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Published: February 4th 2009
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Hej från Sverige!
I've been in Jokkmokk now for about a week and a half and have not blogged about it, that's a problem! We are staying at Samernas, a school that focuses on teaching pretty much all aspects of Sami culture. Only about 30 students study here in areas like Sami traditional food, Sami language, reindeer herding, and handicrafts. We live now in the same dorms that the students who study here do. Most of them are our age, being one or two years out of high school, but there are a few older students as well. Before I get into details about what we've been doing here, I should probably let you know a bit more about the Sami. Who are they? I tried looking the word Sami up in my dictionary, only to find a TERRIBLE definition. Sami: the Lapps of northern Scandinavia. Horribly defined! The Sami are the indigenous peoples, with roots in Norway, Sweden, Finland and parts of Russia. It's true, many of them live in the area in northern Sweden called Lappland, but the term Lapp is not representative and considered derogatory to many Sami people. So, avoid the term when meeting with Sami
people (but even so, they are much too humble to call you out).
In Sweden today, many of the same legal battles are happening between the Sami and government that happen in the U.S. with the American Indians. They are fighting to protect their way of life and with the help of institutions like the ones in Jokkmokk, they will not become a forgotten culture. These people are wonderful and learning about their culture has been very rewarding. Historically, the Sami are a nomadic people, moving with their reindeer throughout the seasons. Many Sami still keep reindeer today and use them as their primary source of income. In fact, in Umeå we had the chance to visit with two women who have kept up their family traditions and herd reindeer. Anna-Marja and Sophia took time to teach us a few things about being Sami in today's world. We all got the chance to practice lassoing a set of antlers, it's harder than it seems! Then, we tried to lasso each other and a moving target is a billion times harder to get! Lassoing was definitely something I'd imagined to happen with cowboys in the U.S., but I didn't think we'd
Reindeer Road
They like to like the salt off the road. Mmmm! be doing it in Sweden. Craaaazy!
But, what we'd all been anticipating came next. Meeting our first reindeer! Anna-Marja had five reindeer there for us to meet. Most of them were a bit skittish and just ended up running around the pen like crazies. But, there was one reindeer who didn't seem to care what we were doing, as long and we had lichen in our hands. All of us were crowded around him, because we all wanted a new profile picture for facebook! Hahaha everything really does revolve around fb!
Our second experience with reindeer happened outside of Jokkmokk, in a place where there about 400 reindeer in one pen! The Sami were sorting through all the reindeer to find their own within the larger group (you can tell which ones are yours by the mark you've engraved on their ears!). The process is nuts: first, while all the 400 reindeer are running around, you have to find one that looks like yours. Then, you must lasso it and bring it in to check their ear. After that you have to drag it into it's holding pen or out to load onto your truck. That is where we came
From the Sami Museum
Some knives carved from antler and wood. in! As soon as one of the herders got a reindeer they yelled for us to help. They said, "Minnesota! Hey, Minnesota!" or "Come ON! Come ON!" when they wanted to catch our attention. It was pretty funny but at the same time intimidating because after all, the reindeer do NOT want to be lassoed, or even touched. So when they told us that we were to grab the antlers and drag the reindeer, I didn't know if I could do it. But of course, I jumped in on the first or second reindeer and it was not happy that we had its horns, so he tossed around enough to make me fall flat on my arse! Someone else took over for me while I was trying not to let go, while getting snow down my pants and up my back at the same time! After that first massive failure, it really did get easier. First, I tried to pick our the reindeer that weren't the biggest and didn't look as pissed off as the others, but you aren't always as lucky. It was really tiring too because that animal wants nothing to do with where you are taking it
Photo 7
He didn't want his picture taken! so you have to pull with all you might, not with a rope, but just by its antlers. After the first couple of reindeer, we were all stripping off clothing and trying to catch our breath but instead the herders just kept yelling for help, "Minnesota!" I got to help an older couple with their reindeer and take them out to their truck. I was really nervous about this though because if I let go, nothing was stopping the reindeer from running off to where ever it pleases! So each time I hung on with all my might to the antlers, while at the same time I had to help left the reindeer's front end onto the trailer! Oh boy was that a workout! I slept really, really well that night!
Jokkmokk has only about 2,000 people, so there isn't a whole lot going on. The students spend a lot of time working on their handicrafts and such, and then just hang out, or party on the weekends. But to talk a little bit about the Sami handicrafts...AMAZING! There are several students who work with traditional clothing, making things like dresses, jackets, belts, and so on. Sami clothes are quite
intricate in that each region has a particular style of dress. To me, the traditional dress seems really similar, but if you are Sami, you can tell where someone else is from what they where. There are distinct trim patterns that are used to distinguish one part of Sápmi (the area in which the Sami live) from the next. There also integrate elaborate silver pieces into their dress, for bling-bling factor as Sophia and Anna-Marja would say. And yes, they do use the shoes with the curled toe, which are crafted out of fur, apparently SUPER warm. On the other side of handicrafts, there are students who work with antlers and wood. They make knives, bowls, cups, spoons, and many other traditional Sami items, elaborately carving everything. To watch these "kids" make the handicrafts is really cool. I could never produce anything close to what they have made. Actually, I tried to work my magic with a spoon made from antler that my friend Jesper was going to toss. I got to re-shape it and sand it using the power tools and lots of elbow grease. I am horrible at carving on antlers so instead of some crazy design, I
Sunset!
It's was only about 2:30pm and the sun was setting! did my initials instead! Even THAT was a tough enough task for me! It was very, very cool to work with antler and although the spoon was pretty much already done, I feel a little bit accomplished to have done anything in that workshop! Thanks to Jesper for helping Megan and I with the easiest stuff ever and being so patient!
I've really gotta head to bed before I ramble more and make Jokkmokk seem not really that exciting! I promise to write sooner next time!
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