Sámi Archaeology: Viking Contacts
A recent comment by Inger Zachrisson states:
“During the Viking Age a large part of the Scandinavian peninsula was inhabited by Sämi (Figure 3.1). Similar populations within the Uralic-speaking zone reveal many common elements of society and culture, cosmology and religion, dwelling types and settlement patterns. Sämi territory was traditionally divided into sijte areas, a territorial, economic and social unit. Society was socially and economically stratified; it was changing, dynamic. Some Sämi were probably settled. Regional differences were still existing, but gave way to a more and more ‘pan-Sämi’ material culture, and an increasing religious and ethnic consolidation.
Central Scandinavia and the north Norwegian coast were important areas for contacts between Sämi and Nordic peoples. The archaeological material shows that there were relatively clear and stable borders between their dwelling areas. Nordic expansion northwards was primarily the result of an inner development, not of Immigration. Contacts between agrarian areas and hunting grounds must have been close and the latter not primarily looked upon äs ‘outlying land’ but äs ‘a homeland’, where Sämi relatives still lived (Hansen and Olsen 2004; Schanche 2000; Zachrisson et al. 1997). Most of the written sources emanate from the early Middle Ages, but probably describe the Viking Age äs well. They give information about Sämi in both northern and central Scandinavia. But everything that is said about them is said by others. The word for Sämi is based on the Old Norse finnar (s’mg.finn) — it was through Nordic people that knowledge of the Sämi reached the world. Finnmark meant the ‘forest’ or ‘border land’ of the Sämi. Their own name, Saame, is recorded once, in an Icelandic saga from the thirteenth Century, in the word semsveinar (ON sveinn ‘young man’).
Skridefinnas (‘skiing Sämi’) are depicted by king Alfred of Wessex c. AD 890 äs neighbours to the svear. Adam of Bremen writes in the eleventh Century about Skritefini living between Swedes and Norwegians, in the area of the Swedes, and that some of them were Christianised. Historia Norwegie from c. 1150—75, probably written in south.east Norway, describes Sämi shamanism, and divides Norway lengthwise into three zones from west to east: the coastal area, the mountains, and the forests of the finnar. Snorri Sturluson, in the thirteenth Century, and others talk about Sämi in southern Norway, for example Hadeland, Oppland, and possibly Härjedalen (Mundal 1996, 2003; Zachrisson et al. 1997).” 1
The earliest known written account to describe the Sámi is the story that the chieftain Ottar told Kind Alfred of England during his visit in AD 890.
“Ohthere told his lord, King Alfred, that he lived farthest to the north of all the Norwegians. He said that he lived by the western sea in the north part of the land. However, he said that the land extends very much further north; but it is all waste, except that Lapps camp in a few places here and there, hunting in winter and fishing in the sea in summer.
“He said that on one occasion he wished to find out how far that land extended due north, or whether anyone lived north of the waste. Then he travelled close to the land, due north; he left the waste land on the starboard and the open sea on the port all the way for three days. Then he was as far north as the whale-hunters ever travel.” 3
Footnotes
1 Zachrisson, I., 2008, “The Sámi and their Interaction with the Nordic Peoples” in Brink, S. & Price, N. (eds), 2008, “The Viking World”, Routledge, p.32
2 op cit Fig 3.1
3 Bately, J. (ed), “Text and Translation” in Bately, J. & Englert, A. (eds) 2007, “Ohthere’s Voyages”, Maritime Culture of the North Vol 1, Roskilde
