Shamanic-drum of the Sámi people

@friendly-fenix · 2019-01-05 01:06 · spirituality

There are indigenous people all over the world not only in America, even in Northern Europe and the Arctic part of Euro-Asia, often semi-nomadic and reindeer herding, this is a picture of a Sámi drum, these drums where used for magic and divination, the sámi shaman or "noaidi" would use it to go into trance and communicate with ancestors and spirits. The drum was mainly used by men, but accoding to wikipedia there has been repports of female "noaidi".

sámi-drum1.jpg

The drums became illegal since the southern Scandinavian people had turned to Christ and anything like this was considered witchcraft. Sámi people who didn't want to give up their drum to the fire arranged by the christian-missionaries, where often trialled/punished for witchcraft. There for it's very hard to find any old drums today.

sámi-drum2.jpg

The symbols on the drums have various meaning, and they could be used together with a piece of horn for divination, something like an oracle of sorts, whilst the drum was lightly tapped a piece of horn would move around on the drum and point to symbols on the drum and give guidance.

sami-drum3.jpg

Their shamanistic practice has not been completely extinguished, but now days many of the Sámi people self-identify as christians.


Sámi_mythology_shaman_drum_Samisk_mytologi_schamantrumma_071.png This drum from the Lule Sámi area has a unique mix of motives: fishes, fur animals, and game birds; thus representing a drum owner who was more of a hunter than a reindeer herder. Image source: wikipedia

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sámi_people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sámi_shamanism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sámi_drum Top photos: By @friendly-fenix © (if you link back to this page and give @friendly-fenix credit you can use the photos)

#spirituality #photography #sami #shamanism #education
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