Day of the Sami People
Description:
The Sami still believe in the spirits - masters of lakes and rivers. There is a veneration of sacred stones (cliffs, large boulders), associated with the protection of crafts and veneration of ancestors. Before the beginning of the twentieth century. in each family were stored gods - wrapped in a rag pebbles. The Sami also worshipped high stumps (often anthropomorphic appearance) - seids. They were offered sacrifices. Some of them have their own names.
The Sami had ministers of worship (noida, noid, kebun), who performed the functions of a shaman, priest and sorcerer. They used a tambourine (cannus, kobdas) or a special belt (cannus).
Sami mythology is close to Finnish. The oldest layers of Sami mythology include a cycle of myths about heavenly matchmaking sun Peyve (male character) brings his son Peyvelka daughter of the moon, but is refused. Then the struggle of the elements begins: on the side of the sun are the earth and mountains, domestic animals, deer, birds, on the side of the moon - water, shadow, the afterlife, flashlights (northern lights), wild animals. The cosmic struggle is stopped by a midnight old man in the form of a walrus (the incarnation of a supreme deity?), lowering the night to earth. The moon is finally getting married. Reindeer herding is associated with a cycle of myths about Myandash, the totemic first ancestor.
The composition of the pantheon differed among different groups of Saami (especially Eastern and Western). The image of the god Hubmel (Immel, Ibmel) in some myths is replaced by the idea of the god-father Radien-Atch and the god-son Radi-en-Kyedde Father in one of the myths entrusts the creation of the world to his son, and he entrusts him to the goddess of the earth Madder akke (Maderatje), who sometimes acts as the wife of the heavenly god Madeiratcha. These gods participate in the cosmic cycle of human birth.
The pantheon includes numerous deities with specialized functions. Ayeke’s gromney (Thiermes, Tiermes), according to some myths, is the son of Perkel, who forcibly possessed his mother, so Thiermes pursues the thunder of evil spirits. From the sun Peiva depended on the well-being of people, good weather. According to some myths, Peive began the journey on a bear, continued on a male deer, ended on an approach on a pillar. The god of the wind was considered Piegg Olmay ("the wind man") by the Eastern Sami. Ilma Rice (Il-Maratche, ascending to the image of the god of air, sr. Finnish Ilmarinen) – in the West Veralden Olmay (“the man of the universe”) – the god of fertility, supporting the world with a pillar; Aileke (Passe-olmay, “the man of holidays”) – the deity of holidays; Rananeida – the goddess of spring and fertility, the daughter of Radyan-atche. Among the Terek Sami, the main god is Kav-rai, the patron saint of shamans; his brother Rukhtnas is a warrior god, the defender of the Sami Among the female deities are known the patroness of jagel pastures, the sister of Kavrai Raziayke, the goddess of the forest Vires akka (Virka), the mistress of the underworld and its riches Vygahke, etc. Among the deities on which hunting and craft depended were Leib-Olmai (“alder man”), Luot-Hozik – the mistress of deer, a woman covered with deer hair (her husband is Pos-host); the goddess Accruva, a woman with a fish tail, on which luck in fishing depended (the corresponding male character – Tias-Olmai).
The gods of the underworld of the dead are its lord Rota (Rusta, Mublin), the god of disease and death, depicted as a rider, and Yabme-akka, the “mother of the dead.” The Sami gods inhabited three tiers of the universe - the upper (heavenly) world, the earth and the underworld (afterlife) world (Yabmi-aimo, Mubbe Aimo. those who died from epidemics were sent to the gloomy world of Rutailo); these three tiers were depicted on shamanic tambourines.
Folklore of the Sami includes fairy tales (mines): for children, about Tala (stupid cannibal), about rakas (vurdalaks), about chaklas (dwarfs). Fables-legends about phenomena and objects of nature, myths (cattle), for example, about the deer-man Myandash are distributed. Historical legends of Sakka tell about wars, remarkable mountains, water bodies. Also known were the boyes and improvisation of the mushtall.