The Saivo Bowl and the Firefox Kuksa.

I have said before that I have a particular fascination for the Saami or Sámi culture and I decided to celebrate that interest with some kolrosing.

Many of you know I have a deep interest in Norse mythology. Over the  years it has developed into a fairly solid working knowledge and  understanding of the surviving stories, but I am also intrigued by it's relationship with the neighbouring Sámi world view.

I've had this nice wooden porringer for a while but didn't want to add Sámi drum symbols until I had a better understanding of their meanings.

It's always a little tricky when you are using iconography from a living culture. There can be a very fine line between seeking inspiration and  cultural appropriation and I'm a firm believer that you shouldn't just appropriate cultural symbols unless you at least try to have some understanding  of them.

These symbols are all taken from Sámi Noaidi (Shaman) drums and relate to important figures and places in the Sámi mythology or cosmology,  depending on your point of view.

Having done a lot more research I felt I finally had enough of a grasp to lay them out in a logical and sensitive manner.

Their use as decorative motifs on a bowl is rather out of context but as a story teller I want to use the bowl as an "aid memoir", that I can take on the trip with me, to a fascinating pantheon that I am not yet completely familiar with.

Part of the difficulty in understanding this mythology is that the original oral sources told their stories in eleven different languages with numerous dialects and their accounts were written down in Latin, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish or Danish, in archaic or later, modern forms which, because I speak none of the above, have then been re-translated into English at some point.

Ever played “Chinese Whispers” ?

As result, a single mythological entity can end up with a staggering list of names, variations of those names and different phonetic spellings of those names or variations.      Aaaaaaaargh....

Then the stories themselves... In one version the hero gets the girl. In another version he doesn't get the girl. Sometimes he gets a completely different girl. But, maybe it's just another name for the same girl?... On the other hand maybe it isn't? Trying to fit these differing narratives together is like trying to put together a skip full of pieces from hundreds of different jigsaws. To top it off, most of the jigsaws are incomplete anyway.

I've just come across a quote from a man called Johannes Schefferus who wrote a Latin account of the Sámi in 1673. The first systematic attempt to do so.

He says this: (Translated of course.)

“At first, there is no doubt that they were pagans, as all Nations were, but being all Pagans were not of the same religion.”

€� So not only do I have the many linguistic variations to contend with, it would seem that the core beliefs that I have been searching for, are in fact many different beliefs. I had hoped to distil these disparate and varying sources into some essential coherent narrative but it would seem that coherence was never really there in the first place.

No wonder I feel like Sisyphus rolling his boulder up a hill, only to have it roll down again when I think I've reached the top.

What I am finding of course in all these stories, are certain archetypes that correspond to common mythical archetypes found throughout most world mythologies and I think this will need to be the direction of my research from now on.

The names of these archetypes may have been impossible to pin down completely and my inept pronunciation of them would probably add to problem anyway, so I have decided that I can only adopt the storytellers privilege and form my own narrative based upon my understanding of the originals with the most consistent direction.

An interesting challenge in itself.

However, following on from the kolrosing I did on my "Saivo Bowl" recently I decided to  make it a pair with a nice kuksa I bought a while back.

I bought it  because of the reflective rays in the grain of the wood. An effect that I am told is called “Chatoyancy”. They particularly reminded  me of the Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) which I have been fortunate enough to see a few  times now.

Having researched many of the Sámi drum symbols for  the bowl I thought I could use some of them to depict the Great Elk Hunt that is recorded for the Sámi in the constellations of the Northern  sky.

I decided to call it my "Firefox Kuksa" after another story that  the Aurora is caused by the tail of an Arctic fox brushing snow up into  the air.

Click on the image above or here for a closer view.

I wanted a nice bag to carry them in, not just to protect them in packing but also to store them safely around camp. The most practical way to do the latter is often to be able to hang it from a line in the shelter.

I had a small amount of Sámi made, birch tanned reindeer leather left over from some other jobs. Working  with this material, with it's distinctive aroma, always evokes memories of my time up at Lofotr in the Summer. A wonderful time spent in the land of the Midnight Sun. I obtained the hides from the Winter Market in Jokkmokk, another destination up north of the Arctic Circle.

It seems therefore the most appropriate material I could possibly use to make the bag I wanted.

Unless noted otherwise, all photography, artwork and content on this site is copyrighted. © Gary Waidson 2020 All rights reserved

The Ice Raven Project promotes sustainable and low impact bushcraft and wilderness skills in Arctic and winter conditions. This includes the use of  tents, tarps  and snow shelters where possible. Fires are only used where safe and where use and collection of firewood will not damage the natural environment. We often travel to locations by public transport and then use snowshoes, sleds, toboggans and pulks to transport our equipment into the wilderness.