The Mental Landscape of the Sámi

It is hard to form a reliable picture of the pre-Christian religion and the so-called shamanistic world view of the Sámi. Their spiritual heritage was violently disrupted in the 1600s and 1700s by the conversion to Christianity. The belief-system of the Sámi has many levels in other respects, too: there are general Arctic, ancient Scandinavian, and Christian elements in it, as well as ones which are distinctly Sámi.

It is hard to see the old world view as a whole on the basis of material written by outsiders. We need to be critical of the descriptions of priests as well as of the stories told by Sámi and recorded during trials. In many ways we still have only a vague idea of the relationship between the narrative and yoiking traditions of the Sámi and the shamanistic world view that goes back hundreds of years.

The world view of a hunting and later a nomadic people reflects the adaptation to an Arctic environment and way of life. The mythology of a people living in the midst of nature is characterized by concepts concerning wild reindeer, bears, and other animals. Even the cosmos of a people who moved from one place to another in the middle of nature was circular, analogous to the pattern of seasonal migration and the course of life.

In the old culture, it was through a special person — the noaidi, or shaman — that a connection between two realities, this world and the world beyond, was created. In the same way that the world is divided into the visible and the invisible, the tangible and the intangible, people are divided into two parts: the body-soul and the free soul. In a non-active state—in a dream, trance, or coma—the free soul can leave the body and assume a new form outside a person. The noaidi had the ability to reach this state.

The traditional shamanistic religion was an essential part of the hunting culture and its needs. The shamanic activities were linked to the crises of the village or family: it was the shaman´s task to find a solution to the problems. As the people lived in the midst of nature, the greatest crises had to do with illness and the sources of livelihood. Illness was a state of unbalance between the two worlds: the visible and the invisible. This was what the shaman—in the spirit world—sought to reconcile by getting help from "the world beyond". On the other hand, the innumerable narratives and epic poems in which the "trance shamans" were able to control whole herds of wild reindeer had to do with the sources of livelihood.

The great shamans—the ones who were able to reach ecstasy—seem to have disappeared by the 1800s as a result of the harsh conversion to Christianity: at the time there were only "undistinguished magicians" left. Many of those who posed as shamans used to tell tourists their fortunes in exchange for alcohol — a fact which may, however, be linked with advanced alcoholism rather than traditional shamanism. The most recent powerful shamans seem to have lived in Kola Lapland, where the Orthodox Church did not persecute and condemn shamans as harshly as the Christians did.

By the 1800s at the latest, shamanism had been replaced by a system of seers arising from Christianity. Instead of relying on trips to "the world beyond" and on spirit helpers to guide him, the seer relied on spells and focused on "the visible world". In the new agricultural community a Christian seer considered "the world beyond" an enemy—in analogy with nature, against which he as a farmer had to struggle.

The Breakdown of the Old World View

With the active conversion of the Sámi to Christianity from the 1600s on, the old nature-based religion disappeared. The Church condemned traditions that were closely linked with shamanism, like witchcraft and the worship of sieidis, or sacrificial idols, but it also condemned many customs, which were considered "strange"or "pagan" like the worldly tradition of yoiking. The Laestadian revivalist movement continued the missionary work of the Church.

It has been thought that the Sámi were converted to Christianity quickly and that the pre-Christian religion disappeared without leaving any traces. Today, however, we have a more critical view of the information on this conversion, on how fast and successful it was. Missionary work started among the Sámi as early as the 1300s and 1400s, but the results were still superficial in the early 1600s. Priests liked to let everyone think that the work was proceeding well—especially as the reward might have been a transfer to the South, closer to "civilization".

The 1670s has been considered the decade by which all of Tornio Lapland and Kemi Lapland had been converted. However, many visitations in the late 1600s proved that Christianity was only superficial for example in Tornio Lapland. Elsewhere, too, traces of paganism were still clear in the 1700s.

New Sámi research has criticized the fact that we have apparently been provided with too simple a picture of the conversion. The priests who worked in Lapland tended to see Sámi mythology only as a primitive collection of beliefs, and this idea has been reflected in the views of scholars, too. For example, the work Suomen Lappalaiset by T. I. Itkonen makes a typically clear distinction between "Folklore" and "Mythology and later superstition".

Rather than seeing the old shamanism as a religion or superstition, recent research has considered it part of a whole world view, and the versatile narrative tradition and yoiks are seen as fragmentary reflections of this view. As the task was to change people`s whole outlook on life, it was probably not nearly completed —despite the use of coercion—in just a few decades.

The old customs seem to have been alive, at least in some form, for a much longer period. For example in Inari, the custom of offering sacrifices to the sieidis, or idols, at the Pielpajärvi Church went on for decades. Christian ideas and figures still had to filter through the old religion. For example Nilla Outakoski and Juha Pentikäinen have emphasized that the elements of the old religion kept on living in a "mothproof bag" at least until the 1800s.

The tradition of sacrifices turned into the secret worship of the sieidis and the use of the shaman´s drum; the "gods" that had lived on earth moved underground, turning into earth spirits. The most crucial thing, however, seems to have been the collapse of the old communal system at the turn of the 19^th century. At that point, the old customs turned into superstition and beliefs that people resorted to only if everything else (i.e., Christianity) failed.

The shamanistic concept of the soul still appears in one sense in the doubleganger experiences of today. The characteristic omens and marks of the Sámi heritage reflect the world view of paganism, as do the restless dead, ghosts, and illegitimate children who were left to the bog and later turned into specters, too. It is also common to think that the Sámi are especially susceptible to such ecstatic states of mind as the trance-like states which are common in Laestadianism; this susceptibility is supposed to date back to the time of shamanism. With Christianity, the word noaidi, or witch, got a negative connotation, but many people still believed in witches in the 1900s.

The Laestadian Movement and the Sámi

From its very beginning, the Laestadian revivalist movement has been an important part of the Sámi culture. It has had an influence—sometimes positive, sometimes negative—on many of today´s Sámi, too. The revivalist movement was originally centered in Karesuando, but has later had another strong center in Karasjok and in the Tenojoki Valley.

It is usually thought that Laestadianism is the result of one man´s activities and may have been slightly influenced by other Nordic revivalist movements. Similarly, it has been regarded at least since the 1860s as a distinctly Finnish movement that split into several factions. Only recently has research shed some light on the first, Sámi phase of the movement.

Dr. Nilla Outakoski has emphasized the close connections that Lars Levi Laestadius had to the land of the Sámi. Laestadius was a third generation Lappish priest who grew up on the borderlines of three different Sámi cultures: he was born in Ume Lapland, his mother was a Sámi from the Pite area, and he spent his childhood in Lule Lapland. As a child, Laestadius could speak two or three Sámi languages.

According to Outakoski, Laestadius` Sámi roots show above all in the fact that he had adopted the mythology concerning certain Sámi supernatural beings: he even believed steadfastly in the earth spirits. Before turning to Christianity he completed a paper on Sámi mythology, Fragmenter i lappisk mythologi, which was only published in the mid-1900s. After his conversion, he used the information from his research to fight the old religion but also to be able to penetrate into the Sámi way of thinking in his sermons.

According to Outakoski, the Laestadian movement was based on an old religious foundation called ‚ uorvvut, thanks to which it spread "like wildfire". The ‚ uorvvut movement had started in Kautokeino in the 1700s and had mainly spread among the reindeer-herding Sámi. In terms of its basic elements this movement was similar to the later Laestadian movement: rigid legalistic sermons and ecstatic states were characteristic of it. The movement got its name ‚ uorvvut ("shouters" or "callers") from travelling preachers who preached doomsday sermons and penance. The members of this movement paid attention to the stern preacher, Laestadius, and adopted him. Laestadius` reputation started to grow and the movement attracted followers from the coast of the Arctic Ocean to the town of Pajala on the Tornionjoki River.

The first members of the Laestadian movement were Mountain Sámi, and the revival never spread, for example, to the more southern Lule Lapland. In its first phase, the Laestadian movement abounded in Sámi preachers who covered a large area when moving with their reindeer. Laestadius himself used to train these preachers. However, the power of Laestadianism was above all based on the work the movement did in "purging" the Sámi community of alcohol and other curses brought to the area by southerners.

There was a backlash against the spreading of Laestadianism among the Sámi in 1852, when the Kautokeino Uprising took place. The revivalist movement of Laestadius was the starting-point of the uprising, but the fanatics of Kautokeino went further. They wanted to purge the whole area of "filth"—and they saw the spiritual and temporal authorities alike as representatives of this filth.

As a result of this bigotry, a group of Sámi "fanatics" killed the shopkeeper and the police superintendent in Kautokeino and beat the local priest almost to death. Publicly, this event was interpreted as an outburst of irrational, primitive rage, but the number and harshness of the sentences passed show that the "revolt" was of a serious nature. The leaders, Aslak Haetta and Mons Somby, were executed in 1854. Many other Sámi went to prison. The confrontation was condemned categorically in the other parts of the Sámi region, and the whole town of Kautokeino got a blemish on its reputation. Subsequently, Laestadianism never took root in Kautokeino in the way it did in Karesuando and on the Teno River.

Duodji — Art for Everyday Use

In Sámi culture, handicraft, just like the spiritual tradition, has been shaped by the way of life, which is characterized by mobility and the frugal use of nature. In general the culture is expressed through objects which seem simple, scanty, and functional. However, it has its own aesthetics in the spheres of shape, ornamentation, and colors.

Since 1982, Sámi handicraft has had a stamp of quality that guarantees that the work is genuine Sámi handicraft: it has been made with traditional materials and according to traditional patterns. It must literally have been made by hand. Even though machines are used in bone- and woodwork to work the material, the basic nature of handicraft has to be maintained.

Of the traditional, ancient materials of Sámi handicraft, wood—either birch, pine, or spruce—has been one of the most important ones. Spruce, birch, alder, and willow bark is used for dyeing, and roots for weaving dishes. Materials acquired from the reindeer—pelt, leather, horn, and bone—have been another important raw material. In the course of thousands of years, the Sámi have learned to utilize—to eat or work with— almost every part of the reindeer.

Traditional materials also include broadcloth, silk, silver, and tin, which were all adopted rather recently and for the most part as a result of trade with outsiders. During the key centuries of cultural exchange in Europe, especially from the 1300s to 1600s, many novelties were added to Sámi handicraft; these features have been considered characteristic of Sámi culture ever since. The increasing influence of the coast of the Arctic Ocean and Central Europe is especially apparent in the use of silver.

In the late Middle Ages, the Sámi also started to use textiles, and especially wool. This use of frieze was adopted from the neighboring nations. The colorful Sámi clothing mostly grew from the influence of the attire of the Central European nobility, which wealthy Sámi may have adopted in connection with the trade that took place on the coast of the Arctic Ocean. Later, when the clothing was no longer used in Central Europe, it became common among the Sámi — and evolved gradually into the traditional clothing of the Sámi.

The design of the Sámi headgear comes from two sources. The cap with four corners — representing north, east, south, and west — seems to have originated from Eastern European headgear; the latter also seems to have given rise to the four-cornered cap of Skolt Sámi men. It may have been the Pomor trade on the coast of the Arctic Ocean that helped to spread the use of this kind of headgear. The South Sámi skullcap, on the other hand, has its roots in the Middle Ages and Southern Scandinavia. In the more northern parts of Sweden men´s headgear has acquired a peak and a pompon, and the women´s headgear resembles a high, brimless cap.

Textile work has traditionally been the sphere of women. The summer clothes are made of cloth and the winter clothes of reindeer hide. Since World War II, standard European clothes have become common among the Sámi. Now that the craze for this fashion is over, the old clothing style is gaining a foothold again. In the 1900s, there was an increase in the decorativeness of the clothing; there were also quicker stylistic changes in the design especially after the traditional clothes started to be worn mainly for festive occasions.

In traditional handicraft, aesthetics has been subservient to functionality. Fine knife handles are made to stand wear and tear. They are made of reindeer horn, and pieces of curly birch, birch bark, or leather are intersperced among the pieces of horn. They function as shock reducers and make the handle less slippery than a handle made of pure horn. At the same time they are elegant ornaments, just like the decorative carvings on the handle.

The purpose of the equally decorative lower part of the sheath is to cover the blade so that it does not pose a danger to the one carrying the knife. Therefore, it is made of bone. A leather sheath could be split by the knife for example when the owner is wrestling with a reindeer. The design of the horn sheath is beautiful but practical, too. It is smooth, curves backward and has no notches that could get caught on something. The sheath has a hole which is parallel to the blade - and sometimes very ample hole ornamentation — to keep the moisture away from the blade so that the knife will not rust.

Artisans often adapt themselves to the materials rather than change them. For example the gnarl of a birch can be made into a coffee cup, or kuksa, or other dishes by carving the wood along the grains. The handle is made from the part between the malformation and the stem of the tree, and it can be reinforced with the help of a horn mount or inlay that also serves as ornamentation, for example, with carvings.

The combination of function and beauty is pleasing to the eye. Ornamentation was used as early as the Stone Age to make bone and wooden artefacts look valuable. Ornamentation has its own aesthetics and meanings that may have been totally forgotten in the course of time. Sámi handicraft is also famous for its beautiful design, which is the reason why it also appeals to non-Sámi.

Traditionally, handicraft was designed for everyday work and ordinary households. However, there were also specialists who built, for example, boats and sledges and were able to earn money through their handiwork. During the recent decades, handicraft has not only been made for the family, but for sale, too.

Gákti — the Sámi Clothing

It is common to talk about Sámi culture, traditional clothing, and language as if there was one unchanging and uniform nation. We often forget that the land of the Sámi has many facets both in terms of livelihood and culture. The traditional clothing is one of the most tangible symbols of the Sámi. Its designs and decorative patterns vary from area to area.

When Sámi from different parts of their land come together, the easiest way to know where they come from is to look at their clothes. Traditionally, the general design of the clothing communicated a great deal about the background of the wearer; the details of the design even revealed what village or family the person came from.

The Sámi clothing worn in Finland is divided into five main designs. The best-known of these is the clothing of the Mountain Sámi, or the Enontekiö design, which has become the favourite of post cards and tourist pictures because of its bright colors. It is a clothing with wide ribbon decorations on the shoulders and near the hem, and the beauty of the design is crowned with a high headgear. The habit of decorating the clothes lavishly with brooches and belts has become common since World War II. The clothing has become a measure of wealth, and its materials, colors, decorations, and jewelry tell about the social status of the person wearing it.

The antithesis of the Enontekiö clothing is the Utsjoki clothing, which is both plain and modest. The men´s clothing has red and yellow piping on the shoulders; the hem has no decoration. The women´s dress has red piping near the hem. This is also the reason a man from Utsjoki will laugh at the clothing of an Inari Sámi man: his clothing has a red and yellow piping near the hem just like "a woman`s dress".

The fourth type of clothing in Finland is the Skolt Sámi clothing, which is clearly different from the others. Women´s clothing is very similar to the traditional clothing of Karelian women. The Skolt Sámi woman still wears the horn-shaped headgear that has disappeared from the other parts of the land of the Sámi. Today, the four-cornered hat is the most commonly used article of the Skolt Sámi men´s traditional clothing.

The fifth design in Finland is the Vuotso design. In terms of color, it resembles the Inari Sámi clothing, but the women´s hat in Vuotso is decorated like the one in Enontekiö, although not with as many colorful ribbons. All the designs have both a summer and winter version. The general color of the clothes can also vary: in addition to blue, which is the most common, they can be white or black.

The traditional clothing also reveals many other things about its wearer. The way one wears the clothes tells a lot about the person: is the hat properly on his/her head, are the fur shoes carefully laced, is the brooch straight, has the cloth been pleated the right way? All these are things that people have been very fussy about. Especially in the old times when people gathered at the church or in the market, there was a lot of talk about the way people wore the traditional clothes. The worst thing you could call a woman who was not wearing the traditional clothing properly was rivgu, a non-Sámi woman.

The traditional clothing symbolizes the identity of a Sámi. It carries many subtle and almost inexplicable features that have the same kind of cultural message, or code, as the vocabulary of the native language with its nuances. It also reveals who is an outsider or inexperienced in wearing these clothes. Therefore, many Sámi are annoyed or even angry with non-Sámi who wear Sámi clothing without understanding its language. Regrettably, this happens often, for example, in tourism. A person may wear a combination of garments picked from the different designs or even a combination of women´s and men´s garments. All this is a sign of indifference to the cultural heritage of the Sámi — an attitude that many Sámi find offensive.

Yoiking — the Musical Tradition of the Sámi

It has been said that yoiking is one of "the most original ways of singing in the world"; it is supposed to have preserved some of the oldest cultural traits of humanity or at least the Arctic. There are clear differences in the yoiking traditions of the different Sámi cultures, even as regards the names: a yoik is called vuolle among the South Sámi, leu`dd among the Eastern Sámi, and luohti among the North Sámi, who have been the most famous for their yoiking.

A distinct scale of five notes, a unique way of constructing the melody, an original way of performing, and a deeply personal engagement make yoiking "no doubt one of the most unusual musical traditions in Europe". The musical vividness of yoiking reflects the close and comprehensive connection of the Sámi to the surrounding reality.

The yoik can find its theme in nature, an animal, or, most often, a person. With the help of words, melody, rhythm, performance, and expressions and gestures, it creates an image of the theme. The characterization is often quite allusive, and only one essential part of the subject is taken up; the text is then complemented in an even more allusive way by repeated but not meaningless small words. It has often been said that the yoik does not just describe its theme: it is one with the theme. The singer does not yoik about you; he/she yoiks you. A yoik is linked with time and space: yoiking can make an absent person present, and it can make distances disappear.

Yoiking has always been one of the cornerstones of the Sámi identity and one of the most important things that distinguished the Sámi from other people. Yoiking entails a shared spirit, "our" point of view. Therefore, it was quite natural that the priests attacked the tradition of yoiking more than anything else when trying to destroy the old religion and world view of the Sámi. They forbade not only the spiritual yoiks, but also the ordinary, secular yoiks — only because they belonged to a tradition the priests were not used to.

However, the revolutionary essence of yoiking survived. In a way, it was based on double communication, ironic ambiguities. According to Sámi researcher Harald Gaski, the epic yoiks of the 1800s contained clearly political opinions which were expressed only covertly. For example, the yoik "Thief and Witch" worked on two levels so that the Sámi audience and outsiders, for example priests and scholars, understood the yoik in different ways.

For religious reasons, yoiking has been disapproved of by the Sámi, too, until recently. Laestadians have considered it one of the greatest sins. According to them, the devil was yoiking when he fell from Heaven. As a result of their Laestadian background, many of today´s musicians have not learned the tradition of yoiking in a natural way.

After World War II, the tradition of yoiking was on the brink of disappearing in many regions. However, it became one of the most important symbols of the "Sámi Renaissance". Nils-Aslak Valkeapää was the one who made the yoiking tradition blossom again; he made the yoik into the symbol of a new identity by starting public yoiking performances in the late 1960s. Because of its hidden codes and the possibilities provided by its covert messages, the yoik was a good weapon in the struggle for Sámi rights. In those days, the Sámi Radio played a lot of yoik music in its programs.

Today, too, yoiking is one of the most important symbols of the Sámi people. Talented yoikers are still highly appreciated as they pass down an important tradition. Although the yoik has maintained its ancient features as well as its personal engagement to a surprising extent, it has also gone through some changes. Today´s yoik is slightly more melodic than the old one; the use of the voice is somewhat more conventional; the number of words has gone down especially in the western part of the Sámi region. On the other hand, the melody is often more catchy and the rhythm more lively than before.

The Narrative Heritage

The narrative heritage of the Sámi has of old been very rich. It has reflected, reinforced, conveyed and even created "the mental landscape" of the Sámi. In essence, the Sámi mentality has attempted to give shape to the surrounding reality and the values of the community with the help of narration. The Sámi have lived in a reality permeated by spirits, and in the narrative tradition this reality has been expressed through images and stories.

Fairy-tales and stories are one of the best-known genres of the narrative art. One of their functions has always been to clarify the norms and values of the community. With the exception of fables, fairy-tales seem to have been borrowed into the Sámi heritage quite recently. However, the Sámi background is clearer in the case of stories that fall between fairy-tales and narratives and describe the Sámi ogre—a giant, stupid creaturecalled stállu —and certain other mythical beings. Many of the figures in the stories dealing with people´s beliefs have apparently become fairy-tale material rather recently.

Unlike the tradition of telling fairy-tales, the tradition of narration was alive in the Sámi community until a few decades ago. In Sámi culture, stories often tell about local people. The hero is usually a person who lives, or has lived, in the area, and even old themes are told through this person. Traditionally, stories are divided into two types: mythological stories and historical stories.

The mythological stories deal with supernatural beings who appear to bring luck or trouble to the Sámi. They tell about creatures that live in the sea or herd their reindeer underground. Whether a person has good or bad luck usually depends on his/her ability to understand the surrounding reality, nature, and phenomena. Mythological stories have reflected the Sámi view of the regularities of the world; they teach, warn and explain.

Historical stories in turn derive from the past: they focus on concrete events without emphasizing supernatural elements. Stories on the Chudes and other foes and the common figure of these stories, Lávrrahaš , deal with the difficulties the Sámi have faced and been able to overcome. Local stories, on the other hand, describe how certain important or extraordinary places came about and acquired their characteristics.

One of the most characteristic genres of the Sámi narrative tradition, the witch story, falls between the normal categories of mythological and historical stories. There have been countless stories told throughout the land of the Sámi about ancient witches that could change shape and travel even great distances in the shape of animals or as a gust of wind. Typically, these stories deal with duels that are often about the control of natural resources, like reindeer herds and catches of fish.

It is interesting that the narrative tradition has become an important symbol of the Sámi identity in today´s culture, too. The best example of this is Nils Gaup´s film Pathfinder (Ofelaš in Sámi). Through an old story about the Chudes, it deals with the resistance of the Sámi to an outside threat and the cunning survival strategy of the Sámi. Emphasizing the polarity of "us" and others is typical of this film — and the narrative tradition in general. The stories about the Chudes and other foes stress that outsiders are enemies, whereas the witch stories often describe the struggle between a witch from one´s own area and a witch from another village or area.