Shamanistic and postshamanistic terminologies in Saami (Lappish)

• Main Author: Håkan Rydving
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Donner Institute 1987-01-01
• Series: Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis
• Subjects: Sami (European people) > Religion; Sami language; Shamanism > Comparative studies; Linguistics; Language and religion
• Online Access: https://journal.fi/scripta/article/view/67162
• ISSN: 0582-3226; 2343-4937

The study of the lexicon of a language, of special semantic fields, changes in the meaning of words and comparisons between the lexicon or parts of it in different dialects can provide valuable complements to other types of sources. This is nothing new, and the study of Saami cultural history is in this respect no exception. A number of papers have thus dealt with different parts of the Saami lexicon, central for the understanding of various aspects of Saami culture. The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to a problem of source criticism that faces the student of Saami shamanism and is caused by the changes of meaning which words used in the shamanistic context underwent in the period of religious change, i.e. the 17th, 18th and (to some extent) 19th centuries. These changes of meaning render our possibilities of understanding the shamanistic aspects of the pre-Christian Saami religion more difficult as they make it hazardous to draw conclusions about shamanism from what we know about the use and meaning of these words in the later terminologies of magic. The sources from the 17th and 18th centuries derive almost exclusively from persons whose mission in life was to replace the Saami religious rites and conceptions with new ones. A special problem with the shamanistic terminology in Saami has to do with the negative connotations by which even the earliest sources are marked. For example, the Saami words have been translated with 'conjure', `enchantemein', 'sorcerer', 'sorcery', 'witchcraft', 'wizard' etc., a tendency that has coloured the general view of the noaidi.