The Sámi are the traditionally Sámi-speaking Indigenous peoples inhabiting the region of Sápmi, which today encompasses large northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and of the Kola Peninsula in Russia. The region of Sápmi was formerly known as Lapland, and the Sámi have historically been known in English as Lapps or Laplanders, but these terms are regarded as offensive by the Sámi, who prefer their own endonym, e.g. Northern Sámi Sápmi. Their traditional languages are the Sámi languages, which are classified as a branch of the Uralic language family.
The reindeer or caribou is a species of deer with circumpolar distribution, native to Arctic, subarctic, tundra, boreal, and mountainous regions of Northern Europe, Siberia, and North America. It is the only representative of the genus Rangifer. More recent studies suggest the splitting of reindeer and caribou into six distinct species over their range.
Kautokeino is a municipality in Finnmark county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Guovdageaidnu/Kautokeino. Other villages include Láhpoluoppal and Máze.
Enontekiö is a municipality in the Finnish part of Lapland with approx. 1,800 inhabitants. It is situated in the outermost northwest of the country and occupies a large and very sparsely populated area of about 8,400 square kilometres (3,200 sq mi) between the Swedish and Norwegian border. Finland's highest point, the Halti fell, with a height of 1,324 metres (4,344 ft) above the mean sea level, is situated in the north of Enontekiö. The municipality shares borders with regions of Sweden and Norway that encompass the Scandinavian Mountains. The administrative centre of Enontekiö is the village of Hetta. About one fifth of the community's population are Sami people. Enontekiö's main industries are tourism and reindeer husbandry.
The Sámi people are a Native people of northern Europe inhabiting Sápmi, which today encompasses northern parts of Sweden, Norway, Finland, and the Kola Peninsula of Russia. The traditional Sámi lifestyle, dominated by hunting, fishing and trading, was preserved until the Late Middle Ages, when the modern structures of the Nordic countries were established.
A siida is an organisation of humans traditionally present in Sámi societies consisting of several families of reindeer herders whose reindeer graze together. Siidas traditionally encompassed more resources than reindeer, but after changes in Sámi societies over the course of the 1600s, only reindeer herders still practiced this system. It is termed a sameby in Swedish law, reinbeitedistrikt in Norwegian law, and paliskunta in Finnish law. The pastoralist organisation differs slightly between countries, except in Russia, where kolkhoz replaced these earlier organisations.
Kuusamo is a town and municipality in Finland. It is located in Koillismaa, the northeastern part of the Northern Ostrobothnia region. The municipality has a population of 14,813 and covers an area of 5,808.92 square kilometres (2,242.84 sq mi) of which 830.81 km2 (320.78 sq mi) is water. The population density is 2.98 inhabitants per square kilometre (7.7/sq mi).
The Evens /əˈvɛn/ are a people in Siberia and the Russian Far East. They live in regions of the Magadan Oblast and Kamchatka Krai and northern parts of Sakha east of the Lena River, although they are a nomadic people. According to the 2002 census, there were 19,071 Evens in Russia. According to the 2010 census, there were 22,383 Evens in Russia. They speak their own language called Even, one of the Tungusic languages; it is heavily influenced by their lifestyle and reindeer herding. It is also closely related to the language of their neighbors, the Evenks. The Evens are close to the Evenks by their origins and culture, having migrated with them from central China over 10,000 years ago. Officially, they have been considered to be of Orthodox faith since the 19th century, though the Evens have retained some pre-Christian practices, such as shamanism. Traditional Even life is centered upon nomadic pastoralism of domesticated reindeer, supplemented with hunting, fishing and animal-trapping. Outside of Russia, there are 104 Evens in Ukraine, 19 of whom spoke Even.
The Soyot are an ethnic group of Samoyedic and Turkic origin who live mainly in the Oka region in the Okinsky District in Buryatia, Russia. They share much of their history with the Tofalar, Tozhu Tuvans, Dukha, and Buryat; the Soyot have taken on a great deal of Buryat cultural influence and were grouped together with them under Soviet policy. Due to intermarriage between Soyots and Buryats, the Soyot population is heavily mixed with the Buryat. In 2000, they were reinstated as a distinct ethnic group.
Lapp Codicil of 1751 is an addendum to the Stromstad Treaty of 1751 that defined the Norwegian-Swedish border. It consists of 30 sections.
Neiden is a village area in the Sápmi area along the Finland–Norway border with about 250 inhabitants. Neiden, situated along the Neiden River, actually consists of two villages 12 kilometers apart, separated by the border of Norway and Finland. One village is in Sør-Varanger Municipality in Finnmark county, Norway, and the other village is in Inari Municipality in Lapland, Finland. Neiden is the official name in Norway and Näätämö in Finland. The European route E6 highway runs through the Norwegian village of Neiden. The village on the Finnish side is close to the border and has border shops.
Nomadic pastoralism is a form of pastoralism in which livestock are herded in order to seek for fresh pastures on which to graze. True nomads follow an irregular pattern of movement, in contrast with transhumance, where seasonal pastures are fixed. However, this distinction is often not observed and the term 'nomad' used for both—and in historical cases the regularity of movements is often unknown in any case. The herded livestock include cattle, water buffalo, yaks, llamas, sheep, goats, reindeer, horses, donkeys or camels, or mixtures of species. Nomadic pastoralism is commonly practised in regions with little arable land, typically in the developing world, especially in the steppe lands north of the agricultural zone of Eurasia. Pastoralists often trade with sedentary agrarians, exchanging meat for grains, however have been known to raid.
A lavvu is a temporary dwelling used by the Sami people of northern extremes of Northern Europe. It has a design similar to a Native American tipi but is less vertical and more stable in high winds. It enables the indigenous cultures of the treeless plains of northern Scandinavia and the high arctic of Eurasia to follow their reindeer herds. It is still used as a temporary shelter by the Sami, and increasingly by other people for camping. It should not be confused with the goahti, another type of Sami dwelling, or the Finnish laavu.
The dislocation of Sámi people was a process in which reindeer herding indigenous Sámi people were forcibly dislocated from Jukkasjärvi and Karesuando to areas further South in Sweden in the 1920s to 1940s. In total it included 300–400 people. After Russia had closed its borders, first to Norway in 1852 followed by Finland in 1888, the cross-border reindeer herding became a conflict between the countries. Guided by racist ideas of the Sámi as a dying people and reindeer herding as a dying practice, the Norwegian government worked towards colonising the North of Norway with farmers. Gradually the Sámi's rights to graze in Sweden during wintertime and in Norway in the summers was restricted. The start of the dislocation was the reindeer grazing convention of 1919, which drastically limited the amount of reindeer within Norway. In practice, it meant that the Sámi were robbed of their homes and grazing land within Norway. Following this, the county administrative board by various means of force made Sámi families relocate from their homes to new unknown lands further South.
Sámi cuisine is the cuisine of peoples from the Sápmi territory of the Sámi people, which spans Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. Its traditional cuisine of each area has individual traits.
Indigenous peoples of the Subarctic are the aboriginal peoples who live in the Subarctic regions of the Americas, Asia and Europe, located south of the true Arctic at about 50°N to 70°N latitude. This region includes the interior of Alaska, the Western Subarctic or western Canadian Shield and Mackenzie River drainage area, the Eastern Subarctic or Eastern Canadian Shield, and most of Fennoscandia, Northwestern Russia and Siberia. Peoples of subarctic Siberia and Greenland are included in the subarctic; however, Greenlandic Inuit are usually classified as Indigenous peoples of the Arctic.
Sámi politics refers to politics that concern the Sámi ethnic group in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. In a more narrow sense, it has come to indicate the government of Sámi affairs by Sámi political institutions. This article deals with Sámi political structures, with an emphasis on the contemporary institutions.
The forest Sámi are Sámi people who lived in the woods and who, unlike the reindeer-herding Sámi people, did not move up into the fells during the summer season. Historically, there have been forest Sámi in Sweden in the area ranging from northern Ångermanland to the far north. In the early 1600s the term granlapp was also used to refer to the Sámi people who paid taxes only to Sweden, compared to the semi-nomadic fell Sámi, who, since they worked in the fells that straddled the Swedish-Norwegian border, had to pay taxes to both countries. When Ernst Manker studied the life of the forest Sámi in the early 20th century, nearly all of their habitations had been abandoned. Only one forest Sámi village remained, in Malå in Västerbotten, an area known as Stenundslandet in Anundsjö. There is a modern-day group who consider themselves forest Sámi in Finland, but they are not part of the Sámi parliament, for example.
Reindeer in Russia include tundra and forest reindeer and are subspecies of Rangifer tarandus. Tundra reindeer include the Novaya Zemlya (R.t.pearsoni) and Sápmi subspecies and the Siberian tundra reindeer.
The Sámi Assembly of 1917 was the first Sámi National Assembly. The Sámi who took part in the assembly were from both Norway and Sweden. The meeting was held at the Methodist Church in Trondheim from 6 to 9 February 1917. The Sámi National Day is celebrated on 6 February to commemorate the beginning of this assembly. Around 150 participants gathered at the assembly, of which the majority consisted of Southern Sámi from Nordland, Trøndelag and Hedmark.
