Soma
Resources => Other Cultures [Public] => Topic started by: Jahn on May 15, 2008, 02:13:41 AM
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We have the Laplanders (Samer) in the north of Sweden,they still have use of their shamans and can be counted in the same class as Native Americans, Eskimos and the natives in the North of Russia and Siberia. The originals in the tribes live by reindeer farming. Their singing style is known as "Jojk" which is a non word singing that has tradition in their shamanism.
Some good pictures on this page- unable to address separate
http://www.fotosidan.se/gallery/listpic.htm?authorID=11318&set=mp&skip=0
Laplanders at work
(http://www.samer.se/servlet/GetDoc?meta_id=1168&file_id=1)
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About Saamis:
I have once met with an anthropologist who worked up North with Saami people. He said that there is no word for 'war' in Saami language and they have never fought one as we know it. They have always defended themselves by evading enemy in endless tundra. For that purpose every creek, hill, little forest had simultaneously 3-4 different names and Saamis guided invaders willingly until they got lost and returned. The full list of names for the most important features of the landscape remained secret even in the end of the 1990s. Saami elders would not reveal it under any circumstances.
http://restlesssoma.com.au/soma/index.php?topic=1592.msg12889#msg12889
Their holy place
http://restlesssoma.com.au/soma/index.php?topic=3236.msg24693#msg24693
Couple more bits from the same anthropologist:
*In Saami language there are expressions for 'I', 'you', 'we' for two people, and 'we' for many people
*Saamis have extraordinary skills for navigation in zero visibility. They could move dozens of kilometres a day in snowstorm without seeing much, and yet they reach their destination. When the anthropologist asked about how they do it, they answered: 'We know where we want go and we simply go there.'
*Saamis have their own definition of being quiet. Once the anthropologist asked one hunter to guide him into forest and show some animals. The hunter agreed. They went by foot and walked for nearly four hours in snow in total quiet. Then the anthropologist asked: 'Is the place far away?' The hunter answered:'I told you to be quiet!', and they walked back out of the forest.
*Saamis mean precisely what they say. Once there was another anthropologist coming to a nearby village (it was 80 km away) and the anthropologist wanted to go see him. An elderly woman with whom he lived, said that it would be a cold night and he ought to think seriously if he really wanted to go. He persisted and then drove away. When he started to move, it was -40C. After 30 km, it went down to -48C and then below -50C. At that point his car froze and the engine stopped. He got out, he was alone in tundra, stars shone brightly and he knew he had at best an hour to live unless somebody came to help him. He heard car creaking in cold. He thought of torching the car, but it would have prolonged his agony for only a few minutes. Then he remembered he had a Nokia cell phone somewhere in the car and he rang back to village. Help came in the form of a small van (like that of Michael, except the radiator and all other sensitive parts were moved inside the cabin) at the very last moment. Back at village the elderly woman said: 'Yeah, it is cold tonight.'
*Saamis still have shamans like in old days (shamanism has been very common among Fnno-Ugric nations). The anthropologist wondered from the day one who the shaman would be among the Saamis he lived with (Saamis wouldn't tell him). One day a man appeared on the door of his yurt, and said:'You have been wanting to see me. What do you want?' He had blue eyes with so heavy gaze that the anthropologist could barely look into them, and he went totally speechless. The man looked at anthropologist for a while, turned around, and left.
Finno-Ugric people:
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/8b/Fenno-Ugrian_people.png/400px-Fenno-Ugrian_people.png)
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This story was about the drum of Lapland shaman:
My friend was called to help. One woman was given a very old shaman's drum as a gift. She took it home. Soon it started to make noise (thunder) at night. More and more powerfully. Then objects started to fly. Then they tried to hit her. She couldn't stay at home any more.
She called for help. My friend went there (powerful sorcerer he is). He managed to establish silence in the room for a while. Then he discovered that that drum was used in times immemorial for soul-catching. There were souls imprisoned in it!
It took gigantic effort to undo the mess and let the souls go.
http://restlesssoma.com.au/soma/index.php?topic=148.msg735#msg735
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good stuff - some more pics please.
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*Saamis have extraordinary skills for navigation in zero visibility. They could move dozens of kilometres a day in snowstorm without seeing much, and yet they reach their destination. When the anthropologist asked about how they do it, they answered: 'We know where we want go and we simply go there.'
;D
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Pics from Saami shaman's drum:
(http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Ithaca/1874/rumpu2.jpg)
Saami reindeer herder:
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6a/Same.JPG/250px-Same.JPG)
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Shaman of the present day:
(http://www.ursa.fi/yhd/komeetta/Shamaani.jpg)
Rock paintings of Saamis:
(http://www.karjalainen.fi/Karjalainen/Kulttuuri/3563972.jpg)
Creation of the world:
(http://joyx.joensuu.fi/helio/pitkospuut/kalliotaide/images/ISOGURI1.jpg)
Sign of Sun:
(http://joyx.joensuu.fi/helio/pitkospuut/kalliotaide/images/PERIAURI.jpg)
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Some sort of ritual:
(http://joyx.joensuu.fi/helio/pitkospuut/kalliotaide/images/RITUAALI.jpg)
Skiing man towed by the elk:
(http://joyx.joensuu.fi/helio/pitkospuut/kalliotaide/images/ZALAVRU1.jpg)
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Moon signs:
(http://joyx.joensuu.fi/helio/pitkospuut/kalliotaide/images/PJuhaniUUN.jpg)
River flowing through the Underworld (Tuonela)
(http://joyx.joensuu.fi/helio/pitkospuut/kalliotaide/images/TUONELAV.jpg)
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Where Saamis live:
(http://www.ee.oulu.fi/alt07/Tunturi_iso.JPG)
(http://koulut.kontiolahti.fi/lukio/ilpo/lappi0406/vuoma.jpg)
(http://koulut.kontiolahti.fi/lukio/ilpo/lappi0406/koivut2.jpg)
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More Saami shaman drum skins:
(http://www.folklore.ee/tagused/nr9/pics/a9.gif)
(http://www.folklore.ee/tagused/nr9/pics/va8c.gif)
(http://www.folklore.ee/tagused/nr9/pics/a8a.gif)
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Rock painting about shaman on his way to the other world:
(http://www.folklore.ee/tagused/nr9/pics/a3a.gif)
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Their own clothes are often in that blue color you can see on one photos They have their own language -Samiska.
The Saami shamans is called "Nåjde" in North Sweden (noajdde in samiska), pronounced like neude or noyde. According to Wikipeda there is about 20 000 Laplanders in Sweden where we also has a geographical area called Lappland, 50 000 is said to live in Norway, some 6 000 in Finland
and about 2 000 in Russia.
In Sweden they have their own rights run by a Same court, own schools and even their own flag and national holiday.
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9c/Costumes_Saami.jpg/180px-)
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(http://www.fjallen.nu/sapmi/images/small_flag.gif)
One of ten Laplanders work with the reindeers. They have to follow the heard across large areas and it is the last nomadic stock-raising in Europe.
Some pictures on reindeers
http://www.rosenmedia.se/sub/Samer/Renskootsel/
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Sámi Worldview
http://www.utexas.edu/courses/sami/diehtu/giella/music/noaidi.htm
Any discussion of Sámi culture, and the role of the Sámi drum in that culture, requires a general understanding of the Sámi worldview. “Living off of nature has formed the original conceptions of the world among Sámi; the world view was animistic by nature, with shamanistic features. They believed that all objects in the nature had a soul.” (Yli-Kahu) This animistic, and consequently polytheistic, view deeply influenced Sámi traditions. It logically leads to the desire for harmony with nature, and this leads to the need for shamans. “According to the traditional Sámi beliefs, the world was inhabited by spirits. Human beings could only successfully make their living by cooperating with natural forces. It was essential not to damage nature, as that would interfere with the higher spirits. The religious practices were cyclical, respecting the pattern of seasonal migration and the cycle of nature.” (Lehtola 88) Understanding the physical aspects of life could be achieved through instruction, example, and observation. However, understanding the spiritual aspects of life required someone capable of contacting the spiritual world. “In the old culture, human relationships with the two realms of reality, the physical world (‘this side’) and the spiritual world (‘the other side’), were bridged by the activities of the special men and women – noaidi.” (Lehtola 28) The Sámi shaman, the noaidi, became a way to tap into the spiritual side of nature.
The ability to consult the spiritual world suggests the possibility for persuasion of the spirits who rule the natural world to aid the Sámi, or at least the possibility of living in harmony with these spirits. “Important places had their divinities. Every force of nature had its god and sources of livelihood were guarded by beings in spiritual world which could be persuaded to be more favorable.” (Yli-Kahu) The noaidi turned to the drum to help them travel in and out of the spirit world. “The noaidi’s most important instrument was the noaidi drum. It was a tool to enter the ecstatic state as well as a ‘map’ the noaidi used for orientation in the other realm.” (Lehtola 29) So, the drum presented the noaidi an opening and a map into the spiritual realm. But, let’s look at the types of drums the Sámi created before elaborating on the noaidi uses of the drums.
Types of Sámi Drums
The Sámi drum, of course, consists of wood for the base and reindeer hide for the face. The ages of the drums residing in museums today are not specifically known. “The known drums are as a rule assumed to be from the seventeenth century or the eighteenth, when most of them were collected.” (Ahlbäck and Bergman 81) These drums can be divided into two distinct categories according to their physical construction. “The preserved Saami drums mainly belong to two types. The oldest is considered to be the so-called ‘frame (sieve) type’, most of which have a frame consisting of a single strip of wood bent into a circle. According to Manker (Ernst Manker studied and wrote about the Sámi drums in the mid-1900s), in the Saami area this type of drum was gradually displaced, principally southwards, but also northwards. In its place came the so-called ‘bowl type’, which thus seems to have developed from the former, and is known only from Saami culture. Already at the time of the first reliable illustrations of drums, the ‘bowl type’ was more widely dispersed than the ‘frame’ one.” (Ahlbäck and Bergman 81) In the novel The Night Between Days, Ailo Gaup describes the construction of both types of drums. He explains that the bowl drum was made from a burl off a tree. (Gaup 1988) The frame drums are typically larger than the bowl drums due to the material used for construction. This made the bowl drum easier to transport, and may be one reason the bowl drum was more widely dispersed.
(http://www.utexas.edu/courses/sami/images/drum-faces.jpg)
Fig 1 The left drum is a bowl drum. The right drum is a frame drum
Because of the nature of the construction of the drums, the frame drums tended to obtain a stretched out, oval shape. The bowl drums, on the other hand, took on the shape of the burls they were made from, which typically were rounder or even egg shape. As previously stated, the back of the frame drum had cross bracing and minimal decoration adorned the cross bracing of the frame drums. On the other hand, the single burl construction of the bowl drums allowed the Noaidi the freedom of adorning the bowl part of the drum with carvings. (Ahlbäck and Bergman 81-95) The following quote references other physical components, which can be considered extensions of the drum: “Central to their shamanism is the runebom, their drum, a relatively small drum, often oval, very light and hand held, used with a drumstick carved out of a reindeer bone. The drum may be decorated with various symbols of the divine and the mundane, in a certain pattern for each shaman, and as a part of its use they put a ring of brass or silver on the skin, drum, and do divination from how the ring moves over the skin. But the primary use of the drum is for the shaman to go into trance and travel in the spirit world.” (Jarving) Apparently, the development of the Sámi drum relied heavily on their close relationship with the reindeer. The reindeer’s hide provided the drumming surface, the reindeer’s sinews provided the means to attach the hides to the body of the drum, and the bones provided hammers and pointers.
Two distinct types of decoration appear on both the frame drums and the bowl drums. The two types are the heliocentric drum face and the segmented drum face. They are described in the book, The Saami Shaman Drum, this way: “The Saami drums can be divided into those in which the symbol of Päivo, the sun, with its reins (labikies), is situated in the middle of the drum heads, and those whose illustrated surfaces are separated into two or more sections.” (Ahlbäck and Bergman 64) The magic drum, therefore, was either a frame drum or a bowl drum with either a heliocentric pattern of symbols or a segmented pattern of symbols on the drum face.
(http://www.utexas.edu/courses/sami/images/hammer-drum.jpg)
Fig 2 Pictured is a segmented frame drum with a hammer and a pointer.
Noaidi Uses of the Sámi Drums
As with any instrument, the use of the drums probably varied from individual to individual. “There is no doubt, however, that the drum has been an important part of Saami shamanism. Its foremost role, of course was to serve as an instrument of ecstatic excitation. Secondarily, it functioned as an instrument of divination.” (Ahlbäck and Bergman 12) By hammering the drum, the noaidi beat out a rhythm that inspired ecstatic excitation, this then allowed the shaman to achieve a trance state.
“In a non-active state – in a dream, trance or coma – a free soul may leave the body and take on another form outside of the person. The noaidi had the skill to reach this state at will. It is described in different ways. The noaidi in a trance leaves the body and moves as a spirit or breath of wind. They have the ability to change into a wild reindeer or hide under the reindeer’s neck or hoof; they can fly over the treetops or travel under the ground; they may swim in the shape of a fish; and the Sea Sámi recount they may even move mountains.” (Lehtola 28)
This type a shamanistic travel dates back even before any of the existing drums. “In the well-known report of an ecstatic Saami shamanistic séance in Historia Norvegiae, written down in c. A.D. 1170/90, there is a description of a drum, like a sieve and with some simple figures painted on the drum skin: a whale, a reindeer, a ski and a small boat with oars. With the help of these, the ‘gandr’ of the shaman, his free soul, could travel over fell and fjord.”(Ahlbäck and Bergman 85) This obviously describes a Sámi shaman using a frame drum to achieve a trance and free his spirit to travel along the surface of this world.
The Sámi also believed in other worlds that the noaidi could travel through. “The Sámi believed that alongside with [sic] the material world there was an underworld, saivo, or (Jábmiid) áibmu, where everything was more whole than in the material world and where the dead continued their lives.” (Yli-Kahu) The segmented, patterned drums divide the drum’s surface. These divisions could represent the different levels of the different worlds.
(http://www.utexas.edu/courses/sami/images/shaman-drum.jpg)
Fig 3 This drawing depicts a Sámi shaman in ecstasy.
The drum pictured in Figure 3 has a segmented pattern that shows three levels. The upper level possibly represents the level of the Gods. The middle level then would represent the level of men. The bottom level would represent saivo-the paradise underworld of the Sámi ancestors. The following description explains how a noaidi could use his ability to travel to spiritual levels to heal people and control nature:
Shamanistic activities were related to crisis situations in a village or family; the noaidi attempted to find a remedy. The greatest crises, for this people dependent on nature, were illnesses and problems concerning obtaining a livelihood. Illness is a disturbance of the balance between the two souls and between the two realms of reality. The noaidi, in spirit form, leaves and goes to ‘the other side’ to restore harmony. Innumerable tales relating to obtaining a livelihood and epic poems tell that a “trance noaidi” was able to control the movements of a whole reindeer herd. (Lehtola 28-29)
The next account includes divination as an aspect of noaidi shamanism using a drum:
Some people were capable to [sic] foretell future events, or fortune in hunting etc. A person with this special gift could be ‘called’ and accepted by the community as a noaidi (shaman). A noaidi was capable of visiting the saivo and people from far away would come to him/her for advice. For more demanding “trips” a noaidi sometimes used a “magic drum”, much in the similar way as the northern Siberian shamans. (Yli-Kahu)
Finally, a recent Sámi interpretation of Sámi shamanism comes from Ailo Gaup, a modern Sámi author. In his novel, The Night Between Days, written in 1992, he writes:
In the old days the noaides were asked for advice in many matters. They were healers. They traveled with their soul bodies over the tundra, were on the lookout for game when hunger threatened. They sang fish into the net and whales up on the beach. They controlled weather and moved islands. They led enemies astray. They kindled love. They sent the spirits of illness home and brought souls back. They entertained on long nights; they told stories, sang and clowned. They competed to find treasure of silver and gold. They worked with forefathers and guardian spirits and with nature’s forces. (Gaup 1992:104)
Christianity's Response to the Sámi Drum
The Reformation of the 16th century spread Lutheranism outward from Germany and, of course, reached the Scandinavian countries. Soon the religious fervor of Christianity overcame the Sámi. With their pagan rituals the Sámi became included in the church’s witch hunts. “In Arctic Norway over 175 people were prosecuted for the crime of witchcraft from 1593 to 1695. The witch trials of the far north are distinctive in a European context because of the elements of Sámi magic. About 20% of the witch trials are known to have affected the Sámi.” (Hagen) The Sámi were accepting of the Christian faith. They simply incorporated Christianity into their other beliefs. However, the church required the rejection of anything other than Christianity, and persecuted the Sámi. “The image of noaidi-ism changed because of Christian belief. During the era of the witch hunts the word noaidi clearly took on a negative meaning. All people who practiced the old religion were held to be people who had given themselves to immortality or the Devil – they were believed to have sold their own souls, their relatives’ and even their children’s souls. This belief persisted even into the 1900s.” (Lehtola 29) Many Sámi relented and publicly embraced Christians.
Christianity harshly persecuted those who held to the Sámi religion. “From the end of the 17th to the middle of the 18th century much of the confrontation between indigenous Saami religion and Christianity was focused on the drums.” (Ahlbäck and Bergman 29) The church burned most of the confiscated drums; therefore, few drums remain today. “As a powerful and very visible part of the Sámi religion, the drum was one of the main focuses of the Christian attempts to eradicate their religion, so most of the older Sámi drums have been crushed or burnt by Christian missionaries and their armed escorts.” (Jarving) The Sámi gave up many of the drums to avoid persecution. Persecution took on many forms, from being questioned and forced to deny the Sámi religion, to being put to death as a heretic.
During the witch trials in Finnmark, two Sámi drums were confiscated. One of the owners had to answer questions about the use of the drum, and about the meaning of all the figures and symbols on his drum. Trying to find traces of shamanism, the article emphasizes on the trial records of this particular case. These records date from one of the last but most momentous witch-trials in 1692. An old Sámi shaman, Anders Poulsen, told the court about the symbols and the use of his magic drum. He also stood up and demonstrated the instrument for the people being present in the courthouse of a small fishing village called Vadsø. The assessment of the court case upholds the findings which criticize ecstasy and trance as choice characteristics when trying to determine what exactly the shaman world view consists of.” (Hagen)
Shamanism was seen as a type of devil worship. Shaman drumming, and ritual practices put them in league with the devil. Consequently, Christianity characterized Sámi noaidi as witches who consulted demons, and persecuted them mercilessly.
(http://www.utexas.edu/courses/sami/images/demons.jpg)
Fig 4 This drawing depicts demons being consulted by the noaidi.
One last account of Sámi persecution deserves mentioning.
In 1688 the county governor and the bishop (Swe. superintendent) made a journey of inspection through the lappmarks. The Saamis were summoned and threatened with ‘temporal and eternal punishment’ if they did not hand over their drums and ‘idols.’
One of the Saamis who handed over a drum in this year was the Pite Saami, Lars Nilsson. When he later lost his son, he used a drum in a futile effort at bringing him back to life. He was prosecuted, but at the district court sessions he explained outright that he would “observe and use the custom of his forefathers, in spite of what higher or lower authority in this case would now or in the future prohibit him from doing”. He was sentenced to death, the judgment was ratified by the court of appeal, and he was thus decapitated and burnt at the stake “together with the tree-idols he had used and the divination drum and the tools belonging to it.” The execution was held in the presence of his kinsman, who had been summoned to attend. (Ahlbäck and Bergman 32)
With these consequences, there is little wonder why many Sámi let go of their traditional beliefs and drums. Fortunately, some Sámi went underground with their religion, and some of their worldview survives today along with the tradition of the Sámi drum.
The Sámi Drum as Symbol
The uniqueness of the traditional Sámi drum represents a distinct Sámi-ness, and makes a superb symbol of the Sámi culture. “The role of the drums as symbols of Saami resistance is well attested in the sources from the 17th and 18th centuries. For the Saami, the drums represented their threatened culture, the resistance against the Christian claim to exclusiveness, and a striving to preserve traditional values – i.e. ‘the good’ that had to be saved. For the Church authorities, on the other hand, the drums symbolized the explicit nucleus of the elusive Saami ‘paganism’ – i.e. ‘the evil’ that had to be annihilated.” (Ahlbäck and Bergman 29) The Sámi author, Ailo Gaup emphasized the importance of the drum as a Sámi symbol by writing two novels about the drum, In Search of the Drum (1988) and The Night Between Days (1992). The symbols on the drums even influence the official design of the Sámi flag. “The Sámi have their own [sic] flag which was officially acknowledged in the 13th Nordic Sámi Conference in 1986. The flag is [sic] designed by Astrid Behl from Ivgubahta/Skibotn in Norway. The basic idea in the flag is a symbol from a drum. The circle is a symbol of sun and moon–the sun ring is red and the moon ring blue. The colors are also the colors used in Sámi costumes.” (Yli-Kahu) In a way, the drum still bridges gaps between worlds, the old traditional Sámi world and the modern world that the Sámi embody today. The drum still functions as a way to view the world in a holistic manner.
(http://www.utexas.edu/courses/sami/images/Samiflag.jpg)
Fig 5 Pictured is the Sámi Flag, with the sun/moon symbol.
The Symbols on the Sámi Drum
With the virtual eradication of the traditional Sámi noaidi, it becomes difficult to know the meanings of the symbols on the Sámi drums. “Under the stern Christianization, the great noaidi – those who had the power of ecstasy – appear to have disappeared by the 1800s.” (Lehtola 29) I will not try to interpret Sámi symbols drawn on 300-year-old drums. Nonetheless, some symbols show important aspects of Sámi life, and reflect the Sámi desire to live in harmony with nature, even to the untrained eye. The frequency and placement of the sun symbol reflects the central nature of the sun in Sámi tradition, and suggests that the sun’s importance cannot be overstated. Many symbols obviously represent animals familiar to the Sámi. “The animal that seems most appropriate to begin with is the reindeer, which is the commonest species of animal on the southern Saami drums.” (Ahlbäck and Bergman) Other animals also seem obvious, such as, bears, wolves, and birds.
The inclusion of non-Sámi symbols, including Christian symbols, on some of the drums becomes one of the most curious features about the drums. “This adoption of Christian and Swedish symbols can also be seen as a result of the confrontation between Saamis and the overwhelming Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish cultures. The Saamis may have wished to magically incorporate their opponents’ symbols of power into their own culture in order to gain access to these same sources of power.” (Ahlbäck and Bergman 86) Some believe the Sámi included Christian symbols because it was safer to do so. Others believe that the drums illustrate a wonderful ability to mix pagan and Christian, to mask one’s religion during inquiry. (Ahlbäck and Bergman 37) Still, another interpretation would be that the Sámi simply included the Christian symbols because they accepted Christianity as valid along with their own traditions.
(http://www.utexas.edu/courses/sami/images/drum-face-eg.jpg)
Fig 6 Many animal and Christian symbols can be seen on this heliocentric drum.
The incorporation of Christianity into the Sámi worldview seems to have made its way into the first novel written by Ailo Gaup about the Sámi drum. While the main character (Jon) is on a spiritual trip, consulting his spiritual helper (Jov), he also encounters Jesus. Gaup reconciles the Sámi and Christian beliefs this way; “Deep inside his heart he saw a landscape. On a mountain a man was sitting by a stone. He had a halo around his head. It was Jesus who sat there. Then Jov came walking. Jov and Jesus were good friends, had much to talk about. They were often together in the mountains where they gained strength to help people. Jov had the drum with him. They were sitting there talking about it.” (Gaup 1988:121) Gaup depicts Jesus as another way to obtain spiritual aid. He further includes other religions in his second novel. The fact that the Sámi have historically been quite adaptive adds credence to this interpretation.
A different hypothesis about the symbols on the Sámi drums emerged in the 1980s. The man who introduced the star map hypothesis, Bo Sommarström, examined the position of the symbols on drums with a central cross design, including 41 drums from the “Southern Sámi” group. Sommarström concluded that; “it seems safe to assume that both the Zodiac circle and separate constellations have beyond doubt influenced the positioning of several of the figures on the Southern type of Sámi drums.” (Ahlbäck and Bergman 143-144) Sommarström found that 3 of the figures he interpreted as Zodiac constellations (the Ram, the Virgin, and the Archer), and 3 of the symbols he interpreted as separate constellations (the Milky Way, Pegasus, and Orion) occurred frequently. Even with this supportive information, Sommarström points out; “It is important to bear in mind that the star map hypothesis does not replace other interpretations: in principle it only affects the system of arranging the figures on the drum skin.” (Ahlbäck and Bergman 145) Sommarström and others conducted extensive tests concerning the star map hypothesis. With all the information gathered, Sommarström concluded; “In the course of this new study, I have become even more convinced that the star map hypothesis is a model that can be used to explain the basic pattern of the figures on the Saami drums of the Southern type.” (Ahlbäck and Bergman 161) The star map hypothesis appears feasible, and at least should be considered as a possibility for the placement of Sámi symbols on the drums.
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Modern nomads (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXPz18yJKyc&feature=related)
Three hundred words for snow and ice...
Joik 1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15HEXS11e7c&feature=related)
Joik 2 (instrumental) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVR1dVnJFjA&feature=related)
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Saami and Berbers—An Unexpected Mitochondrial DNA Link
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1199377
Alessandro Achilli, Chiara Rengo,1 Vincenza Battaglia, Maria Pala, Anna Olivieri, Simona Fornarino, Chiara Magri, Rosaria Scozzari, Nora Babudri, A. Silvana Santachiara-Benerecetti, Hans-Jürgen Bandelt, Ornella Semino, and Antonio Torroni
Received January 21, 2005; Accepted March 3, 2005.
Abstract
The sequencing of entire human mitochondrial DNAs belonging to haplogroup U reveals that this clade arose shortly after the “out of Africa” exit and rapidly radiated into numerous regionally distinct subclades. Intriguingly, the Saami of Scandinavia and the Berbers of North Africa were found to share an extremely young branch, aged merely ∼9,000 years. This unexpected finding not only confirms that the Franco-Cantabrian refuge area of southwestern Europe was the source of late-glacial expansions of hunter-gatherers that repopulated northern Europe after the Last Glacial Maximum but also reveals a direct maternal link between those European hunter-gatherer populations and the Berbers.
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Saami Ethno Medicine
- An Introduction
By Torbjörn Arnold
http://www.norrshaman.net/Saami%20Ethno%20Medicine.htm
The Saami are the indigenous people of northern Sweden, Norway, Finland and the Kola Peninsula. They have been hunters, fishers and reindeer herders, pursuing a nomadic style of life. Historically, they belong to the Finno-Ugric group. Because of their way of life in the sub arctic and arctic environment they have developed a tradition of folk medicine, which to a large extent differs from the rest of Europe. The Saami shaman, the noaidie, played a large role in folk medicine.
Saami folk medicine is described in the literature, but my interviews in Jokkmokk have given me new material.(1) Fundamentally, Saami folk medicine is similar to that of Scandinavia and Finland. Healing elements were taken from the animal and plant kingdoms. The purely magical components were very important. The magical rites were founded on concepts such as ”like heals like” and "healing comes from where the sickness came" and "pain is cast out with pain". In the pre-Christian and early Christian period the shamanistic way of thinking predominated. There were and still are special people who are considered healers. They exercise an unusual power especially the capacity to stop the flow of blood.
Throughout Saami there are still stories of people who had the power to heal sicknesses. (2) These persons were also said to have other powers, i.e. contacting nature spirits: Kathnia, Haldia, and others and even being able to find lost objects, reveal thieves, herd reindeer without the help of people or dogs, and the like.
In nearly every household or siida settlement there was often a person who had a drum and who had unusually good contact with the spirit world. There was a noaidie as well, the Saami shaman who with ecstatic measures intervened and influenced the doings of the gods and spirits. In a broad way it is possible to categorize the Saami art of healing on three levels. At first "self care", a knowledge, which was quite generally known. Oftentimes there was at least one person in every family who mastered this knowledge. The next level was the "doctor", the healer
with special knowledge, and finally there was the "specialist" where the "noaidie" was involved.
The four elements (fire, water, air and earth) play a big role in Saami folk medicine. Stones, fire, water (especially from springs) are often used as healing agents. It was also said that certain sicknesses came from the air, the earth or the water. Stone baths were carried out in the following way by the forest Saami in Arvidsjaur: One stone was taken from the water, one from beneath the surface of the ground and one from the open air. A small hole was dug in the ground and a fire was made, warming the stones until they were extremely hot. Then the fire was put out. At this point the sick person sat on a stool or chair above the hole with the hot stones. A small tent was erected over the sick person made with skin rugs or blankets. Water was then poured onto the stones. Steam filled the "tent" where the sick person was to remain seated. When water was poured on the hot stones sometimes one of them would crack. This was a sign that the sickness had come from either the water, the air or the earth, depending on which stone cracked. If a stone cracked, the ill person would be assured of healing by means of the steam bath. The stones were then supposed to be returned to exactly the same place from which they had been removed.
Medicine from animals came largely from bear and reindeer. Different parts of the animal were effective against different complaints. Bears were such powerful animals that it was enough, for example, to hold a pad of a bear paw against the cheek to cure a toothache. Pure bear fat was used as a salve or mixed as the base for a salve with other ingredients. It was believed that the bear was an animal endowed with a great power. Different kinds of fat were also used from the reindeer. The fat that was boiled out of the hoofs was considered to be extra good as medicine. For example, in small portions it was given as a laxative for infants. The fat of the hoof was used as a salve, just like the bear fat. Today we know that in Japan they use reindeer antlers as an aphrodisiac. The Saami made bullion soup with reindeer antlers, which was drunk in case of a bad cold. A special tendon from the back legs of the reindeer was kept and used to tie around a hurting extremity as a remedy for pain.
In my notes I have registered over 120 different plants, which the Saami used in their art of healing. Among the plants, it is especially angelica and birch, which were used. Many different parts of these plants, from the root to the seed, were used. The root of the angelica was dug up before it flowered in the early summer. It was dried and used in many situations both as a preventive remedy and as a cure for colds.
The dried angelica root is called "urtas" in Lule Saami. During the market in Jokkmokk, many older Saami used to chew a bit of the angelica root to avoid catching a cold. On long wanderings in the mountains, especially if it was cold and rainy, the Saami would scrape a little bit of dried angelica root into their coffee to avoid colds and other sicknesses. It was thought to give new strength as well.
To provide emergency provisions on long outings the Saami often carried a bit of reindeer cheese, a marrowbone and a bit of "urtas" inside their tunic. Angelica leaves were put on sores and could also be smoked in a pipe made from the plant's own hollow stem. To smoke angelica was something one did even as a child, often at the tender age of six or seven. Older people smoked angelica mixed with tobacco both as preventive remedy and as medicine against cough. Angelica seeds were put into cognac and after a few weeks were removed. This mixture was used as cough medicine, often dropped on a bit of sugar.
The spring birch sap was drunk as a preventive medicine for upcoming sicknesses throughout the year. The sap was also good for different kinds of rashes. Birch leaves could be put on a burn, and tea made from leaves was said to purify the blood and be good for the kidneys. The inner, thin bark of the birch was used as a band-aid. Many older people have told me how in their youth that when they were injured while chopping down a tree, an older person would then bandage the sore with birch bark until they could get to the doctor. Birch bark is surprisingly free of bacteria and is said to stop bleeding. It is also reputed as having healing properties. Birch leaves could also be used to ease pain so that the part of the body, which was hurting, was covered in fresh birch leaves. If the leaves were not fresh, water was splashed on them and warmed. The sleeping place could be covered with leaves and the sick person would be covered in this way throughout the night if, for example, the person was suffering from rheumatic pain throughout the body. Even the parasite fungi (polyporus and fungi) on the birch were used.
It was common to return to the place where the illness began in order to be cured. If somebody got a rash from dirty water or mud, that person would return and again put their hands in the water or mud. If people were injured by a rock, they would place that part of the body that was hurt against the part of the rock that caused the problem and would say: "Let the hurt return to the rock. This method of "returning" or "putting away" a hurt was used in many contexts. In case of a toothache, they could use a birch splinter and then insert it into a crack in the birch. It was believed that the toothache was transferred from the tooth to the
birch. (But the person who eventually chopped down the birch would then get a toothache.) In the same way back pain could be rubbed away against a pine. (Is this why so many lumberjacks have backaches?)
Pains of different kinds (toothaches, rheumatic aches, gout, etc) seem to be the most common complaints, which were treated by folk medicine. There are more remedies for pain than for other ailments. Saami folk medicine has borrowed part of the Scandinavian and Finnish folk medicine. Cupping and bloodletting as done in Sweden and Finland was also practised. The ability to stop the flow of blood has a significantly greater spread than what is the traditional Saami area. Staunching blood isn't limited to the Saami area. Those who staunch blood are the most common kind of healers. A blood stauncher is a person who can make bleeding stop.
Usually this power is passed on from an older relative to a younger. Oftentimes the blood stauncher uses his mental power and some kind of formula to stop the bleeding. The formula varies, but a common trait is that they often refer to a biblical passage and end up with the Trinity. A common formula could be like this:
"Stop blood!
As the water stopped
In the river of Jordan
In the three holy names
God the Father and Son
And the Holy Spirit."
There are examples of stopping the flow of blood from a great distance just by a telephone call to the stauncher.
When people "burned tunder" they used the birch shelf fungus (tinder) or birch bark. "Tunder" is an Old Norse word for tinder. It was lit and placed on the skin at predetermined places depending upon where the pain was located. It was to glow on the skin until there was a sore from the burn. To "burn tunder" occurs also in Chinese acupuncture as "moxa burning" but there they used the fuzz from mugwort leaves (Artemisa Vulgaris). It is meant to heal or soothe. The idea is that the pain runs out through the discharge. To maintain the discharge for a longer period, a so-called "fontanelle" was made by attaching something irritating in the burn, like a pea or a Daphne berry. Daphne is very strongly irritating even on healthy skin. Recently it has been
discovered that the points that were burned are in agreement with the points and meridians in classical Chinese acupuncture. A toothache led to a burn in the angle between the thumb and the index finger. In acupuncture that is the point to anaesthetize the oral cavity and pharynx. Linneus described "tunder burning" during his journey to Lapland in 1732. It has recently been shown that "tunder burning" has been used from the Scandinavian Peninsula to the Kola Peninsular and Siberia and all the way down to Mongolia and China.
As a medicine angelica has been carried from the northern areas to all of Europe and was very highly appreciated from early medieval times. In Latin it is called Angelica Archangelica. This means "angel archangel". Tales recount that during the black plague in the medieval times the Archangel Gabriel himself came holding angelica and gave it to people to show what remedy should be taken for the plague.
At a later time (20th century) Saami folk medicine borrowed a lot from the variety that the pharmacy offered: pepper, ginger, mercury, aloe and lysol are some examples. Lazarol, Salubrin, different liniments, Campher drops, Hoffman's drops, etc are some examples of such things people bought at the pharmacy and then used in their folk medicine but not always for the complaint the pharmacopoeia stated. Tobacco (often as snuff) was sometimes used as a medicine, not just for people but also for the dog or reindeer if they had some kind of sickness.
Some kinds of stones were special as healing agents. People carried stones that came from special brooks fed by springs and used them to apply pressure to the painful area or rub them over it. These stones were called "healing stones" and often it was intuition that showed which stone was the right one. When the stone had been used for some time it had to be purified.
The stone was placed in running water, so that the water would wash away the pain, which the stone had captured. There were also certain stones, which, by carrying them, increased a woman's fertility. Mountain crystal was a powerful stone. Certain places (often large boulders) were especially good to sit on when healing a complaint. Some plants were used in food. It was said that it was healthy to eat them along with milk. In this way food has provided folk medicines based upon thousands of years of experience that have shown that if one eats one or another food, he or she will not become ill or if ill will recover.
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The death and the dead ones (Pulkkinen, Risto)
There are numerous beliefs among the Saami attached to death and the dead, some of which go back to a pre-Christian view of the world, while others belong to the later Christian tradition. Although the Saami did not have any special fear of death, a long life and good health were sought-after blessings. The Inari Saami said that happiness was good health, for from it everything else would follow. On the one hand, the departed were experienced both as a threat, spirits who longed for their nearest ones (Shamanism) and as souls displaced because of a mysterious destructive → supernatural power that was connected with their earthly remains. On the other hand, for the Saami the dead also had the attributes of protective, beneficent spirits (sáiva).
The Saami experienced many things as portents of death, and many things were also felt to affect the length of one s life. It was said in the early twentieth century by the Inari Saami that when one saw the constellation of Pleiades for the first time in the autumn it was possible to calculate the length of one s life. The basic age was twenty years, and one could add another ten years for every star of the Pleiades that was clearly visible. If one could see all the stars of the constellation shining bright, one would live to be ninety. Many taboos relating to customs or admonishing against greed or vanity were sanctioned with the threat of death; when reindeer milk was frozen, it was not permitted to count the levels of the milk because at the same time the counter would be tallying the number of her or his years to live. An immanent death was portended by numerous birds and particularly by a prey obtained in a strange, often too easy, way. The word used for this was mieđus (Animal omens).
During the pre-Christian period, the Saami always buried their dead in or around the place where the death had taken place. They had no burial grounds, which was a consequence both of their nomadic way of life and of the fear they had of the dead; this latter phenomenon was a typical feature of hunting cultures. It was a custom to plant the dead person s staff at the place of death in her or his memory; later the staff was generally replaced by a cross.
Pre-historical graves indicate that originally the Saami buried their dead according to the general Arctic practice above the ground, usually in a crevice in a rock. If no such hole could be found, they might make a burial mound above the ground and flag it with stones. If a grave was dug, it was very shallow, no more than a few dozen centimetres deep, and it was covered over with a thin layer ofearth or turf. This procedure was almost the same as surface burial. A very common custom was to bury the dead person in his sledge. Interment in a rock crevice or in a shallow grave was certainly dictated by natural circumstances, but it may also have been thought that the soul of the departed might thereby more easily gain access to the world of the dead. Generally, the methods of burial seem to have varied according to the place and the time of the year, so it would appear that the Saami had a fairly pragmatic attitude towards burial. No particular rule appears to have governed the direction in which the body was buried.
During the Christian era, there was a period when it was the custom to bury dead people on islands if they died in the summer and only to take their bodies to the graveyard when the snow had an icy crust over it. It is a universal idea that water especially flowing water is a barrier, or at least an impediment, to the soul of a dead person. The body was buried temporarily under turf, or the departed person was hung in his sledge from a tree or placed on a rack. The most important thing was to keep the body safe from predatory animals, which might break up the skeleton and destroy the principle of life that resided therein (Soul). The Saami particularly feared a death in which the body was totally destroyed or lost, as in the case of a person drowning or being devoured by wild animals. For the departed, this meant that she or he could never again find a new body in the land of the dead nor live a life beyond the grave, but would remain a displaced soul. For the survivors it meant uncertainty about the whereabouts of the departed and consequently the threat of being haunted. An accident was critical if only because the death caused thereby might be a premature one (Soul) , which could result in the victim becoming a ghost.
To judge from descriptions of the patterns on the shaman s drum and the journey of the shaman s soul to the land of the dead, the location of the Saami land of the dead (Jábmiidáibmu) was low and far away. According to western Saami sources, it was ruled over by a female divinity Jábmiidáhkka. It would seem to have been a distant land of the dead of the kind typical of hunting cultures. The world of the dead was located in segmentally patterned drums at the bottom end and in heliocentric drums almost a whole circle away from the Sky God. Closest to it was Ruto, the God of Pestilence. Descriptions of the journey of the shaman s soul s to the land of the dead emphasize how long and difficult it was. If it is assumed that the sáiva was connected with the earliest Saami conceptions of a world of the dead, Jábmiidáibmu was originally conceived of as being located under water. This interpretation is also supported by a description of a shaman s ritual in Historia Norvegiae, in which the journey to the land of the dead takes place by diving, and generally by the fact that the shaman s assistant in his journeys below was a fish.
Life in the land of the dead was more or less pleasant, resembling that on earth. This is evidenced by burial objects, which were usually ordinary everyday implements likebows and arrows, axesand fire-making equipment. After his death, the departed person would receive the same status and position that he held in life. In the nether world, however, everything was inverted, upside down or contrary. One shaman s drum skin shows a departed person sinking headfirst into the land of the dead. In the eastern Saami tradition, those who met with a violent death ( died of iron ) went to the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis), where the blood from their wounds created the colour red.
The symbol for the world of the dead on the shaman s drum resembled a ladder, which probably indicates a division into compartments, or it had a conical shape. During the Middle Ages, when the dominant religion was Roman Catholicism, for the western Saami Jábmiidáibmu became a temporary holding place like purgatory, from which a person who had led a good life passed to the Sky God Radienáibmu, while one whose life had been a bad one went to a dark underworld Rotáibmu ruled by Ruto. According to many sources, the Christian Hell was still a separate place. It is, however, also possible that the development into a divided world of the dead was internal to Saami culture (Sáiva).
Although there was a fairly strict parallel between life in the realm of the dead and that on earth, some kind of idea of reward and punishment was still intrinsic in the ancient conception of the world of the dead as well. How good a person s life was there depended on the chants that were made about him; in other words on his reputation and the way he had lived. Again, there is information that suggests that a person lived as an individual in the world of the dead only as long as chants were made about him. When the memory of them as individuals had faded, departed persons could no longer be reborn in the children of their clans, and they became part of the collective faceless mass of the spirits of the dead.
In the late tradition, beliefs about the dead found expression mainly in meetings with a dead person, particularly a displaced soul. Meeting a person who had died a natural death and been buried in the usual way soon after their death, in the so-called soul time was only to be expected and thus it was not feared. The departed person might even then express wishes to the living about things she or he wanted to be done or require that certain wrongs be righted. However, the fear of dead bodies was great. According to the writer Johan Turi, one might contract a fatal disease from the mere smell of a dead body. On the other hand, the genii of the dead who attended upon the death and the corpse might not only cause disease but also give a person who came into contact with them the gift of seeing the hereafter.
An unexpected meeting with a dead child (frequently an illegitimate one) who had been killed before baptism (eáhparas*) was considered to be dangerous; it might cause a condition called raimmahallan, which was characterized by restlessness, anguish and listlessness, and which in the worst cases led to death. Usually a living person experienced fear on meeting a dead one, but a similar fright could also be caused without the knowledge of the departed by something connected with the dead for example, a corpse; the remains of dead persons and everything connected with them were thought to carry with them something of the spiritual existence of the departed, and this could result in restlessness, haunting, visions, and so on.
Another dead creature that haunted people was the rávga (Norwegian draug - drowned), who was known among the maritime Saami. This tradition had a strong Norwegian influence. The rágva was a drowned person whose soul had not been blessed and was therefore without status. It is generally described as a long-haired creature resembling a human being. Usually the rágva did not bother humans except by calling out to them, often copying human cries. To drive it away, the burial service or some other prayer was recited.
The supernatural power that was associated with the dead was exploited in black magic, which for the Saami usually meant the procedure of using human remains in magic potions. The dead might also be raised in the form of werewolves. The later tradition of necromancy is pan-European in its character.