{"id":110,"date":"2009-06-27T15:42:10","date_gmt":"2009-06-27T19:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/?p=110"},"modified":"2010-09-23T07:06:58","modified_gmt":"2010-09-23T07:06:58","slug":"sami","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/sami\/","title":{"rendered":"Sami"},"content":{"rendered":"

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This is a picture of a Sami <\/strong>couple in traditional costume in Oslo on Syttende Mai <\/strong>in 2006.<\/p>\n

Upon first glance, this word looks like it could be Japanese, but it is not.\u00a0 The Sami <\/strong>people are the indigenous people that inhabit parts of northern Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia.\u00a0 They are among the largest group of indigenous ethnic people\u00a0in Europe.\u00a0 The Sami <\/strong>speak Sami <\/strong>languages, which are characterized as ‘Finno-Lappic’ languages, part of the ‘Uralic’ language group.\u00a0 ‘Uralic’ languages include Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian, Mari, and Udmurt.\u00a0 If you’ll notice back when I mentioned ‘Finno-Lappic’ languages, you might have thought the the word ‘Lapp<\/strong>‘ is more familiar than Sami.\u00a0 Lapps or Laplanders <\/strong>are deragatory names for the Sami <\/strong>people and unfortunately they are more well-known terms to a lot of people than Sami <\/strong>is.\u00a0 The word lapp <\/strong>means a patch of cloth for mending clothes, which is probably where the deragatory terms came from, describing traditional Sami <\/strong>garb called gatki.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Sami <\/strong>people of northern Scandinavia and Russia have inhabited these regions for at least 2,500 years.\u00a0 There are several anthropological theories that predict the geographic and cultural origins of the Sami <\/strong>people.\u00a0 One of the theories states that the Sami <\/strong>people orginiated on the Iberian peninsula, their ancestors being the Catalonians and the Basque people.\u00a0 Another theory claims that the Sami <\/strong>people come from the Volga-Ural region.\u00a0 It’s nice\u00a0when historians discover soemthing and agree on a theory, but I have always thought that it is more fun to entertain the theories and be unsure.\u00a0 Historically the\u00a0Sami <\/strong>were nomadic people that\u00a0hunted,\u00a0fished, farmed, and herded reindeer.\u00a0 Today only\u00a0the minority of Sami <\/strong>people are nomadic and maintain these forms of livlihood.\u00a0 Roughly half of the estimated 50,000-100,000 Samis <\/strong>today live in Norway.<\/p>\n

The traditional\u00a0Sami <\/strong>religion was based on\u00a0the shaman, similar to native Americans in the United States.\u00a0 The shaman, or\u00a0noaidis <\/strong>would enter a trance\u00a0with the aid of a drum and was able to prophesy and predict future success and welfare of the\u00a0community.\u00a0 The drum was\u00a0the link between the people and the gods.\u00a0\u00a0The Sami<\/strong> gods were centered around the sun.\u00a0 Prayers and sacrifices were made to Leaibolmmai, <\/strong>the Alder tree man, the god of hunting and animals.<\/p>\n

Although Christianity came to Norway in the 13th century, it wasn’t until the 18th century that the religion was pushed upon the Sami <\/strong>people.\u00a0 The Sami<\/strong> began to\u00a0paint Christian symbols on their drums below the paintings of the shaman gods.\u00a0\u00a0Samis<\/strong> also began to attend Christian services on Sunday and practiced the Sami <\/strong>religion at home.\u00a0 Norwegians placed a stronger influence of Christian religion on the Sami <\/strong>by confiscating the rune drums and either burned them or sent them abroad to musuems.\u00a0 Samis <\/strong>who showed visible signs of shamanistic pre-Christian religion were actually criminalized.\u00a0 Norwegian authorities were very clear about the desire to universalize Norwegian culture; they forced the Samis <\/strong>to assimilate into the greater Norwegian culture.\u00a0 Between 1900 and 1940, Norwegian authorities spent a great deal of money on eradicating Sami <\/strong>culture, languages, and Sami <\/strong>education.<\/p>\n

After World War II the pressure on the Sami <\/strong>to become\/remain assimilated into Norwegian culture was relaxed and there was somewhat of a cultural revival.\u00a0 Today the Norwegian authorities and Norwegians in general actually support the Sami <\/strong>culture as a separate part of Norwegian culture as\u00a0a whole.\u00a0 Samis <\/strong>are Norwegians too.\u00a0 There are government grants today to promote Sami <\/strong>language, culture, and religion.\u00a0 In Norway, the Sami <\/strong>parliament was established in 1989 and since then, they have been able to democratically elect representatives who see to it that Sami <\/strong>culture, language, education, and industry are regulated and protected.<\/p>\n

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This is a picture of a Sami couple in traditional costume in Oslo on Syttende Mai in 2006. Upon first glance, this word looks like it could be Japanese, but it is not.\u00a0 The Sami people are the indigenous people that inhabit parts of northern Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia.\u00a0 They are among the largest…<\/p>\n

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