Living Places or Animated Objects? Sámi Sacrificial Places with Metal Objects and Their South Scandinavian Parallels

Abstract

The article takes its point of departure in 12 Sámi sacrificial places from northern Sweden and Norway. It is argued that the sites with metal objects of the ninth to fourteenth centuries in a number of ways are comparable to acts of deposition in south Scandinavia. These Viking Age depositions consisted of partly the same types of artefacts, took place on the shores of wetlands with sacral names and were in use in the same time period as the Sámi sacrificial places. The similarities and differences between the two traditions are discussed, focusing on some possible links between aspects of animistic world views and biographical perspectives on artefacts. This opens up the possibility that not only the Sámi, but even the Old Norse world views contained elements of animistic perspectives. It is claimed that the two traditions reflect partially parallel ways of handling the landscape and dealing with objects among the Sámi of Øvre Norrland and the Norse population of south Scandinavia.

Key Words:

• Sámi sacrificial places
• Acts of deposition
• Viking Age
• Middle Ages
• Animism
• Object biography

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Lene Melheim, University of Gothenburg for fruitful discussions on an earlier draft of the paper.

Notes

1 In addition, one silver ornament from the twelfth century was found at the sacrificial site Ukonsaari in northern Finland. The additional finds, primary antlers and bones, date to the fourteenth century and onwards (Bradley 2000; Okkonen 2007). This site will not be included in this study.

2 For instance, the cross-shaped pendants vary from containing 0.11% lead to containing 33.19% lead (Zachrisson 1984, 54).

3 The Gråträsk find is not from Lake Gråträsk, but from Lake Tjautjer, close to the village of Gråträsk (Wallerström 1995a, 169).

4 A certain degree of similarity to the south Scandinavian finds can be found in other regions south and south-east of Scandinavia. These acts of deposition in Saxony and Greater Poland took place in rivers, at bridges and in relation to fortified settlement (Geißlinger 1967, 99–106; Hines 1989; Wilke 1999, 49–56; Lund 2005, 116–117). There are even connections between the Anglo-Saxon and the Scandinavian tradition of wetland depositions (Lund 2010; Raffield 2014). These links will not be discussed further here, as it goes beyond the scope of this article.

5 The biographical perspective has also been used in analyses of the history of the objects, a term which refers to the full history, including not only the production, use and discard of the artefact in the past, but also to the history of the object after it was recovered, made part of a collection, exhibited, etc. The full history of the artefacts presented in this article is, however, beyond the scope of this paper (for a further discussion on the history of the object see Appadurai 1986; Clavir 2002; Holtorf 2002).