Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T09:13:18.590Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Traditional Saami reindeer herding village resource territories on the western Kola Peninsula, Russia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 September 2009

Robert P. Wheelersburg  and
Natalia Gutsol
Robert P. Wheelersburg
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology-Anthropology, Elizabethtown College, Elizabethtown, PA 17022, USA ([email protected])
Natalia Gutsol
Affiliation:
Barents Centre for Humanities, Kola Science Centre, Apatity, Murmansk, Russian Federation
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Some Arctic scholars believe that modern reindeer herding on the Kola Peninsula has cultural continuity with the traditional period of such activity in the late 19th century. Others believe that by World War II, Soviet repression of Saami leaders, collectivisation of herding villages, and relocation of families had eliminated many traditional behaviours, especially in the Lake Imandra watershed. This study utilises informant interviews with survivors of the Babinski and Ekostrovski Saami reindeer herding villages and archival materials to understand how their families used land and water to fish, hunt, and obtain other resources including cash labour. As part of the United States National Science Foundation's human dimensions of the Arctic system (HARC) programme to examine how humans are both shaped by, and shape, the Arctic environment, the authors document how lands and waters formed traditional resource territories for Saami herding families. The results reveal that prior to their destruction, western Kola reindeer herding villages were integrated along family lines, with villages sharing mates, resource territories, and economic activities. This paper argues that there was, in fact, no cultural continuity between traditional Saami reindeer herding villages and modern herding structures such as the post-Soviet brigade on the western Kola Peninsula.

Type
Research Article
Information
Polar Record , Volume 46 , Issue 3 , July 2010 , pp. 222 - 232
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alymov, V.K. 1927. Lopari Kol'skogo Poluostrova. [Lapps of the Kola Peninsula.] Murmanskoe obschestvo kraevedeniia. [Murmansk Society of Local History. Reports and Account] 1: 7–23.Google Scholar
Beach, H. 1990. Comparative systems of reindeer herding. In: Galaty, J.G., and Douglas, D.L. (editors). The world of pastoralism. Herding systems in comparative perspective. New York/London: The Guilford Press/Belhaven Press: 255–297.Google Scholar
Beach, H. 1992. Reindeer herding on the Kola Peninsula: report of a visit with Saami herders of Sovkhoz tundra. In: Kvist, R. (editor). Readings in Saami history, culture and language III. Umeå: Umeå University, Center for Arctic Cultural Research (miscellaneous publications 14): 113–142.Google Scholar
Dergachev, N.A. 1877. Russkaya Laplandiya. Statisticheskiy, geographicheskiy I ethnographicheskiy ocherki. [Russian Lapland. Statistical, geographical and ethnographical essay] Archangelsk: Tipografiya Gubernskogo Pravleniya (Izdanie Archangelskogo Gubernckogo Statisticheskogo Komiteta).Google Scholar
Eidlitz Kuoljok, K. 1987. Den samiska sitan – en utmaning. [The Saami sita – a challenge.] Rig 1987(3): 75–76. (Förening för Svensk kulturhistoria).Google Scholar
Encyclopaedia of Saami Culture. 2004. Map 46 The Saami villages (historical). Helsinki: University of Helsinki, Finland. URL: http://www.helsinki.fi/~sugl_smi/senc/en/index.htm (accessed 22 March 2007).Google Scholar
Gebhardt, J.F. 1990. The Petsamo-Kirkenes operation: Soviet breakthrough and pursuit in the Arctic, October 1944. Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Combat Studies Institute (Leavenworth papers 17).Google Scholar
Gutsol, N., and Riabova, L.. 2002. Kola Saami and regional development. In: Karppi, K., and Eriksson, J. (editors). Conflict and cooperation in the north. Umeå: Umeå University Centre for Sami Research: 313–342.Google Scholar
Hallström, G. 1911. Kolalapparnas hotade existens. [The Kola Lapps’ threatened existence]. Ymer H3: 239–316.Google Scholar
Heinapuu, A. no date. The endangered Uralic peoples. Short reference guide. URL: http://www.suri.ee/eup/ (accessed 7 January 2007).Google Scholar
Ingold, T. 1980. Hunters, pastoralists and ranchers. Reindeer economies and their transformations. New York: Cambridge University Press (Cambridge Studies in Social Anthropology 28).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Itkonen, T.I. 1958. Koltan- ja kuolanlapin sanakirja. [Dictionary of Kolt- and Kola Lappish] I–II. Helsinki: Suomalais-ugrilainen Seura (Lexica Societatis Fenno-Ugricae [Lexicon Society of Fenno-Ugric] 15).Google Scholar
Kharuzin, N. 1890. Russkie Lopari: Ocherki proshlogo i sovremennogo byta. [Russian Lapps: characteristics of past and present lifestyle]. Izvestiia imperatorskogo obshchestva liubitelei estestvoznaniia, antropologii i etnograffi, 66: Trudy etnograficheskogo otdela 10. [Proceedings of the Imperial Society for Natural Science, Anthropology and Ethnography 66: Works of the Ethnographical Department 10].Google Scholar
Kiselyeva, T.A. 1984. Voprosu o Mestah Prozhivaniya Kol'skih Saamov (1917–1967) [On the places of residence of the Kola Saami (1917–1967)]. Murmansk: Geograficheskoe ob-vo SSSR, Severnyi filial. (Priroda I khozyaistvo Severa. [Nature and economy of the north]) 12.Google Scholar
Konakov, N.D. 1993. Ecological adaptation of Komi resettled groups. Arctic Anthropology 30 (2): 92–102.Google Scholar
Konstantinov, Y. 1997. Memory of Lenin Ltd. Reindeer-herding brigades on the Kola Peninsula. Anthropology Today 13 (3): 14–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Konstantinov, Y. 2000. Pre-soviet pasts of reindeer-herding collectives: ethnographies of transition in Murmansk region. Acta Borealia 17 (2): 49–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Konstantinov, Y. 2005. From ‘traditional’ to collectivized reindeer herding on the Kola Peninsula: continuity or disruption? Acta Borealia 22 (2): 170–188.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuropjatnik, M. 1992. K kharakteristke brachnoy sistemy Kol'skih Saamov (po materialam metricheskih knig XIX – nachala XXvv). [On the characteristics of the Kola Saami marriage system. (On the data of the register of birth books XIX – beginning of the XX century)]. Journal of the Finno-Ugric Society 84: 191–200.Google Scholar
Kvist, R., and Wheelersburg, R.. 1997. Changes in Saami socioeconomic Institutions in Jokkmokk parish 1720–1890. Arctic Anthropology 34 (2): 1–11.Google Scholar
Lehtola, V.-P. 2002. The Sámi people – traditions in transition. Inari: Kustannus-Puntsi.Google Scholar
Lukianchenko, T.V. 1983. The burial customs of the Kola Saamis. Scandinavian Yearbook of Folklore 39: 201–210.Google Scholar
Lukianchenko, T.V. 1989. Lapps in the Soviet Union. In: Broadbent, N.D.Readings in Saami history, culture, and language. Umeå: Umeå University Centre for Arctic Cultural Research (miscellaneous publications 7): 87–93.Google Scholar
Manker, E. 1953. The nomadism of the Swedish mountain Lapps. Stockholm: Hugo Gebers (Acta Lapponica 7).Google Scholar
Meriot, C. 1984. The Saami peoples from the time of the voyage of Ottar to Thomas von Westen. Arctic 37 (4): 373–384.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pehrson, R.N. 1957. The bilateral network of social relations in Könkämä Lapp district. Bloomington: University of Indiana, Indiana University Research Centre in Anthropology, Folklore and Linguistics (publication 3).Google Scholar
Pelto, P.J. 1987. Snowmobile revolution: technology and social change in the Arctic. Waveland Park: Waveland Press.Google Scholar
Polla, M., and Kuropjatnik, M.. 2004. Household arrangements among the Saami of Akkala, northern Russia, in the 19th century. In: Hämynen, T., Partanen, J., and Shikalov, Y.. Family life on the northwestern margins of imperial Russia. Joensuu: Joensuu University Press (Studia Carelica Humanistica 19): 239–260.Google Scholar
Robinson, M.P. and Kassam, K.-A.S.. 1998. Sami potatoes: living with reindeer and perestroika. Calgary: Bayeux Arts.Google Scholar
Sarv, M. 1996. Changes in the social life of the Kola Saami. In: Seurujärvi-Kari, I., and Kulonen, U.-M.. Essays on indigenous identity and rights. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press.Google Scholar
Sergejeva, J. 2000. The eastern Saami: a short account of their history and identity. Acta Borealia: A Norwegian Journal of Circumpolar Studies 17 (2): 5–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Storå, N. 1971. Burial customs of the Skolt Lapps. Helsinki: Finnish Academy of Science and Letters.Google Scholar
Temple, G.T. 1880. Map of the White Sea peninsula. In: Rae, E. 1881. The White Sea peninsula. A journey in Russian Lapland and Karelia. London: John Murray (drawn from the original map prepared by J.A. Friis and published in Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society 1880).Google Scholar
Took, R. 2003. Running with reindeer. Encounters in Russian Lapland. London: John Murray.Google Scholar
Voinov, A., Bromley, L., Kirk, E., Korchak, A., Farley, J., Moiseenko, T., Krasovskaya, T., Makarova, Z., Megorski, V., Selin, V., Kharitonova, G., and Edson, R.. 2004. Understanding human and ecosystem dynamics in the Kola Arctic: a participatory study. Arctic 57 (4): 375–388.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Volkov, N.N. 1996. The Russian Sami. Historical-ethnographic essays. Kautokeino: Nordic Sami Institute (Diedut 2/1996) (originally published in 1946).Google Scholar
Wheelersburg, R., and Gutsol, N. 2008. Babinski and Ekostrovski: Saami pogosty on the western Kola Peninsula, Russia from 1880 to 1940. Arctic Anthropology 45 (1): 79–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar