Making New Antlers: Depositions of Animal Skulls and Antlers as a Message of Regeneration in South Sámi Grave Contexts

Abstract

At the grave fields at Krankmårtenhögen and Smalnäset, Härjedalen, 200 bc–ad 200, there were depositions of skull fragments and antlers on top of the graves. Some skulls and antlers have been damaged. For instance, there are some cases where the antlers have been chopped off with an axe. This paper argues that this treatment and the depositions are ways of communicating a message of regeneration to the animals, with whom people had crucial and reciprocal social relations based on trust. By symbolically shedding the antlers, people intended to persuade the animals to make new antlers. Such an interpretation is based on the assumption that the dichotomies between nature and culture, and the religious and the profane, are irrelevant to understanding the conception of the environment of the people who made the grave fields. The depositions were made prior the introduction of reindeer herding, a process with the implication that the relation of trust is transformed into one of dominance. The depositions of animal bones and antlers can be seen as strategic means of maintaining good relations and communicating differences and similarities with animal persons as well as adjacent human groups in the process towards an early ethnic dualism in southern Sápmi. As such, they have a great value of their own and should not be considered as an anomaly from cultural expressions of clearly defined Sámi and Germanic ethnicities.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I wish to thank my supervisors, Professor Bjørnar Olsen, University of Tromsø, and Dr Anna Källén, Stockholm University, for inspiring discussions and critical comments on this topic during my MA studies. I am grateful to Tiina Äikäs, University of Oulu, and Dr Jostein Bergstøl, University of Oslo, for comments on an earlier version of this article. I also deeply appreciate engagement and worthwhile conversations with Professor Emerita Elisabeth Iregren, Lund University, Associate Professor Inger Zachrisson, Stockholm, Professor Emeritus Stig Welinder, Mid Sweden University, and Ewa Ljungdahl, Gaaltije, South Sámi Culture Centre, Östersund.

Notes

¹Jamtli, former Jämtlands läns museum.

²(N) = Norwegian language.

³(SaaN) = North Sámi language.

⁴(SaaS) = South Sámi language.

⁵(Sw) = Swedish language.