The Indigenous Identity of the South Saami

Håkon Hermanstrand Asbjørn Kolberg Trond Risto Nilssen Leiv Sem Editors The Indigenous Identity of the South Saami Historical and Political Perspectives on a Minority within a Minority The Indigenous Identity of the South Saami Photo: Asbjørn Kolberg Håkon Hermanstrand • Asbjørn Kolberg Trond Risto Nilssen • Leiv Sem Editors The Indigenous Identity of the South Saami Historical and Political Perspectives on a Minority within a Minority Editors Håkon Hermanstrand Trond Risto Nilssen The Faculty of Education and Arts Norwegian University of Science and Nord University Technology Levanger, Norway Trondheim, Norway Asbjørn Kolberg and The Faculty of Education and Arts Nord University Nord University Levanger, Norway Levanger, Norway Leiv Sem The Faculty of Education and Arts Nord University Levanger, Norway ISBN 978-3-030-05028-3 ISBN 978-3-030-05029-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05029-0 Library of Congress Control Number: 2018962762 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019. 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This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Preface This book is the product of presentations made at a symposium in the spring of 2017 arranged by the research programme entitled Historical and Political Negotiations of South Saami Culture and Identity 2016–2018. This programme, funded by the Regional Research Funds Central Norway (RFF) and Nord University, has been led by a group of researchers from Nord University’s Faculty of Education and Arts in collaboration with partners in Norway and Canada. Partners representing the following institutions and universities have been involved in the project: Saemien Sijte—South Saami Museum and Cultural Centre (Norway), Norwegian University of Science and Technology (Norway), UiT—the Arctic University of Norway, the University of Saskatchewan (Canada), Memorial University of Newfoundland (Canada), the Centennial of the First Saami National Congress in Trondheim 1917 (Norway 2017), Sijti Jarnge—Saami Cultural Centre (Norway) and Røros Museum (Norway). Not all of these have been able to con- tribute to this volume. However, they have been important to the project through guiding, supporting and correcting the research during meetings, in symposiums and seminars and correspondence. The main objective of the research project has been to enhance public awareness of the South Saami culture and history, and to deepen the understanding of how the South Saami and non-Saami identities are formed in a dynamic interaction and negotiation process with each other. In Norway, Nord University has been given special responsibility for the South Saami and Lule Saami language and culture. There is a definite need to increase research-based knowledge about South Saami history, culture and identity. This is all the more important as the South Saami people are in a vulnerable position as they are few in number and spread out across a large geographic region (Research Council of Norway 2008). Reflecting the much broader international scale of these issues in its v vi Preface resolutions, the UN’s Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues stresses the enormous need for knowledge about the world’s indigenous peoples in many fundamental areas, such as demographics, resources, rights and traditional knowledge. Levanger, Norway Håkon Hermanstrand Levanger, Norway Asbjørn Kolberg Trondheim/Levanger, Norway Trond Risto Nilssen Levanger, Norway Leiv Sem Acknowledgements In recent decades, a small but growing group of scholars has made important efforts to question, correct and supply the hegemonic narratives of history with information from the South Saami perspective. Most of these scholars have been of South Saami ancestry. One particular important source of inspiration and information in this project has been the South Saami historian Sverre Fjellheim. We dedicate this volume to him and to the other scholars who have laid the basis for South Saami history, culture and identity as a field of study. This work would not have been possible without the financial support of Regional Research Funds Central Norway (RFF Midt-Norge), Nord University and the con- tributions from the external project partners: Saemien Sijte—South Saami Museum and Cultural Centre (Norway), Norwegian University of Science and Technology (Norway), UiT—the Arctic University of Norway, the University of Saskatchewan (Canada), Memorial University of Newfoundland (Canada), the Centennial of the First Saami National Congress in Trondheim 1917 (Norway 2017), Sijti Jarnge— Saami Cultural Centre (Norway) and Røros Museum (Norway). Furthermore, we would like to offer our special thanks to Kjell Magne Derås, former Senior Adviser in South Saami affairs at Nord-Trøndelag University College. We are very grateful for his input in our project, for his help in collecting data, for his guidance and his role as intermediary. Thanks to our colleague Trygve Skavhaug, Nord University, for helping us with the design of the map of Saepmie (Fig. 1.1), and to Ellen Jonassen at Samtext for translating the abstracts into South Saami. Thanks also to our contact persons in Springer, Jolanda Voogd and Helen van der Stelt, whose advice has been a great help in producing this book. vii Contents Part I Introduction 1 Theoretical and Methodological Perspectives .................. 3 Håkon Hermanstrand, Asbjørn Kolberg, Trond Risto Nilssen and Leiv Sem Part II Sociolinguistic Perspectives 2 Southern Saami Language and Culture—Between Stigma and Pride, Tradition and Modernity ......................... 17 Brit Mæhlum 3 ‘But They Call Us the Language Police!’ Speaker and Ethnic Identifying Profiles in the Process of Revitalizing the South Saami Language, Culture and Ethnic Identity ................. 29 Inger Johansen Part III Historical and Archaeological Perspectives 4 Identification of the South Saami in the Norwegian 1801 Census: Why Is the 1801 Census a Problematic Source? ................ 49 Håkon Hermanstrand 5 The Meaning of Words and the Power of Silence ............... 65 Erik Norberg Part IV Text and Representation 6 Puncturing Parts of History’s Blindness: South Saami and South Saami Culture in Early Picture Postcards ............ 93 Cathrine Baglo ix x Contents 7 The Indigenous Voice in Majority Media. South Saami Representations in Norwegian Regional Press 1880–1990 ......... 121 Asbjørn Kolberg Part V Hegemony and Current Conflicts 8 Out of Print. A Historiography of the South Saami in Regional and National Works of History ............................. 153 Leiv Sem 9 South Saami Cultural Landscape Under Pressure .............. 171 Trond Risto Nilssen Contributors Cathrine Baglo Tromsø University Museum, UiT—The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway Håkon Hermanstrand The Faculty of Education and Arts, Nord University, Levanger, Norway Inger Johansen Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway; Sámi University of Applied Sciences, Gouvdageaidnu/Kautokeino, Norway Asbjørn Kolberg The Faculty of Education and Arts, Nord University, Levanger, Norway Brit Mæhlum Department of Language and Literature, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway; Faculty of Education and Arts, Nord University, Levanger, Norway Trond Risto Nilssen The Faculty of Education and Arts, Nord University, Levanger, Norway; Department of Teacher Education, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway Erik Norberg Saemien Sijte—South Saami Museum and Cultural Centre, Snåsa, Norway Leiv Sem The Faculty of Education and Arts, Nord University, Levanger, Norway xi Part I Introduction Chapter 1 Theoretical and Methodological Perspectives Håkon Hermanstrand, Asbjørn Kolberg, Trond Risto Nilssen and Leiv Sem Abstract In this chapter, we give a brief outline of the South Saami people’s historical, linguistic and political position

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