Reclaiming indigenous seascapes. Sami place names in Norwegian sea charts

Abstract

This paper documents the presence of marine toponyms in the indigenous Sami language, which powerfully counters the Norwegian names inscribed in official sea charts. However, during the process of analysing the place name material for fishing grounds in the Porsanger fjord, place names in the majority language as well as modified versions of the original Sami names proved to be just as valuable for the study of seascape use in Porsanger. From conceiving of the seascape in terms of a ‘colonial’ or ‘contested’ landscape with two opposing user groups, other relations than the Sami-Norwegian dichotomist categories emerged. As this paper shows, the main lines of conflict and cooperation changed over time to run between subsistence fishers and the fishers who were connected to the larger state fisheries management system. The paper therefore argues that indigenous place name research has to pay more attention not only to ‘silenced’ names, but also to the hybrid products of ethnic relations and colonization processes than what is currently the case.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Kaisa R. Helander for the opportunity to present a previous version of this paper at the first Indigenous Place Name Conference in Guovdageaidnu, Finnmark, in the autumn of 2010. Also, we would like to thank Svein Jentoft, Svanhild Andersen and an anonymous reviewer for useful comments and helpful discussions. Finally, this study could not have been done without the knowledge of the Sami people in Porsanger and the Coastal Sami Resource Centre under the leadership of Sigvald Persen.

Notes

1. The Kven people are a national minority in Norway. The Kven language is related to Finnish and is the traditional language of the Kvens, who immigrated to northern Norway and settled in Kven villages on the northern coast from the 16th century onwards. The Sami and Kven languages are part of the Finno-Ugric language family, but are not mutually intelligible.

2. This was for example illustrate in the 1951 Anglo-Norwegian Fisheries Case which was decided by the International Court of Law in the Hague, where fishing ground names were used as evidence of how far Norwegian territorial waters stretched into the sea.

3. The Sami Parliament that was established in 1989 employs Sami language place name consultants that are responsible for correct spelling of Sami names in the official databases.

4. Two of the locations also had Kven names that were registered in the CPNR. These names were only slightly different from the Sami names for the same locations and are not included in the list.

5. ‘Mearrasápmelaččain lea rikkis topográfalaš terminologiija sin guovddášealáhusaid lundui nugo merrii ja mearragátti lagamus guovlluide. Badjeolbmuin lea bealisteaset máĒggalágan appellatiivat omd. duottarmáilmmi duovdagiidda’ (Helander 1991, p. 77). Translation by Berit Merethe Nystad Eskonsipio, Centre for Sami Studies, University of Tromsø.

6. The Fávllis project is a multiyear Sami fisheries research project that collected local ecological knowledge from around 20 fishers and local knowledge experts in the villages along the western side of the Porsanger fjord. The project is led by the Centre for Sami Studies at the University of Tromsø and collaborates with the Coastal Sami Resource Centre.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Camilla Brattland

Camilla Brattland's doctoral thesis is on the use of coastal Sami marine landscapes, of which this paper is a part. Co-author and Sami language linguist Steinar Nilsen has been responsible for the linguistic part of the paper