Quite often I mention the indigenous Sami people in my posts, especially often I turn to their mythology. Am I one of them? No. Do I know any of them intimately? No. Have I met them in my life? Yes. And these meetings remain in the memory forever, some of them fall into the lens…
The Kola Sami are mostly nomadic people, so a meeting with them is not planned. All year long they follow herds of reindeer. That's right, and not the other way around, because the Sami believe that animals know better when and where to go to survive in this harsh land. It is rare when their parking spots are repeated from year to year.
Add here the fact that at the moment there are only 1,500 indigenous Sami living on the peninsula, and you will understand that meeting them by chance, in their usual way of life, is not a miracle, but a certain luck.
As you may have guessed, in the local lands, the reindeer is a special animal, not so much sacred, but rather close and native. And to understand why, it is enough to know one of the main myths of the Sami.
One day the Deer God Mayandash descended to earth and met a human girl. They fell in love with each other, got married and had a lot of children who could turn from a human into a reindeer and back again. But over time, family life went wrong, and Mayandash parted with his earthly wife. Half of the children left after their father, in the guise of deer, the other half stayed with their mother in human form. Both have lost the ability to transform. The children of the earth girl are Sami, who remember that deer are their brothers and sisters, and they look after each other.
Therefore, the relationship of the tribe to the deer herd is always special. Both animals and people understand that it is easier to survive together in the far north. It is not worth trying to shift the global moral values of the majority of humanity to Sami customs, and to be ironic about the fact that first of all people eat deer. This is a completely different relationship.
People take care of the deer, helping the population to grow, sacrificing a lot for the sake of the herd. Similarly, reindeer sacrifice themselves for the sake of their human brothers to give them food and strength.
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Indigenous tribes are not engaged in industrial slaughter, they take from the herd only what is needed for the survival of the tribe, no more and no less. This distinguishes them from the Sami, who have chosen a more modern approach to life, and assimilate into continental society.
But there are still enough authentic families who remember all the legends and rituals, keep and pass them on from generation to generation. Without experiencing any hardships and without feeling deprived. They are always hospitable and smiling, happy to meet other people, because this is a pleasant rarity in the vast expanses of the boundless north. They are always ready to help the traveler and invite him to your house. Although they ask not to photograph them.
They know what digital photography and the Internet are, of course, not in the context of technologies and services, but rather in general terms. They understand that the Internet is a place where there are a lot of people from all over the world, including bad people. And they don't want bad people to see their faces and be able to harm them.
They are not ignorant, but they have chosen to live the way many generations before them lived, while not denying themselves the use of some of the achievements of modernity. For example, in more durable and warm materials for a Chum (a large tent for 3 families, or a Kuvax (a personal tent for a family), in the photos you can notice that the top of the tent is covered with a polythene. I know that some tribes even use snowmobiles, but I was lucky to met orthodox Sami.
An important difference between the Kola Sami, they rarely use sled dogs, reindeer are harnessed to the sled. This is really reasonable, the reindeer is more hardy, load-bearing and no less obedient. So why do they have so many dogs? For everything else.
Native local breeds number several millennia, and the purpose of these dogs is to be shepherds and guards of the deer herd or to help in hunting. But the most important task of dogs is friendship. For a real Sami, a dog is not just a part of the family, it is almost a brother.
And it is not surprising, the north impresses not with its diversity, but with its grandiosity, scope. Hundreds of kilometers of monotonous landscapes, especially in winter. And the dog has always been and will always be a companion and interlocutor for the Sami.
They are very strong animals, not only in the physical sense, but primarily in their character. There is blood flowing in their veins, which still keeps the wolf trail, that helps them to live here.
However, about 80 years ago, local breeds were heavily diluted with Yakut huskies brought here. Huskies were used by the pioneers of the Arctic precisely as sled dogs, time-tested. Therefore, it is now almost impossible to meet a purebred reindeer dog.
If you noticed, the deer are not in the pen. As I said before, they are almost free animals, this tribe is following them, not the other way around. Therefore, the life of a nomad is to have only the most necessary things with you and be always ready to hit the road. Which is what happens all the time. The herd rarely stops in one place for more than a few days, sometimes even for just a day. Therefore, the Sami are always in a state of permanent path.
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I have heard that Yakut reindeer herders have been a little tired of such a life lately and therefore are trying to return the herd to the parking lot, gradually expanding the feeding zone or giving reindeer stocks of yagel. But the Kola Sami will continue to follow their sisters and brothers, without trying to subordinate them to their routine.
So, for thousands of years they have been walking side by side, reindeer and humans. They walk through the cold, snow and ice. In total darkness, or under the northern lights, or under the polar sun. Through mountains, lakes and rivers, the tundra sea and along rocky shores. They go without thinking about tomorrow, without planning, but enjoying life and sincerely loving their native lands. And they really live fully and carefully, and do not survive, as it might seem to us, people from other worlds…
