A Sea Sami story

[Savage]

A Sea Sami Story Source

by Hermod Pedersen
extracted from Everyday Life Philosophers
by Marianne Gullestad, Scandinavian Univ. Press, Oslo 1996

I was born during the Second World War on an April day in 1941. It happened on an island in Northern Troms, about 70° north. I was the sixth child of the family. Two of the five first ones died some time after birth. After me another three children were born. The family lived on seasonal fishing and a small farm with a couple of cows and 10 -15 sheep. My parents belonged to the Laestadian religious community. The island received electric power in 1955. A road and connection by ferry boat came aboutten years later. This was the frame around the world into whichI was born, and where I was to live as a child and as a young person.

My parents were apparently not interested in their "carnal origin." They lived off the land and the sea, just as their parents and grandparents had done before them. They never questioned
these things. Nor did they give me any reason to do so. A few
years ago, I received an inquiry from a relative in the U.S. about
our family relations. Only then did I begin to look a little more
closely at my own ancestry.

According to historical sources, my ancestors on my father's side already lived on the island during the first half of the eighteenth century. They, too, lived off what they got from the sea and land. One assumes that they came from Tornedalen (a part of Sweden before 1809, then a part of Finland) because of crop failure and war. Later, I suppose, the family developed as a result of "the meeting of the three tribes." In other words through intermarriage between Norwegians, Sami and Finns (Kvens). On my mother's side, the first family allegedly came from Røros in South Trøndelag around 1870. Some of them were carpenters, and they had a small carpenter's workshop, tending to local needs. But they, too, gradually found their livelihood in the sea and on the land.

The Sami and/or Finnish (Kven) in my family manifested itself in the way that some people pronounced p for b and the other way around. Now there are very few of them left. To be a Sami or a "Mountain-Lapp" (fjellfinn) in Northern Troms during the first half of this century was not always easy. Right up to our days the designation "Mountain-Lapp" has been regarded as aninsult. Maybe this is one of the reasons why my parents seemed to be more or less indifferent to their background. They were probably not able to hide their prejudices and feelings of inferiority from the world. I was in any case always very embarrassed when somebody in the close family pronounced p for b etc. Later on I felt the same way when we started to hear our own dialect on the radio, in spite of correct pronunciation of p and b.

My mother never messed up p and b, even if she grew up in the house of an aunt on the mainland where their everyday speech was only Finnish. The sister of the aunt was married to grandfather whose forefathers came from Røros (in the middle of Norway). Mother has told that she did not want to learn Finnish, but, nevertheless, she has disclosed that she knows more than she wants to know. It was father and his siblings who missed the p's and the b's. They were away for long periods of time on seasonal fisheries. It happened that mother joked to father about his way of being and his pronunciation with reference to his ancestors. It was a kind of secret dialogue with
hints and allusions that was meant to pass over the heads of us,
the children. Today I cannot tell how father reacted to this. He never disclosed any kind of irritation. He laughed and let it pass jokingly. In any case I perceived the wrong use of p and b as something negative and disparaging. Later, it has occurred to me that mother's sisters were concerned about marking that they were not Sami. When I call mother today, I always greet her by saying hello in Sami, and she responds by saying thanks the same in Finnish. The matter rests there since I do not know my mother tongue.

Reidar Hirsti has written a book where he uses the expression "a people without a past" and that's a good description. I feel very divided. Sometimes I say "they" about the Sami, sometimes I say "we." In reality I am a coastal Sami (kystsame). Last summer I wore a gákti (the Sami outfit) for the first and so far, for the last time in my life. We visited with relatives in the U.S. and they were very excited about their Sami origins. They lent me and my wife the gáktis and took pictures of us. Sometimes I play with the idea of surprising our neighbors at home by wearing a gákti on the 17th of May (the Norwegian national day when many people wear their national costumes). But there are also tendencies among the Sami that I do not like. For example, some regard Norwegians as inferiors. In my view, Ole Henrik Magga (leader of the Sami parliament) put these things in their right place a few years ago, by saying that "The Sami are a people, nothing less and nothing more."

The Sami had a small ring of 4 or 5 mm on the ferrule of their knives. It gave a tiny brittle sound that could almost not be heard by humans. This sound was meant to warn animals, so that one did not meet a sleeping bear head on in the darkness of night. I am an 84.04% Sami and I have often been told that I am shy. When I look a person in the eyes and he or she withdraws and looks down or in another direction, I feel that I have in a way "trampled" on something in that person. Is this because of the "84.04%"?

My ancestors have remained without names in historical writings. They have quietly slipped into the unknown darkness. My paternal grandmother died a few years before I was born - about 50 years ago. Nevertheless I have seen the glow of her life and calling in the eyes and the faces of elderly women within and outside of the family. When they talked about her, they lowered their voices in respect for her memory. Only the best parts of me are related to her. She was of Sami or Finnish descent and spoke Norwegian very badly. As a self-taught midwife she was called upon to help humans as well as animals. She was also called to the neighboring islands and could be away as long as two or three weeks, even when she had small children at home. Where poverty was worst, she also took the time to bring forth life after birth. It is said that sometimes she went from house to house in the community to which she had come, to ask for pieces of cloth that she could use as diapers for the baby she had delivered. Do not think that what she did was paid work.

She must have been a wise and insightful person. Once a young person in the settlement got a metal fragment in his eye. He went to the physician who did not find anything or who couldn't do anything. The young boy was referred to an eye specialist. The boy probably did not know what the doctor was talking about. What and where was an eye specialist? The parents sent him to grandma. There he was ordered to lie down on a bench with his head in the lap of the unskilled eye specialist. She located the foreign substance and removed it with a darning needle that she had first put in a flame.

Norway-at-the-margins probably had many people like her in the 1910s, 20s and 30s, even if everybody could not take on as much as she did. Without them, poverty and disease would more often have become a dire need.

After school we started the education leading to conformation. This introduction to Christianity lasted three weeks. The only thing I remember from the teachings of the minister is his understanding of northern Norwegian youth. We were sexually loose, and he could see that a veritable lust was shining in our eyes. We were apparently not created in the image of his southern Norwegian God.

In spite of the geographical distance and the distance in time of almost 2000 years, we identified very much with the Biblical persons. Jesus' disciples were fishermen, just like the island people. The problems of the disciples were our problems. Our ancestors had to pay taxes simultaneously to Russia, Sweden and Norway. We found support in the Bible for generations of mistrust and suspicion between the inhabitants and the government. The system of laws of the country and the decrees of the ministers were not always in line with the sense of justice of local people. Therefore ironic expressions in the Bible such as "the Pharisees and the book-learned" fitted like feet in rubber boots on our outlying islands.

The content of Paul's letter to the Corinthians, for example, gave no reason for maintaining divergent interpretations. Not a word or an iota in the Bible could be interpreted away. The man was the head of the woman (chapter 11:5), during gatherings women were to remain silent (chapter 14:34-36), and the woman should keep her head covered (chapter 11:3). This was also the way it was in the gatherings. I never heard one word from women with shawls over their heads in these gatherings. At most low whispers while serving coffee - it was of course always the women who served the coffee.

Once mother almost had enough. The speaker had provided an example by pointing to the simple-minded women. It would have been a sacrilege to protest, but a few days later, she had a more humorous view on the incident. She was not able to conceal a hint of contempt. This view of the woman was also valid in secular matters. At one municipal election a sensible person was among the first names on the ballot. The problem was only that she was a woman. One of the oldest on the island found the ballot to be good, but he could not understand why this woman was on the list among the men. Was there really nobody who could take the position? Not only God, but also Caesar wanted his share

My first conscious experience of Laestadianism happened when I was about three years old. In our community the Laestadians arranged their meetings in private homes. The meetings were just called gatherings or gathering. One permanently chosen person read from the Bible, or from other approved scriptures, and hymns were sung. The climax in the gatherings at the time were the "agitations." Some people in the congregation embraced each other and talked together while weeping. Others sang hymns. I was 3½ years old when we were to evacuate because of the German retreat from Finnmark and
Northern Troms. My first experience of an "agitation" in a gathering was probably influenced by anxiety because of what was about to happen. It occurs to me that I was lying on my knees on a bench, looking down into a utility sink and putting my fingers into the holes. After that time, the flow of tears from screaming and singing people and drops of water in the sink with holes have been synonymous notions deep down in my consciousness.

A tragic incident during my childhood made deep traces in my mind. Father's uncle, his son, and the step son of his son borrowed our three-place rowing boat in order to go to the outer side of the island with a long line. They were to be away for twoor three days. I can still "see" the three neighbors when they rowed from the shore with forceful strokes. One day, when they were to start rowing, a heavy sea swept over the boat and turned it over. Father's uncle and the step son of his son drowned. They were found a few weeks later at the shore, far away from the place where the accident had happened. To me, the reactions of grief in the community are like hysterical seizures. I was frightened by the strong and uncontrolled outbursts of emotion. I remember women running back and forth, without any purpose and meaning. Later in life, I have always kept away from funerals. When I was in the beginning of my twenties, a dear friend and beloved uncle perished. Even then, after so many years, I could not stand going to the funeral, but hiked all day in the mountains. Seven to eight years before the tragic accident of my uncle and the stepson of his son, the island people had found a couple of hundred Germans on the shore. Now two of our own were found. During the war, some people had wished they would find a million corpses. This was the difference between hatred and love.

Where else could I go if I could not bear to be present? To a bar in order to become drunk? I never went to a bar with my religious uncle (shame!). We went hunting in the mountains where we shared joys and experiences. In the mountains I leave behind stress and trouble and find time and peace for reflection and afterthought.

I did not think my paternal grandfather religious. I remember him as a down-to-earth and reflective human being. He was put to use in the municipal government and, among other things he served on the taxation committee. I was around five or six years old when he told me about an incident which has probably been overwhelmingly important for my attitude towards the occult. One dark evening he was walking along a deserted part of the sea shore. Then he discovered that the sea was burning in an area about 200 meters from shore. His contemporaries probably would have understood and accepted his reaction if he had run home to tell about the unpleasant sight. Instead, he whistled for the dog which ran in front of him. It did not notice anything abnormal. Soon after, he saw that the moon was creating the sight by throwing its magic light on the agitated sea, through a hole in the clouds. He killed a myth in its birth, and ignited a light in the darkness for the six year old.

The essence of my childhood learning can be summarized in the following way: the person who does not believe in God, and who does not live according to the word of God, will be thrown into the flames of hell and will be eternally tormented. As a child, while wide awake as well as while dreaming, I understood God to be a kind of omnipresent "keeper of records," collecting evidence against me. The evidence was to be used against me on the day of judgment. The childhood teachings were of course preached with the very, very best intentions, that is, for my salvation from eternal damnation in hell. If I didn't learn to love God as a child, I did at least learn to fear him.

I have not really experienced my parents as gloomy and bad spirited. They, as well as other people in the denomination, made fun together about everyday life occurrences. It was in the religious domain that I experienced taboos and intolerance without compromise. A typical domain of taboo was everything pertaining to sexuality. As children we were even protected from the propagation of animals, for example when the cow was with the ox. When my youngest brother was born, I had no idea about what was going to happen. Mother was big, but that was the way mother was. One day she did not get up, and everybody waited for uncle's fishing cutter to bring the midwife from the municipal center. I asked one of my elder brothers about what went on, but he was also not confident enough to answer directly. Maybe it was not very much different in other social circles at the end of the 1940s.

When the grown-ups talked about religious things with the preachers and others, they expressed themselves in elevated ways, in line with the written word in the Bible. For modern and enlightened contemporary people, this can seem a little strange. It is, nevertheless, no more strange than our own attitude towards the Constitution. It is still written in the Danish language and receives its additions in the same style. In spite of the history of a hundred years parliamentarism, we still keep resolutions about the King's absolute power. We, too, have our holy cows.

The war. The unrest and anxiety were probably unconsciously absorbed by me. Our island was for a long time situated outside direct war actions. We were informed through newspapers and radio. After radios became illegal, they were hidden away and listened to in their hiding places. Gradually the island became more directly touched by the war. More and more often high speed patrol boats appeared. Everybody and everything was watched through binoculars. When a patrol boat arrived one day, a family had hung up a slaughtered sheep. The dead animal was put in a tub made of sheet metal, carried to a fence in the outfields and placed in a ditch. I do not know about any confiscations of animals or meat. It is impossible to prove if I actually saw the thick woman run with the heavy tub, or if this image is vividly created by my imagination after hearsay.

Some people walked along the shore in the moonlight evenings to pull drowned German soldiers out of the water. One of them was asked if he dared walk in the darkness to look for corpses in the sea. "Why not, I might find a million of them," he answered. The war had entered the human mind in "that simple, unaffected place."

In this period several house raids were undertaken. During such a search in our home, mother had placed some freshly baked breads on the counter, up against the wall. The German officer lifted one of the breads, and with an unpleasant expression on his face he sniffed meticulously at the bread. This must have annoyed mother enormously, because over the years she has spoken about this particular incident, and not about the house search from basement to attic. This episode has contributed to her understanding of the Germans as "the successors of Cain."

I remember my primary school barracks as an utterly gloomy, weather worn, grey, monstrous beast. Usually we were lying two children in each bed. There were, of course, no possibilities for bathing or showering at school. Personal hygiene was restricted to the use of a wash basin once a day. The first years they discovered lice on us every now and then. Scabies erupted once, but was soon under control. I cannot remember anybody using a tooth brush. I was at the school dentist's only once during the seven years of school. Two holes were filled. There was no running water at school. Water had to be carried from the wellhouse by the creek, about 30 meters from the
school. The water bucket was standing at the far end of the hall. On the wall a ladle was hanging for everybody's use as a common drinking vessel...I think that practice stopped after some time.

When I finished primary school and left the gloomy gray boarding school barracks, I must have felt strongly that this was a departure. If I had put my feelings into words at the time, I think it would have been more relief than joy. Later in life, when I have dreamed of a departure from an unpleasant place, it has always been a kind of dark attic and stairs leading toward a door with sunlight outside. Even if the details did not quite fit, I always thought about the boarding school barracks from the time of primary school when I woke up after such a dream.

I was one of those who had the longest distance to walk to school after weekends, about eight kilometers. We walked the roadless distance Monday morning and back again Saturday afternoon. It wasn't really a problem when there was no snow or with reasonably good winter skiing conditions. It was worst in the passage between fall and winter, and between spring and summer. Then we had to resort to a slippery beach with many large stones. It could be relatively strenuous for 7 or 8 year olds. Skiing on sticky conditions without ski tracks could also be a real toil. The biggest boys always went first and trampled the tracks. The tracks became worse as the first ones arrived home. The two or three last kilometers could be grudging toil, even if one was met by older siblings on the last stretch.

During the weeks at home, we had a good deal of home work to do. As far back as I can remember, we also had duties to tend at home. We had to do what we could do according to age qualifications. During early summer we went along to the peat bogs when it was time to gather peat. The bogs were situated in the outfields, and we had to row about an hour to get there. The peat lumps were dug and lifted up on the bog by means of peat forks. That was regarded as the heavy work of adult males. After this the lumps were rolled over to the drying areas, usually heather or grass ridges. This, too was regarded as men's work and could be done by the biggest boys. Then the lumps became peat by being divided into thinner slices and raised against each other to dry. This was done by children, and it was usually regarded as women's work. After a couple of weeks, the peat
slices could be piled in heaps. They were pyramid-shaped stacks. In these heaps they became totally dry, and could be put in peat bags made of trawler linen. Before my time the peat was carried to the rowing boats and piled up without bags. The bags were an improvement, making the transport more reasonable. Nevertheless, the boats had to be rowed, like before, because outboard motors had not yet arrived. It could be a really strenuous task to row an overloaded boat against streams and winds. Sometimes we tied a rope to the boat and one person walked along the shore and helped pull it against wind and stream. At home the peat was carried up into the outhouses and later carried inside when needed during the winter. The winter firewood was also chopped in this outfield. The small and crooked birch trees were sawed down around midsummer (St. Hans). In the fall the branches were chopped off, or "taxed," as we said. After this time the stems were pulled to the shore and rowed home. I believed we participated in the pulling of firewood from age 11 or 12.

The kitchens of the reconstructed houses were big and designed also to be workrooms. The fishing nets were hung in a corner. Beside the oven, mother was sitting spinning wool yarn on the spinning wheel. These peaceful fall evenings are some of the best childhood memories I have. I could sit for long periods of time watching father mending the nets. First he cut the holes clean of loose threads with a small mending knife resting on a solid ring that he had on one finger. Then needle and thread went quickly and skillfully in and out of the meshes until the hole was sewn or mended. After some time I was allowed to try mending nets. In this way we learned the most important things, so that later on we could manage on our own when we were to leave home to live among strangers.

My parents had gotten some land separated off from the family farm and they built a house, a dairy barn and the necessary outhouses. The years before the war, it was not uncommon that father started work at four a.m. This was particularly the case during the fishing for pollack with seine in the fall. He had to walk three or four kilometers to the place from which they rowed, and he did not come home before late in the afternoon. After he had stretched out a few minutes on the floor after dinner, he went out to clear new land with a spade and a lever. As the fall proceeded, it became dark in the afternoon before he was ready to go out. Then he brought along the dairy lantern as a source of light. Other people who also toiled hard asked themselves where he got the strength and energy. When the Germans withdrew from Finnmark and Northern Troms, they set fire to everything that he had built up through drudgery, sweat, and economic sacrifice. Perhaps it was not so strange that my parents could not stand to hear German spoken on the radio, even many years after the war. They did not demonstrate loudly, but quietly went out of earshot of the radio.
"This year I did not notice the period of darkness," many people said at the turn of the year 1954-55. That fall we got electric light. It represented the watershed in time on our island. Nobody who is not born and bred in a society without electric light can fully understand the immediate change. In addition to the light, the electric heating meant a lot, in the short as well as the long run. One morning people had to be groping in the dark for the kerosene lamp in an ice-cold house, before they could start lighting a fire in the stove and put on the obligatory coffee kettle. The next morning they could get up in a warm or temperate house and say: "There shall be light - and there was light." It was almost like outdoing the good Lord!

Electric heating implied that the use of peat was suddenly discontinued. With the peat ended the traditional work on the peat bogs after the frost had left the soil. Now the need emerged to buy a stove, ovens, vacuum cleaners, radio, etc. The "egg and butter money" from the small farm was no longer enough as a supplement to the money earned through the seasonal fisheries. More and more people started to take up paid work in the fish factories that gradually grew in number and size. Some became involved in construction work. In this way they were tied into "permanent" work during the plowing and haying seasons on the farm. The daily routines in factories and on construction sites were dependent on rest and relaxation during the short vacation in the middle of the summer. Gradually people stopped using their vacations for seasonal work, and many farms were laid fallow. The family remained in the periphery, while the husband worked in the town or on the fishing station. When the farm was left fallow, many realized that all the ties to the locality were cut off, and they moved with the family to where work could be found. Their children started to seek out more advanced education wherever it was located. As children we heard almost every day that there was no future in fishing. We ought to go to school and find permanent work. The parental generation which grew up before the war did not want us to have the same drudgery as they had had. My family and I were among those who did not move. I also did not leave in order to do fishing or to educate myself elsewhere. Therefore I experienced this period as one of those who remained.

The way of life combining fishing and farming really disappeared with the cow. The old people, whose struggles to expand the farms had earned them broken health, had to witness that the fences fell into decay and that the infields became outfields and pasture for those who still had sheep. The willow underbrush that had been pulled off with muscle power started to grow in over fields again. The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away.




From #16, Fall 1999

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