reindeer games

oh man, i'm so thankful for pals that live around the corner and their wireless internet - yes, that means i'm posting past 4pm tonight! on a personal aside, today was an exceptionally clumsy day. i've always been prone to spilling things on myself, but today was over the top. i had to do a load of laundry to take care of the coffee explosion that permeated three layers of clothing and various hand embroidered dish towels belonging to Salem. oops.

today i finally went to the Ajtte Museum's Sami Library. i can't believe i hadn't been there before, it was so amazing...well, actually, i do know why. things here tend to open around 1pm, stores and the main library for example, and are open for 6 hours or less. the Sami library is open for 4 hours a day, except tuesday, and is closed mondays and the weekend. i had some trouble checking things out, unexpected given the relative ease i had getting a library card at the main library. the librarian eventually let me borrow some books in english that had a special sticker on them - i believe they belong to another library - which was fine by me. she said i could come when the library was closed on certain days and do work there, though. excellent! i also got a library card, which i think she went out of her way to do. anyway, my Swedish has slightly improved in terms of understanding the gist of text and conversations, so my time in the library will be slightly more productive than it would have a month ago. i can't believe it's march already, by the way...

yesterday, i went out to a place 15 minutes outside of Jokkmokk, to the home of Katarina Rassa and her husband Bertil. she very kindly invited me out to her home a while back when Eva from the Area Laponia office passed on my name. so, today, in spite of the weather, i went to check out what's going on with them and their reindeer, as well as the guesthouse they're renovating. i was afraid it was going to be a very professional affair, like i was going out there to make a business transaction or something, but happily this wasn't the case. we chatted for a while over boiled coffee so strong it was nearly alcoholic and stewed reindeer, that we ate with bread and butter. the taste of reindeer is something i'm slowly getting used to. i can't compare it to beef or other red meats since i haven't tried those (well, it's definitely not like bacon). i'm inclined to say it's quite gamey, and apparently it's a very lean meat and full of anti-oxidants. it's a staple in the Sami homes, obviously. but i feel much better eating reindeer seeing the way that they live, which is thousands of times better than the poor cows in the factory farms we have in the States. the reindeer lead great lives, wandering all over nothern Sweden and Norway as they please, accompanied and occasionally fed by the herders as they move from place to place, or just foraging out in the fjäll forests. also, the Sami make use of every single part of a reindeer, so nothing is wasted.


one of rudolph's friends. sorry to any vegans and my vegetarian family members if they are reading this.

Katarina told me about so many interesting things, it's hard to know where to begin. for one, she keeps pheasants, from China, which are absolutely beautiful and fascinating creatures. she showed me her workroom, where she makes everything from embroidered reindeer skin bags to shoes, hats, wool socks and special woven belts and ribbons the Sami use. i have to say that her handicraft work, and her husbands creations of birch and bone, and his knives, are some of the best i've ever seen. the birch absolutely glows, and the bone knives and buttons are carved so perfectly and intricately it's hard to believe they're made by hand. they've exhibited their work several times in southern Sweden, and in France, as well. the best part is that she agreed to show me how to weave the Sami belts and sew skins, so i think i'm going to go out to her house in the future and work on some small things there.


katarina in her work room


a child's hat she made


work examples


an amazing birch chest inlaid with bone her husband made her as a wedding gift


some bags in process, and the sinews from the reindeer's legs used to sew the skin


demonstrating how to make a belt


the final result. women's patterns are diagonal, men's usually have crossings

when we went out to the corral where the reindeer were, she tried showing me the different marks and how to identify them. it's really, really difficult - to identify the cuts on a moving animal several meters away is something that is an acquired skill. she referred to it for her as "running water", something that comes easily to you, second nature. i asked her about women herders, and if there are any in her sameby (Sami village). she said there were several, and that before the 70s, many women worked side by side with their husbands and had their own reindeer, but there was a period where the Swedish family structure came into predominance and the women stayed home with the children instead of working outdoors with the men. this whole period was a time of intense and often forced change for the Sami. Katerina told me how her parents were punished in school for speaking Sami with their siblings or among each other, and for this reason many kids from her generation did not learn the language, and had to teach themselves when they got older if they wanted to know it. her parent's generation were made to feel badly about being Sami, like they were second class citizens, and experienced much racism. many things were lost in a very short span of time, and sometimes this caused tension between the older and younger people. the new generations of course, for the most part feel proud to be Sami and actively seek out establishing their own identity, or reindeer herds if they don't have them. this is a whole other obstacle in itself, for if your parents didn't teach you to herd, you have to find some family who will show you how, and spend years working with them before you know enough about it to do it yourself. the Sami village also has to formally accept you as a member before you can let your herd enter the sameby and participate in the round-ups and so forth. it also takes time to establish your own mark - usually you modify your parents' mark, and it has to circulate through all the villages so that they may say if it is too similar to another mark being used. this process takes about 2 years. if it's too close, you have to start all over and begin circulating again before it's approved.

Katarina joined her sameby when she was 19 years old. she has her own mark, that was passed down from her father to her. when she married, she joined her husband's smaller sameby. she seems to have an good, if not exceptional ability, for identifying reindeer - she has a large family, 24 of which are first cousins, and many of them herd reindeer in her sameby as well. when everyone corrals all the reindeer either in the spring or fall (?), it takes a long, long time to separate their own reindeer from everyone else's. you have hundreds, perhaps thousands, of reindeer running around, and you have to be able to pick out your own from amidst the chaos, and lasso them and their calves.


pheasants!





reindeer out an about in the corrall - due to the harsh winter this year it's easier for some folks to keep some of them close by and feed them, like the Rassa's do.

before they took me home, i helped them load heavy sacks of reindeer feed into their trailer, that they are storing at her brother-in-law's furniture workshop in Jokkmokk. they have to do this every one or two days, just the two of them. it felt good to be active, small work as it was, and i said so. Katarina's husband smiled and laughed, and seemed glad, though he is a very quiet man and didn't speak any English or directly to me at any point. in addition to visiting her for weaving lessons, i volunteered to help her renovate her guesthouse, which she said she would take me up on for sure soon. my day was made when she extended the invitation for me to join her family in the mountains during the spring and summer. this is a rare and wonderful opportunity - of course, of course, of course i will accept! during this time, she said, Jokkmokk is almost completely deserted. people move to temporary villages in the mountains into cabins, where they live for several weeks at a time until it's time to move with the reindeer elsewhere along the mountain. there's no electricity or running water, or radios or cellphone reception, so for many folks it's a welcome change of pace from the "busy" city life!