The Whippet: KARESUANDO (68.4380 N, 22.4511 E)

After Vilhelmina and Jokkmokk, this is another historic Sámi village that, till this day, has a majority Sámi population. It is ancient reindeer nomadism land that more recently has morphed into a modern reindeer herding district. By modern reindeer herding is meant herding by snowmobile rather than on skis. In the late 50s, to early 60s snowmobiles became reliable enough to be entrusted Arctic winter duty and the Sámi switched from wooden skis to snowmobiles for winter herding. Not too long later they adopted the dirt bike for summer duty and, in some cases, we now, on occasion, even see helicopters being put to work.

SPIRITUALITY

One of the very special aspects of Karesuando lies in its recent history. Since times immemorial the Sámi spiritual life has been one shared with the Uralic peoples of the Arctic. It is a natural belief system focused on hunting, the shared northern cosmos, typically three “worlds” (above, below, and ours in the middle), and spirits that can be shared between animal and human forms with full equality of purpose and capabilities. The mediator in this belief system is the Noaide, what we know from other circumpolar cultures as the Shaman. This is an outrageously short summarization and thus oversimplification, but it will fill our contrasting needs in the description of what happened in Lapland starting in the middle ages.

CHRISTIANISM

It seems that the first Christian church built-in Lapland (known as Finnmark in Norway) was built on the initiative of the Norwegian crown in Tromsø which at 69.6492 North is well into the Arctic circle. The church was built in 1250, was named the Church of Santa Maria, and seemingly was intended as a missionary church. This started an initially mellow effort by the Christian church to “save” the Sámi from their “pagan” beliefs that obviously was the “devil’s work”.

After Tromsø, and in the ensuing centuries, a handful more churches were established in what was considered strategic Sámi strongholds i.e. migration centers where the nomadic winter camps (always the most important camp) would concentrate a fair amount of Sámi in one place. This is also where the winter markets would be formalized by the various crowns (good for commerce but, more importantly, tax collection).

A few centuries into the conversion efforts, the church decided it was time to step up the pace, this was especially true in the 17^th and 18^th centuries and this did not come without friction. There was bad blood because, as if the “saving” of souls was not bad enough, the church often sided with Norwegian or Swedish officials and tradesmen in what grew into an exploitation alliance. One of the aspects of this was corrupt businessmen that would get the Sámi drunk and, to more or less successful extents, rob them of parts or the entirety of their reindeer herds. Being in cahoots with the local sheriffs, this activity was lucrative and seen as low risk. The church would turn a blind eye and now this whole coterie of crooks could even get away with feeling good about themselves...

One preacher after the other came to do missionary work over the centuries and the one mostly resembled the other and many Sámi would just try to seem as converted as possible. Although some, on occasion, would be real conversions, many more would at the very least covertly go on with their traditional beliefs and rituals. Shamanism was known to be active to at a minimum into the 1950s in Karesuando.

LAESTADIANISM

But, in Karesuando, something changed in the mid 18 hundreds with the arrival of a very different kind of pastor. Lars Laestadius started preaching in Karesuando in 1845 and made a deep impression on his Sámi congregation and, not only because like so many other revivalists of his day, his sermons could get pretty thunderous. Although an official protestant pastor of the Lutheran strain, Laestadius was uniquely positioned to formulate the Lutheran message in a format palatable to the Sámi. That he was the one to successfully do this is explained by the fact that his mother was Sámi. He knew and appreciated the language, culture, and probably the (then covert) ancient spiritual practices. Where Catholics and Protestants would argue about how redemption would happen and the meaning of a congregation, Laestadius preached that the body of Christ was the congregation. That the congregation and only the congregation had the power to give absolute forgiveness of all sins. This spoke to the very communal life and culture of the Sámi. Now, although the congregation is the divine body, the pastor was of utmost importance as the “mediator” between the congregation and the other world. This, in the ancient circumpolar spirituality of the Sámi, was the role of the Noaide (the Sámi shaman). It was a way to "translate" Lutheranism to the Sámi in a to them, very palatable way.

In addition to this spiritual quality of the message that became known as Laestadianism, there was a more temporal aspect that meant a lot to Sámi day to day life. Seeing the devastating effects of alcohol on the Sámi’s dealings with Swedish tradesmen he, in an alliance with the Sámi women, successfully pushed abstinence as a moral imperative on his congregation. Bringing this one step further, he was able to push through a law forbidding the sale of alcohol in Swedish Lapland. This, at a very dark moment in Sámi circumstances, set the stage for a spectacular Sámi spiritual, moral, and material revival. It was indeed so successful that, although regarded with suspicion and discouraged by much of protestant officialdom, Laestadianism has survived till this day and is practiced by some Sámi in Karesuando and beyond today.

Here are some pictures (click to enlarge):