Place-name perspectives on the Saami past The importance of multidisciplinary source criticism Taarna Valtonen Gie/lagas Institute for Saami Studies, P 0. Box 1000, Fl- 90014 University of Oulu, Finland Abstract uses and has knowledge of place-names in ev- eryday li fe. However, like all fields of study, This paper presents some basic methods for also place-name studies, onomastics, has its own studying early modern and prehistoric times of particular rules, limitations, and source-critical Saa mi communities with the help ofplace-names. problems that are not common knowledge and The main aim is to point out the fundamental are not connected with the everyday use of significance of source criticism in such studies. place-names. In addition, since both linguistic The roles of linguistic and cultural information and cultural knowledge are connected to place- in place-name studies are also discussed. As an names, onomastics includes an extra challenge example, a study on the place-name family Guivi as it combines two research entities. by T i. ltkonen is revisited and some relevant Place-names are often used in studies con- previously unpublished archaeological material cerning past communities about which little or is reported. Finally a framework for a well-con- no written historical sources exist, such as Saami structed study that combines place-names and communities. This practise is problematic, since cultural information is presented. in these cases there is very little evidence that can be used to evaluate the interpretations made Keywords: from place-names. Saami place-names are es- place-names, source cnt1c1sm, sacred places, pecially challenging, since Saami communities Saami languages, Saami cultures. are minorities spread over a long and narrow area and surrounded by and intermingled with several majority communities. This means that Introduction individual Saami languages are separately con- nected to neighbouring majority communities For a long time, archaeologists have used place- and with languages that have origins in different names and tradition connected to place-names as language families and cultural spheres. additional evidence when studying archaeologi- This paper discusses some important traits cal cultures, especially in periods near or right in linguistic methods that should be taken into before modem times. Every now and then the account in studies that combine archaeological, use of place-name materials to support archaeo- or other non-linguistic, data with place-names. logical interpretations has been considered non- As an example of a research project in which problematic - most probably because everybody archaeological, ethnographical, and lingu istic RECENT PERSPECTIVES ON SAMI ARCHAEOLOGY 133 ISKOS 17 TAARNA VALTONEN Fig. 1. The Guivi place-name family in Fennoscandia. Starting from the west: Guivie in Storuman in Sweden, several Guivve- place-names in Guovdageaidnu and in PorsarJgu (Porsanger) in Norway, two Guivi place-names in Ohcejohka in Finland, several Kuiv place-names in Lujaur in Russia. data are successfully combined, the study on name materials as an archaeological source are the Guivi place-name family by the famous discussed. Finally, the process of linguistic and Finnish researcher Toivo Immanuel Itkonen cultural source criticism that Itkonen used is (1891- 1969) is presented. The Guivi names are dealt with. in some areas connected to pre-Christian Saami sacred sites and tradition, which makes them The archaeological material from an interesting and many-sided example. In the Guivi of Ohcejohka article Kuivi, ein heiliger Ort der Lappen ( 1962) Itkonen reported his research on the Guivi place- According to the local Saami tradition, the name family (Fig. 1). His strict source criticism Guivi mountain, situated in the middle of the and lack of ideological bias make this study a Baisduottar (Paistunturi) wilderness area, has perfect example of a good place-name study been regarded as a sacred place. Very little is where cultural aspects are also included. known about the beliefs or practices connected As a starting point in this paper, archaeological to this place, but it is probable that Guivi has data from one of these Guivi places, the Guivi been one of the central sacred mountains of the mountain of Ohcejohka (Utsjoki) in Finland is area. The status of the place as a sacrificial site presented. Following this, the features of place- has been verified by survey finds made in 1961 134 PLACE-NAME PERSPECTIVES ON THE SAAMI PAST and 1999- 2002 (Itkonen 1962: l27, l29- l31 ; antlers were just places next to large boulders. Valtonen 1999; 2000; 2002). The two other deposits (C, D) were hidden be- The first survey of the Guivi mountain in Oh- neath or behind stones and consisted of tightly cejohka was planned by T. I. Itkonen in the early and carefully arranged antlers of female rein- 1960s. Itkonen wanted to know if it was possible deer. These finds proved that the Guivi mountain to confirm the oral tradition about the status of was in fact a sacrificial site. the mountain as a holy place. The field trip was Further visits to the site took place in realized in 1961 when a geodetic survey group 1999- 2002 when several surveys were conduct- led by Erkki Nickul and including his co-work- ed in Baisduottar by the author of this article and ers Artto Sverloff and Antti Semenoja visited the archaeologist Mikael A. Manninen (University place at Itkonen's request. of Helsinki). During these surveys, the antler Erkki Nickul and his companions found and deposits found by Nickul and his co-workers documented six separate deposits of reindeer were relocated with the exception of one of the antlers in a stony area near the top of the moun- two covered ones (D). Since Nickul's visit, the tain (Fig. 2). There were two types of deposits. number of people, mainly hikers, visiting the Four deposits (A, B, E, and F) contained antlers top of the mountain had multiplied. As a con- of reindeer bulls and were clearly visible: the sequence the visible deposits had been badly Fig. 2. The locations of the five antler deposits found in 1961 near the top of the Guivi mountain in Ohcejohka, Finland, in their present state. The deposits are located in an area approximately 6 metres long. Photo: Mikael A. Manninen. 135 TAARNA VALTONEN disturbed. Even the covered deposit C was not linguistics, this protolanguage and its later de- left untouched. In addition to the deposits found velopment phases into modern languages can be in 1961, a previously unknown offering site was reconstructed. The slow process of the splitting found at the mountainside of Guivi during the up of the proto-Saami language started around documentation of a storage pit site called Gama- 500 BC and lasted at least until AD 300- 800 johka P 3. It is a space between two boulders (Sammallahti 1998: 1- 2; Aikio 2000: 46). with some small stones and a small amount of The common origin of Saami languages water at the bottom. In this space, naturally shed means that all Saami languages have a core antlers of female reindeer had been placed. vocabulary that can be traced back to the com- On the basis of the fieldwork finds, some mon protolanguage. In addition to these words, preliminary interpretations can be made con- all the languages have language-specific words cerning the use, the users, and the time of use that have been created by the speakers of that of the sacred mountain Guivi ofOhcejohka. The particular language. These words exist only in vast amount of archaeological sites in the vi- one or in a few closely related Saami languages. cinity of the mountain indicates that the valley In addition, there are also loan words that have areas around Guivi have had a central place in their origin in non-Saami languages. The loan- the utilisation of the Baisduottar area since the ing of these words may have occurred at any Stone Age (for details see Manninen & Valtonen given time from the proto-Saami period to mod- 2006). The valleys are still an important early em times. The source languages are also great summer and late winter pasture for reindeer. It is in number: Finno-Ugric languages (Finnish, very probable that Guivi has been used in earlier Karelian), Slavic languages (Russian), Baltic times by wild reindeer hunters. The use of the protolanguages, Scandinavian languages (Swed- area by early modem reindeer Saami can be seen ish, Norwegian, Scandinavian protolanguages), from the large amount of the bearpmetarran and even some lndo-European protolanguages. hearth sites and small storage pits (geadgeborra) There are also some words that seem to be sub- located in surveys. According to the local tradi- strate loans from a language or languages spoken tion and the condition of the offered antlers, it in Northern Fennoscandia before the period of can be estimated that the offering sites have been Saami languages (Sammallahti 1998: 117- 131 ; in use also after the beginning of the Christian Aikio 2004). th time, probably until the 19 century. There are at least two ways to approach the past of the Saami with the help of place-names. Saami languages and place-names One way is to study place-names in some cur- rently non-Saami area and try to find evidence Modern Saami languages are spread over an of a Saami-speaking population of the past. The area that is approximately 1000 kilometres other way is to study the place-names of a mod- long, reaching from the Kola Peninsula in Rus- ern Saami area and try to find information on the sia to Dalama in Sweden. There are ten Saami way of life of earlier times, connections between languages that can all be further divided into different Saami groups and areas, or influence dialects.