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It's February 6th on Thursday, the national day of my people, so I thought I'd share some info. Because if one things is clear in the aftermath of Frozen II, is that you all know nothing about SĂĄmi people and culture.
And one of the things I wanted to share with you the most is about holy lesbian reindeers.
The StĂĄinnak acts like a male reindeer acts towards the female reindeer. It will jump upon them and try to mate in that manner. But naturally they never calf.
Since a lesbian reindeer don´t reproduce, you would think that they didnât have any value.
Since a lesbian reindeer don´t reproduce, you would think that they didnât have any value.
But instead they are so valuable that they are considered holy.
The natural instinkt of a reindeer, both male and female, is to run in panic, when attacked by a predator (lynx, wolverine, wolf...) . Leaving their hind legs and back open for attack if the predator catches up with them.
A holy lesbian reindeer has a different behavior. They turn towards the predator and goes to attack with the antlers. That way they can fight off the predator and also save many other reindeers.
Hurrah for holy lesbian reindeers.
Hurrah for holy lesbian reindeers.
Ok now that we have established that lesbian reindeers exist and are the coolest, let's talk about something that is bothering me a lot. STOP CALLING IT LAPPLAND.
Do me a favour, drop lappland from your vocabulary, from now on use SĂĄpmi, ok?
Lapp is a derogatory word used by Scandinavian colonisers about the SĂĄmi people. It means something like 'simpleton' in English. For a long time Scandinavians belived Sami people to be retarded, and they 'proved' this by studying their head shapes (rounder in shape).
If you got registered by the government as a 'lapp' you were not allowed to own or buy land. My family suffered from these laws, as the government made it harder and harder to be nomads/cross borders, but they could not buy a farm either.
In Norway laws were passed prohibiting schooling in the Sami language, Sami history and Sami culture. Moreover, Sami children were taken from their parents and sent to mandatory boarding schools in other parts of the Norway.
As late as the 1950s, these laws and policies were justified by stating that Sami people were mentally handicapped: 'In the folk consensus from 1950, Samis were classified in the same category as the âmentally disabledâ and âinsaneâ.'
Since sami could not own land, many Sami families adopted a Norwegian last name, leading to the disappearance of many original Sami names. If they looked Norwegian, dressed Norwegian, spoke Norwegian etc, they could eventually be registered as Norwegian and gain basic rights.
If a 'lapp' registered person married a Norwegian registered person, their children would be registered as 'b' for blanding, meaning mixed. If a 'mixed' person married a Norwegian registered person, they could buy land.
One ingenious great great grandparent og mine, decided to give her chidren fancy Norwegian/Germanic lasts names as first names. She gave her chidren the names 'Ole Aschenberg', 'Dankert Heiberg' and 'Adolf Meyer' as first names.
They could then drop their real last name and parented that their full name was Ole Aschenberg with Aschenberg as the last name etc.
In this way, it was that Dankert Heiberg, was able to pretend to be of last name Heiberg, and buy an abandoned farm in 1910. He then took the last name Sandvik after the family that had previously owned the farm for some 200 years. And so that's my last name. 
At this point they couldn't have probably stopped giving last names as first names to their children. They have made it. Have a small farm in the Arctic, speak Norwegian etc. But no, they decide to name their son Hagen. Two of the richest men in Norway have the last name Hagen.
It's such a ridiculous name (sorry grandpa). It is like, they were trying so hard to fit in that they completely failed. Doesn't help that Hagen literally means 'the garden'. The garden sandy bay. My grandpa. Anyways he chose norse names for his children.
But my mom having the name of a viking goddess did not prevent her from being bullied all through school for being Sami. To the kids in her home county there was no misting her looks, she looked (still looks) 100% Sami.
From the government programme of
Norwegianization the people of Norway had learnt that Samis were stupid, lazy, cheats, drunks etc etc Even Sami people started believing it, and denying to themself that they were Sami.
Norwegianization the people of Norway had learnt that Samis were stupid, lazy, cheats, drunks etc etc Even Sami people started believing it, and denying to themself that they were Sami.
Lihkku beivviin! I'm at work today because unlike May 17th the Norwegian national day, February 6, the Sami national day is not a national holiday
Quite tellingly, only one person wished congratulations on my way to work. On 17th of May everyone says 'gratulerer med dagen' to everyone.
Ok it's past beer o clock now so a lot more people are saying hello and congrats. Maybe I just forgot about Norwegian stiffness syndrome. In any case, for every person who says gratulerer med dagen to me on the street my heart grows bigger and happier 
One person stopped me to ask where she can buy reindeer. I was happy to direct her, in fact we were 300 meteres from a store that sells it.
One person apologized for his pronunciation then said lihkku beivviin in Sami 
Anyways, back to the educational corner. Let's talk about the GĂĄkti, the SĂĄmi traditional dress.
You can tell a lot from looking at the gĂĄkti a person wears. You can at least tell where the person is from, and usually also whether they are married/unmarried/widowed etc. Families have their own gĂĄkti traditions, so if you're local you can probably tell which family even
Since my family is from Sør Troms, I wear the Ofoten and Sør Troms gåkti, pictured here earlier at work where I made reindeer stew for everyone for lunch
The most traditional gåkti from my area is black, but to be honest people just used whatever they could afford. Like old curtains and whatnot. You can still tell it's an Ofoten and Sør Troms gåkti by the ribbons in red and yellow.
The neckline on my gåkti is a bit different from traditional, it's resembling that of the Karesuando gåkti. Because my family wintered in Karesuando but had summer pasture in Sør Troms. I also have ribbons on the back of my gåkti, typical of Swedish nomadic sami.
And again, honestly, the ribbons on the back became a trend because it was expensive to get one large piece of fabric for the back and cheaper to get 6 small ones. This also made it easier to add pieces to the gakti moving from child to adult size etc
My belt and shoe ribbons are typical for the area I am from. Whereas most sami could place them to Sør Troms, you'd probably had to be specially interested or from Troms to identify them
Here is the belt:
So you can probably guess by now how ridiculous it looks when people buy 'sami clothes' from a tourist shop or costume place or whatever, that usually mixes up colours and patterns from a lot of different places or just makes it up and generally just looks wrong
Like this one - do not buy and under no circumstance wear this ever
I don't even know where to start with this one. Our traditional dress is not a Halloween costume. It's not 'funny'. Stop using the word lappland.
Really like sami culture and want to wear something sami? No problem, but buy it from a Sami duodji artist and not some tourist shop or costume place. You cannot buy a gakti unless you have Sami heritage or marry into a Sami family.
Personally I would recommend getting a luhkka, so practical for keeping nice and warm.
