Siida
The Siida ( South Sami sijte , Lulesami sijdda , Skoltsamisch sijd ) was the traditional form of social organization of the Sami of Northern Europe until the introduction of reindeer nomadism . It was an acephalous (domination-free) horde of hunters of many family and household units in a demarcated hunting and resource area.
Since the end of the 16th century, the Swedish government has divided the country into so-called "Lappbyar" (Lappendörfer), the legal basis of which increasingly replaced the old Siida order. Each Lappby had a set of rules that contained detailed provisions on grazing rights, the work to be carried out, the use of funds, etc. In addition, some of these units already consisted of several original Siidas.
The current local communities of Sami reindeer herders (Norwegian: "Reinbeitedistrikt" , Swedish: "Sameby" and Finnish "Paliskunta" ) were derived from the Siidas / Lappbyar by the national administrations. Today it is no longer a corporate form , but an economic purpose association in the sense of a legal person .
Life in the traditional Siida
The size of the area and the rules of the community have changed greatly over time and in different regions according to the changes in acquisitions. In the earlier way of life as a hunter, the Siida formed a spatial, social and economic unit. As a rule, between six and 14 households were grouped together in a Siida, which shared the game (especially wild deer , brown bear and beaver ), fish and pastures. But there were also those with 25–30 households. The families were often related or by marriage.
This type of community has lasted longest among the Russian Sami on the Kola Peninsula and on southern Varanger . This is where today's knowledge of the Siida comes from: In spring and summer, the individual households operated separately and distributed over the various sources of income, i.e. rivers and inland lakes, hunting areas, pastureland, fishing grounds by the sea. In autumn and winter they gathered at common living spaces to hunt the wild reindeer together and to maintain social contacts.
A Siida was at least large enough to provide a hunting party of eight to twelve adult hunters. But some also included several such hunting communities. The common booty was divided proportionally among the households. In the Eastern Sami areas it is known that the Siida was headed by a council of elders made up of the heads of households. Chiefs did not know the Sami.
The most important personality of the Siida was the shaman , called Noajde. He was the mediator between the spirit world and this world and was consulted by people in all possible crises.
The change to the reindeer herder associations
After the transition to reindeer nomadism in the 16th century, the term "Siida" referred to a smaller community of reindeer herders, who are defined by family ties with a group of siblings or their children as the core. Reindeer herding requires a high degree of flexibility: depending on the size of the herd, the quality of the grazing grounds and also the climatic conditions.
After the division of West Lapland by Sweden-Finland, the old social structures slowly disintegrated . The formerly rather round hunting areas of the hunters have been partially combined in the sense of the new reindeer economy. The Swedish administration set these limits for the previously self-determined Siidas and introduced the term “Lappby” for the new reindeer herding communities. They served to better control the nomadic Siidas and above all to collect taxes. Trading posts (e.g. Jokkmokk ) or church villages (e.g. Arvidsjaur ) were set up at central points , which the Sami had to visit regularly . In addition, the previously free land was made the property of individual persons, who from then on stood as guarantors and responsible persons between the state and their people. In the Russian part of Sápmi , the traditional Siida structure was not forcibly dissolved until after 1930 as part of the “Development and Russification of the North”. Instead, large reindeer kolkhozes were established, in which members of other reindeer herding peoples (including the Nenets and Komi-Ischemzen ) were settled and employed. This led to a rapid assimilation , so that the knowledge of the ancient traditions of the Siida is more alive today in Scandinavia than on the Kola Peninsula.
Sameby, Paliskunta and Reinbeited District
The kinship networks still have some importance in the reindeer-breeding seeds of the 21st century, even though the social structure of the Siida has died out. Today the local communities of reindeer herders are organized in the aforementioned special-purpose associations, which have predominantly economic backgrounds. They are now very elongated territories, stretching from the pastures in the fells to the taiga near the east coast. They make it possible to arrange the communal living spaces, hikes and work very flexibly with regard to the annual cycle. While a community keeps the reindeer together in a demarcated area in winter, they are divided into individual herds in spring - when the animals have to calve and be re-marked. Then the herds come together again on the summer pasture. The size and number of communities in an area varies with the number of reindeer.
In Sweden, every Sameby has a demarcated area where its own reindeer graze and where the summer camps of the reindeer herding families are located. The division was established by the Swedish state in 1886. From Idre in central Sweden to Treriksröset on the Norwegian-Finnish border, there are 51 samebyars. 32 of them are in the province of Norrbotten alone .
With the division into “Lappbyar” (see map) made in the 16th century, there are only a few overlaps between today's borderlines.
One of the most famous seed villages and summer residence of Tuorpon-Sameby in Sweden is Staloluokta in Padjelanta National Park .
literature
- Lars Ivar Hansen: "Siida" in: Norsk historisk leksikon . Oslo 1999.
- Lars Ivar Hansen: Samenes historie fram til 1750 . Oslo 2007.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b The sijdda - the Sami community . ( Memento of September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) In: www.samer.se - Samiskt Information Center of the Sametinget, Östersund, accessed on May 10, 2014.
- ↑ Sunna Kuoljok, John-Erling Utsi: The Sami - people of the sun and the wind. Ajtte - Svenskt Fjäll- och Samemuseum, Luleå 1995, ISBN 91-87636-10-7 , p. 24.
- ↑ Rolf Kjellström: Samernas liv (Swedish). Carlsson Bokförlag, Kristianstad 2003, ISBN 91-7203-562-5 .
- ↑ Wolf-Dieter Seiwert (Ed.): The Saami. Indigenous people at the beginning of Europe. German-Russian Center, Leipzig 2000.