” and increasing the critical distance of outsiders towards generalizing claims about  “the”  Russian Sámi.

The paper focuses on indigenous peoples, their rights and customary laws in the North in context of the Sami people situation in the Nordic countries and Russia. It is to analyse and conceptualise some important issues concerning Sami customary laws in the light of indigenous rights, constitutional law and legal pluralism as well as to propose new forms of cooperation between universities or scholars in the North in research in this field. First, after proposing new forms of academic cooperation, we flash focus on theory of legal pluralism and on Sami customary laws. Secondly, we differ the institutional axiology from the real axiology in state legal orders. Thirdly, we analyse rules concerning the Sami in Finland’s legislation, Sweden’s constitutional acts and Norway’s Constitution. Fourthly, we express some chosen conflicts of laws: Sami laws versus national laws and interests. Fifthly, using many criteria, we try to evaluate the Nordic countries in the field of recognition of ind...

This and another seminar-workshop provided the basis for a book, which has now appeared: Fibula, Fabula, Fact – The Viking Age in Finland, ed. Joonas Ahola & Frog with Clive Tolley (Studia Fennica Historica 18), Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society 2014 (516 pages).
http://www.academia.edu/10125680/Fibula_Fabula_Fact_-_The_Viking_Age_in_Finland_ed._Joonas_Ahola_and_Frog_with_Clive_Tolley_

Viikinkiaika Suomessa – The Viking Age in Finland is a collaborative interdisciplinary research project which undertakes to explore and assess the significance of the Viking Age for Finno-Karelian cultures and Finno-Karelian cultural areas.
The second seminar-workshop of the VAF projects was focused on contacts. Selected papers from the event will soon be appearing in a volume in English.

In autumn 2012, samples were taken from three sieidi stones in order to test blood residue analysis as a method for identifying marks of Sámi sacrifi cial practices. Prior to the fi eldwork, test samples were taken from stones that the authors smeared with blood and left outside fi rst for six and then for fi ve more months. Altogether 19 samples from sieidi stones were analysed. Prior research has not concentrated on blood traces on stones that are exposed to sunlight. The analyses using mass spectrometry revealed that blood proteins could be identifi ed in the test stones. There were nevertheless indications of a rapid disintegration of the blood proteins when exposed to open-air conditions. All the samples from sieidi stones gave a negative result. Currently it is unclear whether the degradation of blood proteins has exceeded the detection limit of the method, or whether sacrifi cial practices at those sites did not include blood offerings.

Tämän artikkelin ensimmäinen kirjoittaja on taannoin puhunut Kirstin kanssa väitöskirjaansa liittyen kivistä, jotka paikalliset asukkaat yhdistävät seitaperinteeseen. Seidat ovat osa saamelaisten etnisen uskon 1 uhrausperinnettä, mutta nimellä on usein viitattu kiviin myös alueilla, joilla saamelaisten suorittamista uhrauksista ei ole tietoa. 2 Kirstin mukaan hänen lapsuudessaan myös Oulujoen kirkon luona, kirkonmäen alaosassa ollutta kiveä kutsuttiin seidaksi (Kuva 1). Lapsena kiveä oli hieman pelätty, kun sen ohi juostiin uimaan. Vaikka kyseiseen kiveen liittyvän perinteen syntymisestä ei enää ole tietoa ja se lienee verrattain nuorta, ei seitojen ja kirkkojen löytyminen samoilta paikoilta ole harvinaista. Etnisen uskon pyhät paikat ja kristinuskon synnyttämät kirkkopaikat ovat pohjoisessa usein jakaneet saman maiseman.

Определяется характер межкультурного взаимодействия двух основных этнических групп населения с. Ловозеро – саамов и коми. Выявляются основные факторы, влияющие на производство и воспроизводство этничности на локальном уровне. Показано, что этничность актуализируется в процессе социализации личности и определения ее статусных позиций в местном сообществе.

The paper analyzes the basic traits of the cultural interaction between the two principal ethic groups (Sámi and Komi) inhabiting the village of Lovozero in order to establish the main factors that determine the production and re-production of ethnicity on the local level. It is demonstrated that Ethnicity is involved and gets actualized in the process of socialization of a person, when her/his status position in the local community is established.

This article concentrates on the performative nature of rituals at Sámi sacred sites called sieidi in northern Finland. These sites are usually natural objects, such as stones, unshaped by humans. Offerings, such as reindeer antlers, crania, meat, metal, and alcohol, were made to the sieidi in order to ensure future hunting success. In this article, the concept of ritual as performative action is used as a tool to emphasize how
practices, senses, and emotions comprised different parts of the rituals that took place at sieidi sites. Understanding ritual as performative action helps us to animate the rituals at sieidi sites with other people, animals, sounds, smells, movements, and feelings. We also seek to re-evaluate the context-related nature of the rituals. Finally, we discuss the implications for the interpretation of such sites where there are no material traces of
offerings.

"In Northern Finland, by the rock painting of Värikallio (ca. 3000–500 BC), several echoes can be heard. The most remarkable of these appear to be originating from the painted rock itself. The article presents the first results of the research project that seeks to explore the role of sound in the development and use of Finnish rock art and Sámi offering sites. Field recordings, made at the site of Värikallio in summer 2013, are analyzed with a sound analysis and visualization toolkit, and interpreted with the help of GIS data and a 3D model of the site. A probable depiction of a drummer, identified in the painting in the course of the fieldwork, provides a further clue to the significance of sound rituals at rock paintings."

This paper presents an interpretation of the two-player take over game, in the English-speaking world often referred to as "Cat's Cradle". The game was recorded around 1970 by French ethnologist Yves Delaporte among the Saami of the Kautokeino area in the north of Norway. The presentation is accompanied by short comparative notes. The concept of Stages is introduced to describe the structure of the game. Three transitions between Stages have probably not been recorded in other parts of the world before.

Statens hantering av forskningsresultat i rättsprocessen med Girjas sameby utgör ett hot mot Sverige som rättsstat och kunskapsnation. Åratal av svensk och internationell forskning underkänns och man använder ett språkbruk som skulle kunna vara hämtat från rasbiologins tid. Nu måste staten ta sitt ansvar och börja agera som en demokratisk rättsstat.
59 forskare har skrivit under debattartikeln. Se artikeln på DN.se här: http://www.dn.se/debatt/rasbiologiskt-sprakbruk-i-statens-rattsprocess-mot-sameby/

In autumn 2012, samples were taken from three sieidi stones in order to test blood residue analysis as a method for identifying marks of Sámi sacrifi cial practices. Prior to the fi eldwork, test samples were taken from stones that the authors smeared with blood and left outside fi rst for six and then for fi ve more months. Altogether 19 samples from sieidi stones were analysed. Prior research has not concentrated on blood traces on stones that are exposed to sunlight. The analyses using mass spectrometry revealed that blood proteins could be identifi ed in the test stones. There were nevertheless indications of a rapid disintegration of the blood proteins when exposed to open-air conditions. All the samples from sieidi stones gave a negative result. Currently it is unclear whether the degradation of blood proteins has exceeded the detection limit of the method, or whether sacrificial practices at those sites did not include blood offerings.