The unknown people from north in Norway

The Sami people are the indigenous people in Norway. They where the first people that settled on Norwegian ground and are a big part of Norwegian culture. The first mention of the Sami people is around 98 A.D. and they were then called the Fenni which could come from the “Finish people”, but it has also been suggested that they got their name from the Norwegian word “finn” which means that “found”. This because they were believed to eat the food they found rather than growing it themselves.

It is clear that the Sami people were nomads, and there were different ways for them to take from the nature. As it was very cold in the nothern parts of Norway it was difficult to grow something for themselve so they rather chased reindeers or other animals with traps. However most of the Sami people were fishermen that lived from fishing and had settlements at the sea. We can divide the Samis in two different groups; the mountain Samis and the sea Samis.

The Mountain Samis is the minorities of the Sami people. They did chase reindeers and other animals in the mountains and around 1500 they began to hear reindeers and they still do it the day today. They usually lived in a typical tend that is named Lavvo made from reindeer skin and which easily could be moved from place to place. It was important to the mountain Samis that they could move with the herd, as the renders always needed new places to pasture. These have been known for the moving samis and they liberally crossed the borders to both Finland and Sweden.

The sea Samis were the one living at the coast living from fishing as well as a limited farming. The golf current provided the warm sea water and just in the coast it was able to grow carrots and potatoes and other vegetables. However they lived mostly from the sea, and were good fishermen that knew the sea. They did however not move from place to place, neither living In Lavvos as they didn't need a flexible house. The majority of Samis were sea Samis, and it's understandable as they didn't want the unpredictable future of living by hunting.

In the 19^th century the Sami people were forced from Norwegian authorities to learn Norwegian in schools and the Sami people and had to register with a Norwegian name, as well as proof that they could speak and write Norwegian. There were sent teachers from Oslo to teach the Sami people the Norwegian, and because of this one can hear that the dialect in the Finnmark districts has many similarities to the one in Oslo, which seems strange as they are located so far from each other. The Sami people also had a lower social rang in this period, and one didn't recognize the culture as valuable.

Today the Sami people are known as equals. In fact, they have their own parliament that can send request to the Norwegian authorities on their representative view on different cases. The Sami people aslo are the only ones that are allowed to live from herding the reindeer.

The Sami people are an important part of Norwegian culture and even though they are the minorities, some will say that “they were here first”.  They have had an important part of Norwegian history and have thereby had a great influence on the culture as well.

Written by Eivind