Uppsala mitt i Sápmi Rapport från ett symposium arrangerat av Föreningen för samisk- relaterad forskning i Uppsala, Upplandsmuseet 4–5 maj 2011 Red. Håkan Tunón, Märit Frändén, Carl-Gösta Ojala & May-Britt Öhman Uppsam Föreningen för samiskrelaterad forskning i Uppsala CBM:s skriftserie 55 Bör citeras: Tunón, H., Frändén, M., Ojala, C.-G. & Öhman, M.-B. (red.) !"#!. Uppsala mitt i Sápmi. Rapport från ett symposium arrangerat av Föreningen för samiskrelaterad forskning i Uppsala, Upplands- museet $–% maj !"##. CBM:s skriftserie %%. Naptek, Centrum för biologisk mångfald, Uppsala. © Uppsam, Centrum för biologisk mångfald och författarna !"#! CBM:s skriftserie %% Författarna ansvarar för sina egna texter Omslagsbilder: Överst: Uppsala domkyrka (foto/montage: Håkan Tunón). Nedan t.v.: Ren på sommarbe- te (foto: Anna Olofsson); nedan mitten: utdrag ur en avskrift av Descriptio Lapponiæ, skriven av samen och Uppsalastudenten Nicolaus Lundius; nedan t.h.: Samisk tradition i förändring: Kautokeinoskor med mansskoband från Jukkasjärvi, burna till kjol (foto: Håkan Tunón) Layout: Håkan Tunón utifrån en mall av Oloph Demker Tryck: Davidsons tryckeri AB, Växjö/Taberg Media Group AB !"#! Rapporten föreligger också som PDF-&l på: http://www.cbm.slu.se/publ/skrift/skrift%%.pdf ISBN: '()-'#-)'!*!-+(-' ISSN: #$"*-+%+) The Sámi are just like everyone else? A scientist of religion looks at the encounter between the Christian missionary religion and the Sámi ethnic religion* A!!" L#$%" S&"'"()*+, C,!)-, .*- R,(,"-/0 E)0%/( "!$ B%*,)0%/(, U11("'" 2!%&,-(%)# (1) hen academics present Sámi religion, this usu- Anna Lydia Svalastog, PhD in history of religion, ally means pre-Christian Sámi religion, which W associate professor in religious studies. Svalastog is then depicted as non-literate and polytheistic, a tra- focuses on areas of research characterized by in- dition that has many rites, including both private and terdisciplinary debate. She puts research history, public sacri3cial rites, and is based on oral narratives. method and theory to the forefront of her ana- 4ese characteristics coincide with pre-Christian Norse lysis. Her PhD analyzed abortion, myth, religious heritage, and gender construction. Post doc she religion. At the same time, pre-Christian Sámi reli- analyzed modernity, identity and rites. The last ten gion di5ers from pre-Christian Norse religion in that years her focus has been on genetic research in re- it is shamanistic. 4e Sámi shaman is called noaidi lation to risk handling and ethics, and Sámi history (Northern Sámi). Pre-Christian Norse religion is not and culture. Svalastog is associated researcher at shamanistic, although several stories, especially those Centre for Research Ethics and Bioethics, Uppsala linked to Odin, have shamanistic traits. In the Sámi University. tradition, the noaidi both maintains and renews the tradition. Shamanistic traditions operate with rituals in Christian tradition or a Christian tradition with Sámi which the shaman enters a trance or ecstasy and un- participants.7 dertakes journeys in time and space in order to gather necessary information and to have dealings with the (2) dead, in order to restore health, or to cut bonds that are In studies of pre-Christian Sámi religion, the state of pulling an individual towards the realm of the dead.6 the sources and the interpretation and combination of Presentations of pre-Christian Sámi religious his- these sources pose a considerable academic challenge. tory are super3cially tidy and clear, and are characte- 4is is why source criticism, that is to say, the critical in- rized by a scholarly consensus. Debates among church vestigation of the background and value of the sources, historians contribute one further sphere, namely, a di- plays a central role. Since the sources are fragmented, scussion of the extent to which Læstadianism is a Sámi the work of interpretation is linked to critical compari- sons with other traditions such as pre-Christian Norse *4is present text is part of an ongoing project on research religion, popular Finnish traditions, and the myths and history and ethics concerning Sámi life and culture, Sápmi, rites of circumpolar cultures. past and present theories and histories. 4e project has result- 4e principal academic tools in the study of pre- ed in three articles: Svalastog & Eriksson, “You can use my Christian Sámi religion have been the historical-phi- name: You don’t have to steal my story – A critique of ano- lological method and phenomenological analyses. 4e nymity in indigenopus studies”, in Developing World Bioeth- history of religion has been helped, and is still helped, ics 7969;69(7):69:–669; Pye & Svalastog, “Colonial and mis- by the disciplines of secular history, folklore, ethno- sionary perceptions of Sami and Ainu in Sweden and Japan”, graphy, anthropology, and archaeology. Particular theo- in !e CSSR [!e Council of Societies for the Study of Reli- ries about history, culture, and religion have functioned gion] bulletin 799;, september; Svalastog, “Tiden som förs- as parameters for the content and the manner of the vann”, in Amft & Svonni (eds) SápmiY"K – Livet i samernas historical-philological investigations. All these theories bosättningsområde för "### år sedan, Umeå University: Sami have assumed that Sámi religion consisted of greater Studies Nr 8, 799<;8:66=–68:. A book chapter on maps and and lesser variations of a non-Christian tradition that theories on Sámi history and religion will be published 7967 was uniform from a phenomenological perspective and in a book written by the ad hoc group Riekkis, published at that disappeared in the eighteenth and nineteenth cen- Arthub Publisher. (www.riekkis.se). turies.8 !! Today, a question-mark has been placed from many "e polemics of polycultural Scandinavia of the Vi- di!erent angles with regard to theories that present reli- king age and the early Middle Ages had a well-known gion as something uniform, stable, and culturally pure. continuation in J. Sche!erus’ book Lapponia ('()*) "e critics have pointed both to diachronic variation about the life and culture of the Sámi, which was writ- and to variation from one locality to another at one ten to counter accusations, especially from Germany, and the same time. "ey have also shown that di!erent that were linked to the "irty Years War. ("e accusa- participants in a society can have di!ering narratives tions were spread by means of pamphlets that claimed and rites that regulate their everyday life, for example, that the Swedes won battles on the European battle- because of gender, age, and social position. Besides this, %elds because they made use of Sámi who practiced they have emphasized that popular praxis and o#cial magic.) Several very celebrated senior civil servants in doctrine in a people can not only be distinct from one Sweden had a Sámi background, including the pastor another, but can also encompass di!erent narratives Olaus Sirma, the pastor Anders Fjellner who transmit- and practices, and that encounters between traditions ted the cycle of poems called !e son of the sun, the are dynamic: some elements are taken over and renewed, pastor Petrus Læstadius, the pastor and botanist Lars while others are eliminated and rejected.$ Levi Læstadius, and the provincial governor Johan Parts of this critique have been integrated into the Gran. When the Swedish crown established its rule in study of pre-Christian Sámi religion, but there is one the north, it made use of Sámi as jurors in court cases. striking exception, namely the treatment of Christian Both the early settling of Iceland and the much later elements in the history of Sámi religion and the lack of emigration to the United States included Sámi persons. understanding that the Christian tradition too must be Sámi were among the Norwegian national heroes who included in the study of Sámi religious history. accompanied Fridtjof Nansen across Greenland, and among those who took part in the work of resistance (3) during the Second World War.( Research during the last three decades has brought to "e historical depth in the Sámi presence and par- light South Sámi history in central Scandinavia and ticipation in Scandinavia has consequences for how we cultural encounters in the whole of Finnoscandinavia. understand Sámi religious history – probably larger Scholars from a variety of disciplines relate a concur- consequences than we have as yet grasped. rent story when they tell about Sámi and Norse lives: that relationships to the Sámi people are regulated and (4) attested in central mediaeval texts, in legal codes (the Questions are raised by the fact that Sámi people have Eidsivating Law and the Borgating Law), in new practi- lived over a long period together with, not separated ces such as the Rettarbot of King Håkon Magnus for from, other peoples in Scandinavia, while at the same Hålogaland in the fourteenth century, in the nationally time they have, correctly, been perceived as a distinct important historical accounts by Ágrip (about Harald people going back to the pre-Christian age. I am parti- Hairfair), in the many stories about Sámi and the Sámi cularly interested in the question of unity and purity in people in Snorre Sturlason, and in the Norse saga lite- religious history from the Viking age up to the present rature. In the last thirty years, archaeologists have con- day. %rmed the Sámi presence in central Scandinavia and Trade between Sámi and non-Sámi persons has along the coastal regions that earlier scholars believed been marked by the will of the Norse kings, and their did not belong to the Sámi areas. "e archaeologists will to exercise power has changed over the course of have shown that Sámi and non-Sámi Scandinavian time. After the land gets Christian kings, they regulate groups lived side by side both before and during the their own people’s trade with Sámi persons by law, and Middle Ages. Linguistic researchers have studied the they begin to tax the Sámi revenues.