Two shamanic institutions existed in Finland and
Karelia across prehistory—the Arctic-Saami and the Uralic-Finnic. Giving form and meaning to their rituals and
practices over that time were their distinctive ‘ontological frames’. I will explore the frame of the Arctic-Saami
institution in this post, and in the following post that of the Uralic-Finnic
institution.
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| Sieidi at Haukkasaari (A figurative sieidi, possibly feline.) |
The Sieidi Tradition of the Arctic-Saami Institution
Ake Hultkrantz says that for the Saami, stone sieidis were the “true territorial
guardian spirits”, governing hunting territories and fishing waters. (1) As we saw in a previous post, the sieidi
was usually in the form of an anomalous stone, boulder or cliff, sometimes with
a human- or animal-like face.
Based on ethnographic accounts, noaidis (shamans)
would conduct rites of animal ceremonialism, drumming and performing a joik
(a form of ceremonial song or chant) to enter a trance state and establish
contact with the sieidi. At the
same time, members of the band would prostrate in worship in front of the sieidi.
Offerings of portions of the previous successful hunt—e.g.,
elk, reindeer, seal or fish—would be made to the sieidi as part of the
‘cult of sacrifice’. If the sieidi was satisfied with the
offerings and the way in which they were presented, s(he) would reciprocate by
providing abundant game for the wilderness hunters and fishers. There is evidence that these rites of animal
ceremonialism have been conducted by the Arctic-Saami since the Stone Age.
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| The remains of a sacrifice from early modern times at Ukonsari Island, Finland |
As we saw in an earlier post, when missionaries of
the early Lutheran church encountered these rites in the 17th
century, they called the sieidi deity a ‘false god’. In the Lutheran ontology of the time, ‘true
spirit’ only issued from the realm of God, and it was considered outside and
above the material world of nature. The sieidi
of stone of the Arctic-Saami band—‘brute matter’ standing on a hill or by a
lake—did not partake of it. I referred to this as an expression of spirit/matter
dualism.
Again, recalling an earlier post, we saw that beginning
in the 19th century, practitioners of the new profession of
anthropology designated the elements of nature that the peoples worshipped—such
as the stone sieidis—as mere objects. The peoples had ‘in error’ projected
subjectivity onto them, through identifying them as spirit guardians of the
local land and its game. According to the
modernist ontology that prevailed in mainstream anthropology, only humans could
be subjects (persons) within social life, i.e., capable of intention,
communication, and forming relationships with others. I have referred to this
as an expression of subject/object dualism, or ‘objectivism’.
We cannot know in a direct way how the Arctic-Saami
foragers of prehistory themselves regarded their worship of the sieidi and the rites of animal
ceremonialism. However, based on
ethnographic evidence and the study of comparable hunter-gatherer-fisher
cultures of today, ‘new animist’ anthropologists attribute to them a relational
ontology that was non-dualistic in nature.
To help us explore what this means, I have
identified three core elements of such an ontology, cast here as
questions.
(1) What ontological forms do spirit persons take?
(2) What is the nature of social relations between human persons and spirit
persons?
(3) What is the nature of the ‘sacred geography’ of the worlds—of this
world and the other world—where these social relations take place?
Through answering these questions from the
standpoint of the Arctic-Saami shamanic institution, I believe we can arrive at
an approximation of the assumptions that were held by its members about the ultimate
nature of reality, that I call its ‘ontological frame’. Deeply embedded in everyday life, it framed
and guided the conduct of the rites of animal ceremonialism by the noaidi
in relation to the sieidi, and the artists in their creation of works of
sacred art that helped make these rites possible.
Ontological Frame Element 1: What
ontological forms do spirit persons take?
As we will recall, Rydving observed that a sieidi
is a type of “spiritual being” who is “bound to the landscape and to
certain natural formations”. (2) What was the
ontological nature of this spiritual being, the sieidi, for the
Arctic-Saami? And what did it mean to be
‘bound’ to the landscape?
Regarding the ontological nature of the sieidi,
there is substantial scholarly agreement that the sieidi was considered a
deity. For example, Parpola reports that
in the Finnish-Swedish dictionary of Elias Lönnrot, a pre-eminent scholar of the
rune tradition of Finland, the word “seita” is recorded with the meaning
of “Lappish (pagan) deity”. (3)
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| Sieidi at Porviniemi |
What is the meaning of the sieidi deity
being bound to the landscape, i.e., to the boulders or rock cliffs?
There has not been unanimity on the question of how
the Saami viewed the relationship between the sieidi deity and the stone formation among Lutheran missionaries and the later
scholars who have depended upon their writings.
Manker states, “At times it (the sieidi stone) was considered the
genius loci (spirit of the place), at others the worshipped god himself,
his image, or his residence….” (4) Let us review these
and other interpretations.
Association Between Deity and Stone
According to one interpretation, the sieidi is primarily a ‘place’. Korpela says, “The word seita actually
refers more to the place where the idol is living than to the god itself.” That is, for Korpela, the land on which the
‘idol’ sits is sacred, but the ‘god’ may be elsewhere. (5)
Two other writers, based on their researches,
suggest that for the Saami, the deity did not live beside or near the stone,
but within it. Karsten
characterises the Saami view as that the sieidi stone was “inhabited by
a spiritual being”. (6) Similarly, Itkonen (as reported by Aikas)
suggests that Saami believed that the stone itself was a “godly dwelling site”
or place of residence of a deity. (7)
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| Äkässaivo sieidi, Äkäslompolo. Lapland |
For both Karsten and Itkonen, the deity spirit is
separate from the material stone in which it dwells, representing two separate
and incompatible modes of being that nevertheless can coexist. Each of their views, in its own way, reflects
the influence of Christian spirit/matter dualism.
This spirit/matter opposition is explicit in a
passage from Castren, considered the
founder of the study of comparative mythology in Finland, who paid particular
attention to the Saami seidr (sieidi) tradition. Writing in 1853,
he disputes the view that in the case of a Saami stone seidr, the
“person of the god lay in matter itself”. (8) In doing so, it is
clear that he considered them as two separate ontological forms—the spiritual
‘stuff’ of a god and the material ‘stuff’ of stone—and implies that it is an
error to suggest they can be one in the same.
However, two respected analysts of Saami lifeways
do, in fact, step beyond the elementary spirit/matter dualism of the above
accounts, suggesting a merging of the two ontological categories: i.e., the deity incarnates as a sieidi. Writing of the tradition of the Saami of
Sweden, Inga Maria Mulk states that “Sejtar are shaped by nature and
polished through erosion by water, ice and wind. They usually represent animals
and birds but can also have human shapes.” They were “both the images and incarnations of the
local divine masters who protected
land and animals within a defined area.”
(9)
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| Excerpt from "Ancient Nordic Sami people Sacrifice and Pagan religious feast": Bernard Picart, 1724-26 |
In a similar way, Manker refers to what he calls a seite
as “an incarnation of the divine ruler of the place (region) and hence the
centre of power of that place (region) as well.” Seites are “stone
images of gods, which showed slight traces of human craftsmanship … originally
fashioned by nature herself: thus the
deity must have shaped herself.” (4)
In the two views on incarnation, there is a merging
of ontological categories of spirit and matter.
Nevertheless, the existence of two originally separate ontological
‘essences’—spirit and matter—is still affirmed, even as the essences merge in a
one-way process of incarnation—a deity shaping herself as a stone at some primordial time.
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| Vladimir Soloviev, 1853-1900 |
Vladimir Soloviev, an early Russian observer of
Saami lifeways, puts forward a view on incarnation different from those of Mulk
and Manker. He was an ‘anti-positivist’
philosopher who rejected the modernist trend of reducing the ‘real’ to only
that which is immediately perceptible through the senses.
In his book of 1873, Soloviev describes the views
of a writer on sacred stone “seitars”, that were considered by the Saami
to be deceased ancestors. The writer in
question believed that the Saami initially considered them as mere grave
stones, and only later “started to look upon them as gods-ancestors” (i.e.,
projected the identity on them).
Soloviev disagrees with this interpretation, saying “The Lapps
identified the sacred stone with the deceased in word because they did not
separate them in conception; they believed that the dead person turns into a
stone, and a stone turns into an elemental spirit, remaining a stone and a dead
person.” (10)
I would call Soloviev’s conception as that of a two-way
process of incarnation. Spirit
becomes stone, and stone becomes spirit, with both of them attaining a joint
status of subject as part of a new ‘gods-ancestor’ being. In this view, matter is elevated to the same
ontological status as spirit: both are capable of assuming subjectivity, while
at the same time preserving their separateness.
Overall, I believe Soloviev made an early and
admirable attempt to reflect the animist relationality of the Arctic-Saami,
going as far as one can while remaining within the boundaries of spirit/matter
dualism. However, recent theorising on the relational
ontology of hunter-gatherer-fishers by ‘new animists’ goes beyond these
dualistic boundaries, shedding fresh light on the ontological status of the sieidi in the Arctic-Saami shamanic
tradition with which previous authors had been grappling.
Other-than-Human
Persons
Vesa-Pekka
Herva, drawing upon the work of Ingold and others, observes that relational
ontology “basically proposes that neither organisms nor things have an
unchanging ‘inner essence’”, composed, I would add, of either ‘spirit’ or of
‘matter’. Instead, in a relational
ontology, such as that of the Arctic-Saami, “what entities ‘are’ is defined by
their past and present relationships and interaction with other entities.” (11)
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| Vesa-Pekka Herva, University of Helsinki |
It
is through such relationships and interaction that one shows oneself to be a
‘person’ (a defining category of animism) capable of operating in a social way (‘social’
being another defining category) in a larger community of persons. The term ‘person’ applies to both humans and
to all those objects and other beings who show themselves capable of entering
into relationships with other persons, through displaying the capacities of
consciousness, communication, agency and intention. The latter are termed
‘other-than-human persons’ by ‘new animists’, to emphasise the contrast between
the hunter-gatherer ontology and the modernist view that only humans can be ‘subjects’ within social
life.
Regarding
this point, Karsten records the observation of the early Saami author Johan
Turi, who said that “The animals, the trees, the stones and other inanimate
things have lost the power of speech, but they still retain hearing and
intellect. Therefore it is necessary to
treat the animals well and to regard all things as if they were living beings
who hear and understand.” (6)
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| Johan Turi, Swedish Saami author, 1922 |
In
their wilderness environment, the Arctic-Saami respectfully communicated and
negotiated with a wide range of other-than-human persons upon whom their
survival depended, including ones we normally consider to be animate (e.g.,
elk), ones we consider to be inanimate (e.g., ceramic pots), as well as ones
existing in the other world (e.g., Arctic-Saami upper world divinities such as
Valralden Olmah). The relations were specifically social. Viveiros de Castro
states that animism is “an ontology which postulates the social character of
relation between humans and nonhumans (i.e., other-than-humans): the space between nature and society is
itself social.” (12)
The
dualism of subject versus object did not form part of what anthropologist
Robert Layton calls the “indigenous theory of how the world works”, or
ontology, of the Arctic-Saami shamanic complex.
(13) This did not rule out the understanding by Arctic-Saami
of the instrumental properties of physical things, based on a capacity to
objectify them. However, this
objectification did not form the basis for categorisation of the nature of
reality.
Multiple Worlds
Another defining category of animism is the existence of multiple
worlds, including the material one of ‘this’ world and the non-material ones of
the ‘other’ world. In this regard, ‘spirit persons’, including
divinities and deities, are a specific type or class of other-than-human
persons recognised by animists, ones who can inhabit the non-material
worlds. ‘Spirit’ here does not have the
same meaning that it does within transcendental religions, that is, as being in
dualistic opposition to ‘matter’. (14)
Spirit persons can be either discarnate or
material, or both at different times. Unlike
Christian cosmologies, those of Saami and Finnic peoples often have as their
basis natural forms, such as the wind or thunder, rather than transcendental
ones. According to Honko, in the oldest
form of the myth of creation in Baltic-Finnish area, “the process of creation
takes place independently of any identified supra-normal forces or
persons.” The ‘earth diver’ bird and the
‘cosmic egg’ figure prominently in the process of creation and the ‘world tree’
forms the backbone of the three worlds. (15)
While Saami deity persons are recognised for
superior powers and abilities, unlike Christian figures they do not require
‘belief’ in something that is not fully knowable. That is, the powers and abilities of deity
persons are demonstrated in reciprocal social relationships with other
persons. (11) At the same time, they alone are not
considered as powerful: particular individuals
or groups are also recognised in every species of animist persons for their
power or wisdom, such as elders—whether they are human, tree, or other.
Returning
to the seitar of Soloviev, this
spirit person was not treated by the Arctic-Saami as having an elemental ‘inner
essence’ of either spirit or stone. (As Soloviev puts it, “they did not
separate them in conception”). Rather,
because Arctic-Saamis were able to communicate and form relationships with
him/her, the seitar was for them a single, integral ‘god-ancestor-person’.
Moreover, this personhood was not just mentally projected onto the ‘gods-ancestor’,
as the other writer suggested (i.e., “started
to look upon them as gods-ancestors”).
Rather, it was in the nature of a discovery made by the Arctic-Saami
in the course of person to person communication with him/her.
Herva
expands on the nature of such a discovery, saying, “To encounter a nature spirit
was to recognise that a spring, tree or some other landscape element behaved in
a manner characteristic to persons.” (11)
We have an example of this in the
identification by the Arctic-Saami of a sieidi,
discussed earlier. Through the medium of
an offering, the sieidi would
recognise the humans as other-than-sieidi
persons, and conversely, the Arctic-Saami band would recognise that the sieidi as an other-than-human
person.
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| Päällyskivi sieidi, Lake Inari, Finland |
In
this way, according to Herva, the identification of an other-than-human person—as
we are identifying the sieidi deity
here—was “empirically based”, i.e., determined by whether or not there had been
reciprocity. Herva continues, “Unlike
(the) Christian god, non-human beings could be directly perceived and known
even if they were not always around or engaging with people.” (11)
Sieidi as person
The
Finnish archaeologist Antti Lahelma is, to my knowledge, the first researcher
to apply the ‘new animist’ analysis to the Saami sieidi. Writing in 2008 he
said, “the sieidi were viewed as
‘other-than-human persons’ – animate, human-like beings that could be
communicated with.” (16)
He refers to a sieidi, with some
hyperbole, as a ‘living, breathing stone person’. He observes
that Saami themselves applied
the term keäd’ge-olmuš, or “stone person”, to anthropomorphic sieidis.
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| Click here for an excerpt of an animation from the National Museum of Finland. |
The
significance of Lahema’s identification of the personhood of the sieidi can be seen in the fact
that, according to Harvey, “Stone personhood presents a particular challenge to
the modern Western worldview which presumes that rocks are the primary,
archetypal form of inanimate matter.” (14) Overcoming the challenge required an
understanding of what can be called the ‘sacred geology’ of the Arctic-Saami.
Carpelan observes that the stone on a lakeshore or mountainside is the original and only form of the deity—no prior ontological form existed—differentiating it from the other Arctic-Saami deities, who reside in the upper and lower worlds.
Lahelma points to an aspect of the ethnography of the Saami,
in which “the sieidi have been
reported variously to have shared a sacrificial meal, moved around
independently, and assumed a human shape.” (16)
Lahelma’s
statement may appear to suggest that the sieidi deity is independent of
the sieidi stone. Instead, I believe that it indicates that a sieidi
can, like a noaidi, ‘shape shift’, i.e., take on alternative ontological
forms, such as that of a human person. It
is not necessary to fall back on the dualistic habit of thinking, that
originated with Christianity, that the stone and the deity were two different
things: a deity inhabiting the stone, being incarnated as the stone, or
separate from it in some other way. Instead,
s(he) is an integral relational being, as suggested by the use of the term ‘stone
god’ (Kied-yubmel) by Saamis in Sweden. (16)
Lahelma wishes to be careful not, without evidence,
to project to earlier pre-Christian times the historically known sieidi
tradition. Nevertheless, he concludes
that based on ethnographic and archaeological evidence, “more likely than not”
the sieidi tradition existed the during Neolithic and early Bronze Ages,
4000 B.C. to about 1500 B.C., the time of the rock painting tradition in
Finland. (16)
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| Photo from A Touch of Red, Antti Lahelma |
Lahelma found what is for him convincing
archaeological evidence for his conclusion through excavation of a rock
painting site, Valkeisaari, a cliff with an anthropomorphic ‘face’ located on
an island in Lake Saimaa. He says, referring
to Valkeisaari, “Like the Saami of Lake Inari, the prehistoric inhabitants of
Lake Saimaa region appear to have repeatedly taken food to a sacred island,
cooked it there and ‘shared’ it with the god of the island, manifested by a
rock cliff.” (16)
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| Valkeisaari cliff |
This would suggest that the Valkeisaari
cliff, ‘decorated’ with rock paintings, was recognised by the Arctic-Saami as
a sieidi, a living stone
person, in the Neolithic period.
Let us now return to the saivo (saajvh), the other
class of ‘spiritual beings’ who were also ‘bound’ to the landscape.
The Ontological Form of Saivo
We will recall from an earlier post that saivo are Arctic-Saami guardian and
helping spirits living in sacred mountains, passevare. According to Laestadius, “the Lapps (Saamis) considered
the inhabitants of saivo to be real beings”. He says they were considered “half spiritual and
half material beings”. That is, they could travel beyond their homes and appear
in human form. They were “invoked by
singing a juoigos (a sacred song) and then appeared in human form. If
the Saami refused his services, the spirit threatened to tear him to pieces.” (18)
The helping spirits were the ‘property’ of the
shaman, the noaidi, including the bird, fish or snake, and the reindeer bull saivo. The wild bull reindeer (sa´iva sarva) was most
important. The noaidi could assume its shape and go
out to fight the saivo bull reindeer of another shaman or send it out alone to do so.
All these animals (bird, fish, snake and reindeer)
were referred to with a common name saiwo-vuoign. Vuoign means both ‘spirit’ and ‘the
air that humans breathe’, again suggesting being half spiritual and half
material in their ontological form. The saivo birds that acted as the messengers and guides to the shaman were not
actual birds, but rather, according to Laestadius, “semi-spiritual
representatives of these birds in saivo”. (18)
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| Noitatunturi Fell, Finland, a sacred dwelling of saivo |
From the ethnographic evidence, it seems clear that
the Arctic-Saami viewed both guardian and helping saivo as ‘persons’ in the sense of animist relational ontology. Moreover, they were living ‘between’ the
worlds, half of their being residing in each.
Lahelma assigns a dynamic role to the saivo beings in his study of the rock
painting tradition. However, while he refers
to sieidis as living stone
persons or other-than-human persons, he does not explicitly extend the same animist
status to the saivo beings. This is in spite of the
fact that his many references to the saivo indicate their power and their close relationship to the noaidi, and include the terms “spirit
helper beings”, “soul animals”, and “powerful allies”. He says “the wild reindeer (sa´iva sarva) was most
important. The deer of the noaidi was a manifestation of his power, his alter ego.” Lahelma says elsewhere, “the relationship
between a noaidi and the sa´iva sarva was special. A
strong bond of ‘co-essence’ united the noaidi and his steed.” (16)
The saivo clearly exhibit the characteristics of animistic personhood, i.e., the
capability for communication, intention, and most significantly, of entering
into relationships with other persons, including humans. In her study of the animism of the Saami,
Helander-Renvall says the Saami “perceive lands, and animals and spirits
dwelling on those lands as persons and subjects.” This would apply to the saivo spirit persons. (19)
By excluding saivo beings from the category of personhood, Lahelma limits his ability to
interpret the social nature of relations of humans and other-than-humans
in the area of his study, the rock painting tradition of early Finland. I will return to this point below.
The Saivo as Bound to the Landscape
As a class of ‘spiritual beings’, the saivo, like the sieidi, were
‘bound’ to the landscape. What was the
ontological nature of being 'bound'?
As we saw previously, the ‘homes’ of saivo spirit beings were inside
sacred mountains, sacred ‘fells’ (high barren plateaus), and in sacred lakes, all
also called saivo. Beneath the surfaces were their homes, in sacred, invisible realms of
the other world where they carried on their lives. (1)
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| ”Noidekörmai, the shaman’s snake” living on a noaidi drum, National Museum of Finland |
Unlike the sieidi, in which deity and stone
were one, the saivo could travel outside the sacred cliffs and mountains where they lived
into the middle world in order to assist and guard humans. For example, the sacred bird could scout
across the landscape on behalf of the noaidi.
Saivo and Sieidi
A core argument of Finnish archaeologist Antti
Lahelma in his book on Finnish rock painting, A Touch of Red, is of interest here as it centres on the ‘homes’ of
saivo. (16) Let us take a moment to explore it.
Lahelma argues that for the early Saami, the cliffs
on which their rock paintings appear, such as Valkeisaari, are ‘quite probably’
sieidis, that he also terms ‘living stone persons’. He says that residing “inside” the cliffs are
saivo guardians of the noaidi—elk, fish or snake, and
bird. In turn, the red ochre rock
paintings inscribed on the surfaces of the cliffs depict these saivo and the interactions of noaidis
with them. The noaidi uses the rock paintings of the saivo to call forth their assistance
as his “supernatural helpers”, and by touching them, to tap their
“supernatural power”.
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| Elk saivo painting on Valkeisaari |
Lahelma sees as “crucial” his assertion for his
portrayal of the Saami role in the rock painting tradition that saivo lived in the sieidi cliff. However, I have suggested that in the animist
relational ontology of the Saami, sieidis were integral relational
beings, persons, not dwelling places.
Lahelma’s proposition harkens back to the
Christian-influenced dualistic spirit/matter conception of Itkonen and
Paulaharju in which a sieidi spirit is ontologically separate from, but lives
inside the material stone or cliff, only now s(he) co-inhabits it with
additional spirit beings, the saivo.
However, in view of the animist ontological standpoint of the sieidi
as an integral relational being, the intrusion by saivo would represent something akin to rape.
The source of this ontological confusion appears be
the fact that in the ethnographic literature, there were two categories of
cliffs and mountains—the first associated with sieidis and the second
associated with saivo—and they were both called sacred, or passe. (1) Lahelma does not distinguish between the two categories
in his book. Rather, he merges them and their properties into one. To the same cliffs that he identifies as sieidis,
or ‘living stone persons’, he also assigns ontological properties of the
saivo dwellings, i.e., as places that saivo spirit persons enter and
exit and make their homes.
While the rock surfaces of sacred cliffs known as saivo
could serve as membranes between this world and the other world—ontologically
penetrable by spirit persons—the surfaces of sacred cliffs recognised as sieidi
could not. Lahelma’s analysis of how the noaidi was
able to use as helpers the rock paintings of saivo on the surface of the sieidi would appear to founder on
this conflation of ontological forms.
However, I do not agree with Lahelma that the notion
of the residence of saivo inside of stone sieidis is in fact crucial to his analysis. There is another way to conceive of the relationship
between the two types of spirit persons.
Referring back to my previous post on the process
of the sacred artist, I suggest that the saivo rock paintings are not representations or depictions of saivo living within the cliff, but rather are reifications of saivo spirit persons living upon the rock surface of the sieidi, in addition to their original ontological forms in the other world, in
the sacred mountains. The sacred art 'meshwork' that created them would have included at a minimum the following 'rhizomic persons': the sieidi as the stone being 'dressed', the saivo spirit persons, the spirit person of the red ochre of the paint and, as 'executor', likely a noaidi shaman-artist.
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| Photo from the top of the Pyha-Nattanen Fell, a sacred dwelling of saivo |
Like the drawing persons on the face of the noaidi’s drum that we
visited in an earlier post, the rock painting persons on the surface of the sieidi are present and ready to be called as
spirit intermediaries with regard to the saivo, who may live some distance away in sacred mountains. If this argument is accepted, the integral
personhood of the ‘decorated’ sieidi is respected and the central role of rock paintings of saivo is reaffirmed.
This modification of Lahelma’s argument entails recognition
of the personhood of rock paintings. It parallels the suggested acknowledgement,
above, of the personhood of saivo. I believe that the two forms of recognition would accord with the relational
understanding of foragers themselves.
Moreover, I believe that they are essential if we are to understand the social
nature of relations of humans and other-than-humans in the rock painting
tradition. Lahelma’s embrace of the ‘new
animism’ for understanding the rock painting tradition in Finland and Karelia,
while ground-breaking, is seriously incomplete in this respect. I will return to this point in a later post
devoted to that tradition.
Ontological forms
We now have enough information to answer the first
question addressing a core feature of the Arctic/Saami ontological frame.
Let us now explore the
ways in which humans engage socially with sieidis and saivo by means that are appropriate
to their ontological forms. We will see
that the concept of social relations is broader than
just reciprocal communication. It
involves negotiation, contracting, and mutual care.
Ontological Frame Element 2: What is the nature of social relations
between human persons and spirit persons?
When entering a new hunting or fishing area, it was
necessary for an Arctic-Saami band to locate the sieidi there. As we saw in an earlier post, factors that could identify a
particular stone, cliff or other landscape feature formation as a sieidi included an unusual
anthropomorphic or zoomorphic shape, a direct experience of the deity at a
place, a flash of lightening over a rock formation, or the experience of noaidi who slept next to it. If sacrifices to the sieidi resulted in good fortune in
hunting or fishing, the choice would be confirmed and the noaidi could on to develop a reciprocal
relationship with her.
Social Relations with the Sieidi
In Carpelan’s words, the sieidi “operated on the same basis” as
the Saami. That is, unique among the otherworld deities of the Arctic-Saami, the
sieidi resided as a stone in
this, the middle world, along lakeshores or mountains. (17) For this reason, the sieidi was a
living presence for the wilderness Arctic-Saami band.
Lahelma says, “The rock may have been ‘talked with’
and viewed as a potent actor in questions of subsistence and other important
issues.” (16) These ‘talks’, and other social relations
with the sieidi, were
primarily conducted by the noaidi, who in an ecstatic state adjusted his ‘style of communication’ to
that of the deity. He would have been
assisted by his saivo helpers, perhaps himself transforming into the saivo bird who was his scout and
messenger in order to interact directly with the deity. In his communication, he would have made use
of products of the sacred arts as means of communication, including drumming, joiking
(ritual singing), and other ritual objects and performances.
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| Taatsi Sieidi, Kittilä, Finland |
A primary communication task of the noaidi was to negotiate and maintain a
personalised subsistence ‘contract’ with the sieidi, to which both parties would adhere.
In exchange for maintaining the power of the sieidi through offerings, the band would receive from the sieidi a
“humans’ share” of the fish or game into the future. In receiving animals and fish as sacrifices
from the foragers, the sieidi ensured the continuing rebirth of species
under her care. (6)
From the side of the Saami, the fulfillment of the
contract with the sieidi was principally through the rites, led by the noaidi, that are referred to in
anthropological literature as the “cult of sacrifice”. Traditionally, the sacrifices, or offerings,
consisted of a portion of the products of fishing and hunting. According to Manker, this could be reindeer
bones or antlers (as in the graphic above), fish fat, or other ‘food’ that was
‘rich’ in what he calls the ‘soul force’ or ‘vital power’ of these fish and
game, that could be ‘consumed’ as ‘food’ by the sieidi. (4) In bones and antlers of reindeer, Karsten
says, “there was something left of the soul or vital power; hence it was
supposed that through these parts of the body it was possible to continue the
existence of that kind of animal.” (6)
 |
| Illustration in The History of Lapland, John Scheffer, 1674 |
According to Högström, the generosity of a sieidi guardian deity in bestowing
benefits varied according to the quantity and quality of what was sacrificed
and the number of people making sacrifices.
(6) Within the reciprocal contractual
relationship, the sieidi possessed the power to either provide or
withhold fish and game, and as Högström says, “the power of health and illness,
life and death.” According to
ethnographic sources, the sieidi also had the ability to conjure violent storms or other natural
catastrophes if displeased with the actions of the humans. Not surprisingly, sieidis were held in
great reverence, even awe, and the attitude of Saamis was one of worship and
supplication, as in the drawing above.
We may add that the act of worship of the sieidi itself was an additional source of ‘vital
power’. Thompson says, “Worship itself
seems to have the potential to influence the spirit world.” He says, “Perhaps worship is best viewed as
the officiator creating a link between his spirit force and the seite’s. In other words, the officiator allows a part
of his self to be consumed, in order to be bonded with the seite’s spirit force.” (20)
The band was not without its own ability to enforce
the contract in its reciprocal relationship with the sieidi. For example, if the sieidi did not
provide a continuing supply of game or fish or confer other benefits, the band
had the option— occasionally exercised according to ethnographic accounts—to
sever the ontological bond through discontinuing their offerings, abandoning
the sieidi, or even destroying
her. Högström says, “If it happens that
the offerings are suspended, they at the same time lose their power and then
are not able to do good or ill.” Such powerless
and decayed gods are rarely seen, because no one any longer fears them.” (6)
While relations with the sieidi could be
quite formal, with reciprocal obligations, the Saami are also known to have
cooked and shared sacrificial food with her as part of ceremonial feasts. The capacity for ceremonial sharing
highlights the rich, expansive quality of the ‘personhood’ of a sieidi. We have seen that in addition to sharing
ritual meals, the sieidi ‘talked’ with the Arctic-Saami hunter-gatherer-fishers, entered into contractual relationships with
them, displayed emotions such as anger, and ‘consumed’ as ‘food’ the ‘returned’
souls of fish and game animals provided to her.
Poem of a Saami Hunter
The personalised, contractual nature of social
relations between the Saami and the sieidi is on display in the
following excerpt of a poem from the early modern period, addressed to a sieidi by a Saami hunter. (21)
The recognition of the personhood of the sieidi is evident in the term used for
her, forest crone, ‘old woman of the forest’, and there is evidence of an
explicit contract with clear negative consequences for non-compliance. The poem is notable in indicating that a sieidi could be viewed as female by the
Arctic-Saami.
 |
| Bernard Picart, 1724 |
Several themes of the sieidi tradition are
represented in the above iconic drawing by Bernard Picart, dating to the early
18th century. In the drawing, the three sieidis are
human-like and bird-like. They occupy what may be a ‘sacred mountain’
(passe-vare). Saami people have
congregated, some of whom are in worshipful poses, bowing deeply to each of the
sieidis. A sacrificial meal is
being prepared of what may be reindeer meat, to be ceremonially shared with the
sieidis.
As Lahelma said, above, sieidis would sometimes appear in human form.
According to an account of a sacrifice in the eighteenth century, “Then
a being in human form, like a great ruler, extremely good to look at, dressed
in expensive garments and trinkets, appears and sits down to take part in their
meal, speaks with them and teaches them new arts…” (22)
The title “great ruler” is reminiscent of the
mutual obligations of a feudal lord and his subjects of the Middle Ages. That is, the feudal lord received loyalty and
service as well as worshipful reverence and supplication in exchange for
providing means of livelihood and protection.
Similar to these feudal bonds, the foragers provided worship and sacrifice,
and in return the sieidi, guardian of a locality, made possible opportunities
for their successful hunting and fishing (the ‘humans’ share’) and safeguards of
their health.
In this way the Arctic-Saami band created a hierarchical
but personalised bond with the sieidi across ontological
boundaries. Lahelma says, “In all
respects, the Saami relationship with the sieidi can be described as a
relationship or a contract based on mutual respect and responsibility.” (16)
Social Relations with Saivo
Laestadius says of the nature spirit persons who
served as their guardians and helpers, “Since the Lapps considered the
inhabitants of saiwo to be real beings, they formed unions with them whereby the Lapps
sought help from Saiwo.” (18) The noaidi would on occasion visit their homes in the sacred mountains, and in
Hultkrantz’s words, “take part in their festive life.” In compensation for
acting as guardians or helpers, the saivo “demanded their tribute, that is, sacrifices.” For example, offering places were frequently to
be found at saivo cliffs. (1)
Hultkrantz describes the terms of contracts that
were formed between Saami and saivo: “Skanke gives us to understand that a covenant was drawn up between
the saivo people and the Saamis. For
their services the saivo could claim their desired sacrifices from the Saami’s reindeer
herd. For their part the saivo assumed the obligation to
bestow reindeer luck, fishing and hunting luck, to save his client when the
latter’s life was in danger, to scout for him and to give him revenge for
injuries.” (1)
Ontological Element 3:
What is the nature of the ‘sacred geography’ of the worlds—of this world and the other world—where these social relations take place?
What is the nature of the ‘sacred geography’ of the worlds—of this world and the other world—where these social relations take place?
The word ‘sacred’ comes from the Latin verb sancire, which means separated off, or sanctified.
The principal places on the ‘map of
sacredness’ of the Saami were the dwelling sites of the sieidis, who were unique among Saami deities of the otherworld in
that they resided in this, the middle world, as living stone persons. Aikas refers to sieidis as being “between worlds
but not divorced from this world”. (7)
 |
| Lake Ketojärvi sieidi stone in Enontekiö, Finland (from Aikas) |
The characteristic sites of sieidis were beside lakes, rivers, or on islands, and on mountains and fells. These sites were, Aikas’ words, “at the edge of the world”, i.e., at the meeting place of land, water and sky. Here the boundary was thinnest between the physical and cosmological worlds. The locations are described as liminal, based on the Latin word meaning threshold or boundary.
Karsten says, “The place where a sieidi stands … becomes a sort of
power centre, a sacred place, since the spirit controls the whole environment.” The noaidi, as the specialist in managing liminal boundaries, was responsible for
marking off what Karsten calls the “sacred precinct” around the sieidi within which social relations with
the sieidi would be carried
on, consisting of sacrifices and rituals. (6) In the photo below, ancient reindeer bones
were uncovered near a sieidi, located within the sacred boundaries that would have been established
by the noaidi.
 |
| Sieiddakeädgi in Utsjoki, Finland |
 |
| Lapinkivi, Nurmes, Finland |
Such a sacred site was in Lund’s words “animated”. (24) This accords with the observation of Mulk and Bayliss-Smith about the far-reaching
quality of “aliveness”, or animacy, of the physical landscape that is part of
what they call “Saami religion”. (25)
Liminality and Arctic-Saami Sacred Arts
To this point we have considered the liminal places where social relations with the
deity could be carried on. In an earlier post I explored Kashina’s concept of
liminal “zones”, that extends liminality beyond simply places to include objects
and performances of the sacred arts. (26) The products of these arts are social beings,
empowered with the agency of helping enable communication between the worlds. In the liminal zones that they
generate, social relations between human persons and these spirit persons can
be carried on. They are zones of
sociality between the worlds. I will
provide two examples of liminal zones that are associated with sacred art.
The first example of liminality and the sacred arts
of the Arctic-Saami is the ritual chant, or yoik (also spelled joik) of the noaidi.
 |
|
|
The second example of how the sacred arts related
to liminality is of a type of ceramic pottery called Sär 1, made by an early
population that was part of the Arctic-Saami shamanic institution.
The Sär 1 population left very limited
archaeological materials. Torvinen says,
“For the time being the Sär 1 populations are manifested as a group or culture
only via their pottery.” (28) An outstanding example consists of shards
from the Kiikarusniemi site in Sotkamo, East Finland, dating to the early 5th
millennium B.C., that have impressions of water birds. According to the authors of a study on the
shards, Nieminen and Ruonavaara, they are “the first known Finnish bird motifs
in Sär 1 ceramics and are thus possibly the oldest. It is also the northernmost
find of bird motifs in ceramics.” (28)
 |
| National Museum of Finland, photo: Leppä |
In his study of remains at Sär 1 sites, Torvinen discovered evidence that seals were a major food source. He also found the bones of water birds, indicating they were also a hunted species. In Saami cosmology, water birds as saivo are very important in linking the worlds.
Based on these factors,
I suggest that the pot from which the shards came might have been used for a ritual
purpose: to hold seal fat as part of
sacred ‘meals’ for a seal fishing sieidi. The noaidi might have contacted his saivo helpers living in a distant
sacred mountain—through their ontological form as impressed clay water bird
persons—to assist him in conveying the ‘food’ to the sieidi of the seal, as part of a
situated shamanic practice of offering
a sacrifice and requesting a human’s share of the seal herd.
In this way, it is possible that the impressed water bird-persons, as
objects of sacred art, helped the noaidi by generating a liminal ‘channel of communication’ with the saivo beings of the other world.
The two examples illustrate Jordan’s observation
that objects and performances of the sacred arts function as “media of communication”—“animate artifacts”
that are “charged with life forces”—supporting an “unfolding dialogue between
humans and supernatural beings of the lower, middle and upper worlds.” (30)
This completes the exploration of the sacred geography
of the Arctic-Saami shamanic institution.
Below is a summary of findings:
This completes the presentation
of the ontological frame of the Arctic-Saami shamanic institution. At this point, let us stand back to look at how
the Arctic-Saami ontological frame fits into the broader perspective of
relational ontology, as based on an influential typology put forward by Timothy
Ingold. He focuses on what he terms “totemism” and “animism”. (31)
Totemism and Animism in the
Arctic-Saami Tradition
In defining “totemism”,
Timothy Ingold refers to the ontology of the Australian Aboriginal people, in
which ancestor beings became “metamorphosed into the landscape” during the
Dreamtime, “congealed in perpetuity in the features, textures and contours of
the land.” Rapoport says the features are
“natural phenomena, such as trees and rocks”.
(32) These natural phenomena became landscape-based sources of power which require
tending by humans. Ingold says, “the
land…will continue to bring forth new life so long as those who dwell upon it –
by fulfilling their custodial responsibilities towards it, or ‘looking after’
it in the proper way – do not allow its powers to be dissipated.” (31)
Ingold says that in this
totemic Aboriginal ontology, “it is the land that harbours the vital forces
which animate the plants, animals and people it engenders”. He contrasts it with an “animist” ontology,
in which “The power of vital or soul
force that brings forth life, far from being petrified in a solid medium, is
free-flowing like the wind, and it is on its uninterrupted circulation that the
continuity of the living world depends.”
He gives the example of northern hunting peoples, whose rituals are
based upon a continuing cycle of reincarnation of the souls of game animals.
The sieidi tradition shares similarities with
both totemic and the animistic ontologies as presented by Ingold. Let us
examine them.
Soul or Vital Force
Knut Helskog, a Scandinavian archaeologist, notes a resemblance of the totemist
ancestor beings of the Dreamtime—embodied as
features of the landscape—to the sieidis of the Arctic-Saami— stone
persons located alongside lakes, waterways and mountains. He says that in both traditions, the
“spiritual world” is given “a human face”, making it part of the “perceptual
world” in “physical space”. (33)
At the same time, consistent with Ingold’s conception of animism of
northern cultures, the sieidi is an otherworld deity responsible for the circulation of ‘soul or vital
force’ “that brings forth life.” According to Karsten, through the cult of
sacrifice, she receives a continuing supply of a portion of the souls of game
and fish in the form of fresh sacrifices of ‘food’ ‘rich’ in the ‘soul force’ or ‘vital power’ of game, such
as antlers or other body parts, or of fish fat smeared upon her. This makes it possible for her to continue making
possible the rebirth of the game
animals and to make them available to the foragers. (6)
In Ingold’s animist
ontology, the cycle of rebirth is not interrupted (“it is on its uninterrupted circulation that the continuity of the
living world depends”) and does not become “petrified in a solid medium”, i.e.,
the land. Here is where the sieidi tradition shows a totemist character.
That is, as we saw earlier, the ‘vital power’ of the landscape-based sieidi
would periodically diminish, and it was necessary for the band to
‘recharge’ it through fresh sacrifices.
If these were not sufficient, the vital power could be interrupted in
its circulation or lost. As a result,
the sieidi could lose her power to regenerate species and confer
benefits, or even die.
 |
The sieidi Inari Ukko, pictured above, is on Äijih Island.
Many bones from earlier sacrifices were found in an opening
in the sieidi and under the small stone adjacent to it.
|
Karsten likens the power of a sieidi to that of an electric
battery: “its power had to be continually maintained by sacrificial acts, just
as an electric battery has continually to be recharged with the electric
current.” Karsten says, “If the energy
is exhausted, the sieidi is “only fit to be destroyed or thrown
away.” (6)
The basis of comparison of the sieidi to an electric battery arises
from her distinctive ontological nature. That is, while the sieidi oversees the circulation of vital power
through regeneration of the souls of fish and game—responsibilities related to
the otherworld— at the same she is resident in the middle world and subject to
its powerful forces. Foremost among
these forces is entropy, one example of which is the exhaustion of potential
energy in a closed system, such as the electromagnetic charge in a storage
battery. The periodic exhaustion of the supply of ‘vital power’ of a sieidi suggests that an entropy-like force operates in the middle world on
the ontological plane of the sieidi
as well. In this way, her residence in ‘this world’, the
middle world, made the sieidi vulnerable to decline, abandonment and even
death.
At the same time, it is the very residence of the sieidi in the middle world that is
perhaps the most important source of her unique influence as a deity. As was discussed above, the sieidi was
a powerful living presence for the wilderness Arctic-Saami band and key to
their survival. Rydving observes that
“it was the beings that were bound to the landscape and to certain natural
formations that were important in daily life”, and the other divinities “played
a much lesser role”. (2)
As a feature of the landscape in the physical world, Carpelan says the sieidi “operated on the same basis” as
the Arctic-Saami, and this led to relationships that Lahelma characterises as
“based on mutual respect and responsibility”.
Multiple Worlds
Ingold identifies the other world as the place of residence of the
deities of the animist northern hunting cultures who are responsible for the
regeneration of the species of fish and game. Shamans journey there to negotiate with them—“the
spirit masters, who control the disposition of animals”—in order to secure “their
release to human hunters.” (31)
Ingold's ‘spirit masters’ are not landscape-based deities,
like the sieidi, who are subject to the energetic forces of ‘this’
world, including ones that interrupt the process of regeneration of souls. However, while the sieidi physically occupied the liminal
edge of the physical world, she was at the same time—like the 'spirit masters'—an otherworld deity
(“between worlds but not divorced from this world”). Soul journeys on the
part of a shaman were also required to communicate with her.
A definitional element of animism is the existence
of tripartite worlds—the material middle world and the non-material ones of the
‘other’ world: the upper and lower—and it is fundamental to the shamanism of
the Arctic-Saami institution. This
firmly distinguishes this tradition from that of the Aboriginal people of
Australia.
 |
| The three cosmological worlds and and the world tree that connects them |
That is, the totemist Aboriginal people of
Australia consider themselves, and all other living beings, to be directly
descended from the land-based ancestor beings and to inhabit the same
ontological ‘world’ as them. For this
reason, soul journeys are not required in order to contact them. In the words of Ingold, “A man does not have
to leave his body to take on that of his totem” because the “ultimate source”
of both “lies in the land”.
The noaidi journeyed to the sieidi for a variety of purposes,
particularly in the rites of animal ceremonialism. However, animal ceremonialism—the interchange
with spirit guardians of the land through the medium of soul journeys—would
have had no place in the Australian Aboriginal tradition.
In summary, we can say that in terms of the typology presented
by Ingold, the Arctic-Saami ontology is fundamentally animist in nature, but
with a notable totemist element. As a
hybrid of the two ontologies, I would call it ‘totemist-animist’.
Looking Ahead
We have explored from a relational animist
standpoint the distinctive totemist-animist ontological frame of the
Arctic-Saami shamanic institution of Finland and Karelia. I would argue that it framed and guided the
activities of noaidis and sacred artists over thousands of years. We can refer to this as ‘shamanic continuity’,
that can be distinguished from other possible forms of continuity over that
time, whether ethnic, cultural or genetic.
I will make use of this distinctive frame in coming posts, particularly
when I consider the tradition of rock painting.
In the meantime, across my next two posts I will present the ontological
frame of the Uralic-Finnic shamanic institution—the other indigenous shamanic institution
of Finland and Karelia.
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