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New Users and Changing Traditions—(Re)Defining Sami Offering Sites

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New Users and Changing Traditions—(Re)Defining Sami Offering Sites European Journal of Archaeology 0 (0) 2015, 1–27 New Users and Changing Traditions— (Re)Defining Sami Offering Sites TIINA ÄIKÄS1 AND MARTE SPANGEN2 1Department of Archaeology, University of Oulu, Finland 2Department of Archaeology and Classical Studies, Stockholm University, Sweden Sami are indigenous people of Northern Fennoscandia. Some Sami offering sites have been used for over a thousand years. During this time, the offering traditions have changed and various people have started using the places based on different motivations. Present day archaeological finds give evidence of both continuing traditions and new meanings attached to these sites, as well as to sites that were probably not originally used for rituals in the Sami ethnic religion. In some cases, the authenticity of the place seems to lie in the stories and current beliefs more than in a historical continuity or any specifically sacred aspects of the topography or nature it is situated in. Today’s new users include, for example, local (Sami) people, tourists, and neo-pagans. This paper discusses what informs these users, what identifies certain locations as offering sites, and what current users believe their relationship to these places should be. What roles do scholarly traditions, heritage tourism, and internal culture have in (re)defining Sami offering sites and similarly what roles do ‘appropriate’ rituals have in ascribing meaning to particular places? How do we mediate wishes for multivocality with our professional opinions when it comes to defining sacredness? Keywords: Sami, offering site, multivocality, authenticity, site biographies INTRODUCTION offering sites in Finland. Results from exca- vations on two sacred islands in 2006 and During the twentieth century, research on 2007 led to the launching of the project Sami offering sites, including any exca- ‘Human-Animal Relations among Fin- vations, was, to a large extent, performed land’sSami’, funded by the Academy of by ethnographers (e.g. Manker, 1957; Finland. During this project, excavations Itkonen, 1962; Vorren, 1985; Vorren & were conducted at eight Sami sacred sites Eriksen, 1993; though see Hallström, in different parts of Finnish Lapland. 1932; Erä-Esko, 1957). Despite some calls Recent archaeological studies in Norway for more archaeological research on such and Sweden have so far mainly been sites (Vorren, 1985: 81; Rydving & Kris- limited to surveys, inventories, and toffersen, 1993), only in recent years has delineations of Sami sacred sites and offer- there been a renewed interest in fieldwork ing sites for heritage management related to Sami offering sites among purposes (Myrvoll, 2008), and to relating archaeologists. Prior to 2006, only four known offering sites to other archaeologi- excavations had been carried out on Sami cal and topographical features in order to © European Association of Archaeologists 2015 DOI 10.1179/1461957115Y.0000000009 Manuscript received 13 October 2014, accepted 1 April 2015, revised 5 March 2015 2 European Journal of Archaeology 0 (0) 2015 discuss past and present Sami landscape sites and emphasized the need for correct cognition and use (e.g. Hedman, 2003; categorization according to the available Sveen, 2003; Fossum, 2006). Apart from sources. He divides sites into: ‘sacrificial this, previously collected material has been sites’, which are here called ‘offering sites’, used to analyse Sami offering sites (e.g. and are delimited sites with remains of Mulk, 2005; Salmi et al., in prep.). In offerings or other substantiated indications 2013, two limited excavations were per- of an offering practice; ‘cult sites’, which formed in structures called ‘Sami circular include sites that are documented to have offering sites’ in northern Norway been the scene of cult acts such as offer- (Spangen, in prep. a, in prep. b). ings, ceremonies, or burials; and ‘sacred The findings from the recent excavations sites’, which include both of the above- in both Norway and Finland have equally mentioned, but also areas or sites without resulted in questions about the age of the evidence of cult acts, but with place names offering sites and about what has led to or traditions that indicate a sacred status. their present definition as such. Studies of Hence, offering sites are included in all the research history in general and concern- three categories, as sites with strong indi- ing some sites in particular have shown cations of offerings, hence cult sites and that the understanding of certain locations, sacred sites, while sacred sites may simply constructions, or topographical features as be, for instance, a mountain or lake with a being Sami sacred sites may be of quite name related to holiness (including North recent origin, sometimes based on scholarly Sami terms such as basse, sáiva, sieidi, etc.) hypotheses and sometimes outright inven- (Rydving & Kristoffersen, 1993: 197). tions for touristic purposes, though the In archaeological contexts, defining a interpretations may have some association Sami sacred site is still closely related to with older historical accounts or traditions judging the authenticity of any claim for (cf. Äikäs, 2011; Spangen, 2013a). This sacredness, usually in terms of the age of raises questions of authenticity and defi- such traditions. Apart from a general nition that are not only relevant when archaeological preference for the old and studying Sami offering sites, but that con- ‘original’ (see below), in Norway, this is tribute to a wider debate concerning the partly related to cultural heritage legis- experience of authenticity and sacredness lation, which protects both material and and some dilemmas of heritage tourism, immaterial Sami heritage older than one especially in indigenous cultural contexts. hundred years. Similar time limits are not In the following, we will present the new mentioned in Finnish legislation, but it is archaeological source material that has more vaguely stated that monuments recently raised such questions in relation to should be ‘ancient’. In much previous Sami offering sites, and explore the range ethnographic research, however, the of users and historical trajectories that have time depth of Sami traditions concerning defined, and still continue to define, sites offering sites has not necessarily been as sacred in Sami contexts. explicitly discussed, but rather assumed to be the remnants of something very old (e. g. Manker, 1957: 79). This is partly a DEFINING SAMI SACRED SITES IN THE legacy from the national romanticism of PAST AND PRESENT the nineteenth century, when scholars and artists sought the peripheries and outlands The historian of religion Rydving (1993) to find ‘pristine’ cultural expressions has discussed research into Sami offering unhampered by modernity, and indigenous Äikäs and Spangen – New Users and Changing Traditions 3 populations like the Sami were seen to be 112–13). Contemporary sources describe particularly traditional, to the extent that how the Sami themselves in pre-Christian they have been viewed as static cultures contexts could destroy or stop visiting without history (Olsen, 1986; Hansen & offering sites because these did not work Olsen, 2004: 10; Svensson & Gardiner, as intended (Fellman, 1906: 19–20; 2009: 23). The cultural determinism that Paulaharju, 1932: 24, 43–44; Högström, characterized both research and popular 1980: 183; Rydving, 1993: 66). Different depictions of the Sami during the twenti- Sami offering sites that were in use at the eth century has led to unfortunate same time have also been subject to con- generalizations about the Sami ethnic reli- current multivocal definitions and held gion,1 based on initially local traditions. In differing value and meaning to different fact, the Sami religion, and Sami culture Sami people. From information in written and traditions in general, have been, and, and ethnographic sources, at least three indeed, still are highly diverse, relating to types of offering sites can be distinguished, a range of economic adaptations, whereof some were used by an individual languages, and other regional and local or a family, some were attended by the cultural variations. Today it is generally whole local community (often called the accepted that, even if some mutual or siida), and yet others were revered by similar main ideas can be identified as people from a whole region or beyond common and persistent over large geo- (Rydving, 1993: 97–104). While it is graphical and chronological distances, the likely that Sami people, before Christiani- Sami have not had one single consistent zation, usually treated offering sites and belief system (Rydving, 1993: 19–23). sieidis with respect even if the sites or Instead, the expressions of Sami beliefs objects were primarily used by someone have been distinctly local and have else, it should be recognized that Sami depended on the spiritual experiences of sacred sites have always had a varying the individual or the local noaidi currently degree of significance to different people. in charge of the community’s communi- As more and more Sami became cations with gods, spirits, and ancestors Christians in early modern times, (e.g. Pollan, 1993). especially during the seventeenth to eight- Similarly, there is a variation in Sami eenth century, this difference in perception offering sites; while new investigations within Sami communities was accentu- show that some offering sites have been ated. Some of the Christian Sami were used for a very long time, some from the actively involved in the
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