Friis — Lappish Mythology — Bear Hunt Ceremonies and World Tales

from Lappisk Mythologi, by J.A. Friis (1871)

These sections follow directly from the sacrifice ceremonies of §35, moving from the regular ritual calendar into the great sacred exception: the bear hunt. Among all Sami hunts, only the bear required its own language, its own ceremonies, its own myth. The sections here — likely §§36–37 in the original, immediately preceding the numbered §38 — give the fullest surviving account of the Sami bear cult: an origin myth preserved by Fjellstrom from oral tradition in Lycksele Lapmark, the full ceremonial sequence from den to feast to purification to bone burial, and a fragment of the Bear Song as transmitted through Tuderus. Following these is §38 on the Sakku game — a Sami board game played with dice on a 45-point field, possibly related to chess — and §39, the Sami legend of the flood, in which Jubmel overturns the world and only a boy and a girl survive on the sacred mountain.

Friis was Professor of Sami Language at the University of Christiania and drew throughout on the missionary-ethnographers of the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries — Fjellstrom, Leem, Scheffer, Tuderus, Hogstrom, Læstadius, and others. This translation is made directly from the 1871 Norwegian.

Bear Hunt Ceremonies

Since the bear was considered by the Sami to be a holy animal under the special protection of Læibolmai, a good many ceremonies were observed in former times when one went to hunt it and when one was fortunate enough to kill it. These ceremonies are mentioned by several old authors — for example, Leem, Scheffer, and others — but most fully by P. Fjellstrom in his book Berättelse om Lapparnes björnfånge (Stockholm, 1755). Since these ceremonies certainly stem from heathen times, it may perhaps not be out of place to record here the most important of what is reported about them, partly from his writings and partly from L. Læstadius.

When the Sami were going on a bear hunt, they never named the bear by its true name, guofca, but referred to it and everything connected with the hunt by peculiar mystical words. For the bear itself they used such expressions as basse vaise (holy game), or buolda-aggja (Hill-Grandfather), or buolda-boadnje (Hill-Man), or buolda-cuobo (Hill-Toad), or muodda-aggja (Fur-Grandfather), and others. As examples of the "bear language," "incomprehensible to all but bear hunters," one may note: song (juoigem) was called sigjem; eye (calbme) was called naste (i.e., star); ear (bæIlje) was called auros; hide (nakke) was called látek; heart (vaibmo) was called jalos (i.e., courage, boldness); to cook (vuossat) was called guordestet, and so on. Both the ceremonies and the language, says Fjellstrom, are said by the Sami's own account to have their origin in the following legend, which he heard told in Lycksele Lapmark:

The Origin Myth of the Bear Ceremonies

"Three brothers had a single sister. They hated this sister, and she was forced to flee into the wilderness. Tired from wandering, she found a bear's den and went in and lay down to rest. To the same den a bear also came, and after having formed a closer acquaintance with the girl, he took her as wife and begot a son with her. After some time had passed, when the son had grown up and the father was old, the bear one day said to his wife that he could no longer live on account of his age: he would therefore go out onto the first snow, so that her three brothers could see his tracks and ring him in and kill him. The wife tried to prevent this, but the bear would not be persuaded. He did as he had said, went out onto the first snowfall, so that the brothers soon found the tracks and ringed him in. Then they instructed the bear that a piece of brass should be fastened in his forehead as a mark, both so he could be recognized from other bears, and so that his own son, who had now also left him, should not kill him. When deep snow had fallen, the three brothers went out to fell the bear they had ringed. Then the bear asked his wife whether all three brothers had been equally hostile to her, to which she replied that the two eldest had been worse toward her than the youngest.

"When the brothers came to the bear's den, the bear sprang out and attacked the eldest of the brothers and bit him badly, after which it ran unhurt back into its den. When the second-eldest brother came, the bear likewise ran at him and bit him badly too, then returned into the den. Now it commanded its wife to take it by the waist, and with her in its arms it went on its hind legs out of the den. She herself sat down some distance away and covered her face with a cloth, as though she had not the heart to see the bear's end and how it was slain. Yet she peeked a little with one eye. From this is supposed to have arisen the custom that no woman may be allowed to see the bear or the bear hunters — except with her face covered and through a brass ring, about which more will be told later.

"When the three brothers had skinned the bear and put the meat in a kettle to cook, the son came and was told that they had shot a strange animal that had a piece of brass in its forehead. He said that this was his own father, who had been marked in this way, and therefore insisted on having an equal share with the others. When they absolutely refused to agree to this, the son threatened that if they did not give him his share, he would wake his father back to life. He then took a thin stick and began to beat on the bear's skin with it, saying: 'My father, rise up! My father, rise up!' At this the meat in the kettle began to boil so violently that it looked as though it would jump out, and the brothers were forced to give the son his share.

"From this is supposed to have arisen the custom that the hunters, the moment the bear is felled, begin to beat it with branches or thin sticks. From the circumstance that a brass ring was found in the bear's forehead is derived the practice that both the bear hunters themselves and all equipment used on the bear hunt must be adorned with brass rings and chains."

Fjellstrom adds that the bear's wife is said to have instructed the brothers in all the ceremonies that should be observed at the bear hunt, and that in no other way could they overcome so fierce and mighty an animal.

The Hunt

When approaching the bear's den, the hunters walked in a certain order. The one who had found its tracks went first with a stick in his hand bearing a brass ring at the end. After him came the one who carried the sacred drum; for this naturally had to be present and be consulted. Then came the boldest of the hunters, who was to give the bear the first blow or spear-thrust as it came out of its den.

When the bear had been felled and beaten with twigs, the bear hunters struck up a song, and the one who bore the stick with the brass ring was the lead singer. The song begins with these words: Kitulis puorrel i skada sobbi jella sait il — Thanks, you Good One, you have not harmed staff or spear! — For it sometimes happens that the bear knocks the spear from the hunter's hand, and then the hunter is often lost. After this everyone present skied over the bear as a sign of their victory, and so that it should not next time get so close to them as to run over their skis. A withe was then twisted and bound around the bear's jaw. Into this withe was fastened the chief bear hunter's belt, and he pulled the belt three times, after which he began to sing of his victory with strange tones and words. Some also took the spear, turned it three times with the point toward the bear, and joined in the same song. Then the bear was covered with spruce branches and left lying until the next day, even if it had been felled so close to their settlement that it could have been carried home and skinned the same day.

When they had come near enough to their settlement to be heard, they struck up a song appropriate to the occasion, so that those remaining at home could understand that the bear had been felled. All the women then dressed in their finest clothes and silver jewelry and answered the men's song, welcoming both the hunters and the felled bear.

The leader of the men now twisted a withe and made a ring at one end. This withe is called Søivverisse (presumably Saivvo-risse, Saivvo-branch). With this he struck three times on the outside of the tent or gamme and called out: Søivve olma! (presumably Saivvo-olmai), if a male bear had been killed, but Søivve nieida! if a female bear had been killed. Then all the bear hunters entered the tent — but never through the ordinary door; always through the rear or secret door — and through this same opening the dogs that had taken part must also be let in.

The women inside, clothed in their silver adornments and festival dress, all covered their faces at once with a cloth of frieze or other material. When they wished to look at the bear hunters, they were allowed only to partially uncover their faces and hold a brass ring before the eye, whereupon they spat chewed alder-bark on the hunters. The women themselves had also painted and crossed themselves with the color of alder-bark. Likewise the dogs were painted with the same decoction. After this welcome, the women adorned all the hunters with brass rings fastened on threads about the neck, one hand, and one foot. When this had been done, food was brought forth — the best the household owned. The bear hunters ate by themselves and the women by themselves. Nothing more was done that day, but everyone lay down to rest with the ornaments they had received. Yet the men did not sleep together with their wives but had to abstain from them for three nights, and the one who bore the staff with the ring (the one who had ringed the bear) for as many as five nights.

The Bear Song

The next day preparations were made to bring the bear home. Some hunters remained behind and built a shelter of planks covered with spruce branches. The others brought the bear home. The reindeer that was to draw it was adorned with brass rings around its neck. On the way home a song was sung — the so-called Bear Song — of which Tuderus preserved a fragment of 18 lines, though in a confused language containing more Finnish than Sami words. His translation does not correspond well to the words of the original, which are therefore, though of limited literary value, given here in literal translation from Friis's Norwegian rendering:

You, the forest's precious vanquished one,
Grant us perfect health!
For our storehouses, plunder —
Bring thousands when you come,
Hundreds, hundreds for the catch!
From the gods I come
With spoils, glad of heart,
As one without wonder, without toil,
Gave gifts, bestowed money.
When I come to my home,
Three nights of feast I will keep
Across valleys, across wide mountains!
Drive the Evil before you away!
Quenched is your eye's light.
Hereafter I will honor you
A year — with the scythe, your prey,
That I forget not the right song —
So come again someday!

The Feast and the Skinning

The bear, brought home under song and rejoicing, was laid into the plank shelter and sprinkled with chewed alder-bark, and a small birch-bark bowl filled with chewed alder-bark was placed under its nose. Knives, axes, cups, and vessels to be used were adorned with brass rings. While the bear was being skinned, no silence was allowed; rather various songs were sung, in which one spoke among other things of the great honor being shown the bear and asked it to proclaim this to other bears, so that they would let themselves be caught with ease. During the singing one also tried to guess what the women over in the everyday tent were doing, and if one guessed correctly, this was considered a favorable omen. What the women were doing was learned from children, who were allowed to run back and forth between the women and the hunters. No grown woman was allowed to come to the skinning place or step over any of the hunters' footprints as long as this business was going on. Nor was any woman allowed, until a year had passed, to drive with the reindeer that had pulled the bear home.

When under singing the bear had been skinned, it was opened enough that the blood could be ladled out, and this together with some of the fat was cooked and eaten first, before any of the meat was cooked. The bear's body was dismembered so that no bone was broken and as far as possible no tendons cut through. All the meat was cooked at once, if the kettle was large enough to hold it all; otherwise no more of the bear was skinned than the kettle could hold at a time. The bear hunters had to pay close attention that the kettle did not boil over and that none of the broth spattered into the fire. If this happened, it was considered a bad omen. To prevent the kettle from boiling over, one was not permitted to pour cold water into it or take from the fire; instead the one overseeing the cooking sent word to the women to inquire whether they might be doing anything unsuitable for so solemn an occasion. If the cause of the kettle's violent boiling was not found among the women, the leader struck up a song composed for exactly this case, whereby the foaming kettle gradually began to cook properly.

The women were allowed to eat only of the bear's hindquarters — roughly as far forward as the bear's wife had reached when she took him about the waist. The portion allotted to the women was brought to them by two delegates from the hunters. As they entered the everyday tent, the women stared at them through brass rings and sprinkled both them and the meat with alder-bark. The first bite of bear meat the women had to either let fall through a brass ring or push it through the ring into the mouth. No grace, as otherwise customary, was said at this meal; salt was not used either.

After the meal the men went to rest in the plank shelter where the bear had been cooked and were not allowed to come to their wives until the following purification ceremonies had been performed.

Purification and Bone Burial

All who had taken part when the bear was killed first washed themselves in a strong lye of birch ash, then sprang three times in a circle around the iron chains from which the kettle used for cooking the bear meat had hung. Then some sprang in through the ordinary door of the everyday tent and immediately out again, then in again and out through the Boasso or rear door. While they ran in and out, they imitated the bear's growling sound. During this the wife of the man who killed the bear was to grab hold of them with gloves on her hands and ask: "How long?" — that is, until another bear is felled. They answered: "Next spring!"

Others ran around the outside of the everyday tent, which was adorned inside and out with spruce branches, then into the tent and sprang three times in a circle around the hearth. Yet others, who had not run around the tent, came in through the rear door, jumped over the hearth, ran out through the ordinary door, and rolled three times outside. All were finally seized, as described, by the wife of the man who killed the bear. This ceremony, says Scheffer, was a kind of atonement for the bear's death and consolation for his mourning wife.

Not the smallest bit of the bear's bones was to be thrown away; all were carefully gathered together. Then a grave was dug as long as the bear itself had been, at the spot where it had been cooked. Fresh birch branches were first laid into the grave, and on these all the bones were laid in their natural order. The skin separately peeled from the nose was laid in its place as well, together with the sexual organs and the birch-bark bowl of alder-bark that had been placed under the bear's nose. All this was covered with heavy tree-trunks the length of the grave, and over these spruce branches were again spread. Some Sami did not dig the grave horizontal but perpendicular, placing the bones in it beginning with the hindquarters.

The Revealing of the Hide

Until now the bear's hide had lain hidden under a covering of spruce branches. None of the women had yet seen it; nor was any woman to see it until the following ceremony had been performed: the hide was stretched out with wooden stakes to its full length and width and placed against a tree stump right beside the tent. The women came out blindfolded, and a bow or stick of alder-wood was put in their hands, with which they were to shoot or throw at the hide, which they could not see but were simply placed facing. The woman who first hit the hide was considered the most praiseworthy, and it was foretold from this that her husband next time would be the one to fell the bear. If she were unmarried, this was counted to her still greater honor, and it was foretold that she would marry a good bear hunter. Then the blindfolds were removed, and all the women were allowed to look at the hide through a brass ring — and only then were all the necessary ceremonies considered fully performed.

L. Læstadius reports that as late as 1780, the minister's wife in Kvikjok participated in such a procession when her husband had been on the bear hunt.

§38. The Sakku Game

The Sami in Finnmark amused themselves in former times partly with various games and partly with a game they still know and call sakku. It has some resemblance to chess, and perhaps even the names are related.

The Sami sakku is played with dice. The pieces numbered 1 are called olbmak (men). These are 15 in number and are set up on points 1–15. The pieces numbered 2 are called galgok (women) and are likewise 15 in number, set up on points 31–45. The piece numbered 3 — the largest — is called gonagas (king) and is set up on point 23. The remaining pieces are bircuk — dice — which are thrown, whereupon the playing pieces are moved as many spaces as the value of the dice shows. Each die's value is as follows: the face marked with a cross, which is also usually painted black, is called sakku and counts 5 points, and determines not only by the first throw which player receives the king, but is also the condition without which no piece can be moved from its first position — so that when the throw yields no sakku, no piece can be moved; but once a piece has been moved from its first position with the help of sakku, it can be moved further even without sakku coming up. The values of the other faces are indicated by the strokes on them, so that for example the face with 3 strokes brings the piece 3 points forward. The face with no strokes counts 0 points.

The pieces move in the following way: the olbmak go from 1 to 16, thence along the line to 30, thence to 45 and on to 31, from there again to 16, further to 30, thence to 15, on to 1, and so on by the same rule. The galgok move in the opposite direction: from 45 to 30, further along the line to 16, thence to 1, and so on. Those of the opposing player's pieces that are positioned such that by the value of the dice thrown one can "take" or land on the same point as the opposing piece are removed; the player whose pieces are thus taken first loses the game. The king goes to the player who first throws sakku, and can thereafter be moved both forward and backward or to the right and left, provided it is not moved more points than the dice show.

The pieces may moreover be moved forward in several ways: either so that all three dice values are added together and only a single piece moved as many points as the sum amounts to, or several pieces may be moved, with the condition that no more points are moved in total than the sum of the thrown dice, and that no new piece is ever moved from its first position unless there is a sakku from the throw for each such piece.

It is probable that the sakku game is very old among the Sami, even though no author had previously described it; for all the words used in it are purely Sami (except perhaps the name itself) — for example: goddet, to kill, "take" or "remove" a piece; sirddet, to move; vuoittet, to win; and others.

§39. The Legend of the Flood

What thoughts the ancient Sami had about the shape of the earth can no longer be established with certainty, as they had already received a vague notion of its true form by the time of the first missionaries. Meanwhile the idea seems, according to L. Læstadius, to have been widespread among them — and perhaps has not entirely vanished even today — that not only was all of Scandinavia an island (and single high mountains therefore still bear names such as suolo-rielgge, Island-Ridge; Sullui cielbma ["Sulitjelma"], Threshold of the Islands), but that the whole earth was a great island floating and drifting on an immeasurable sea. Perhaps it is on this basis that their belief in a great flood rests, about which Hogstrom has preserved a legend that seems to be originally Sami:

"When I asked them," he reports, "how their ancestors had come to live in this land, and whether people had lived here before they came, they replied that of the first matter they knew nothing, but supposed that both here and elsewhere there had been people before God overturned the world. For there had formerly been a time when Jubmel turned the world upside down, so that the water from the lakes and rivers rose up over the land. Then all people drowned, except for a boy and a girl. These God took under His arms and carried up to a high mountain, which is called basse varre, the holy mountain. When the danger had passed, God let them go their way. They parted and each went separate ways, intending to seek whether there might not be more people than themselves. After wandering for three years, they met again and recognized each other. They therefore parted once more, and another three years passed before they met again. At that meeting too they recognized each other. But when they met a third time, after three more years, they could no longer recognize each other. So they stayed together and begot children, and from them all people now living on earth descend."

Colophon

Source: J.A. Friis, Lappisk Mythologi, Eventyr og Folkesagn (Christiania: Alb. Cammermeyer, 1871), Bear Hunt Ceremonies (unnumbered, between §35 and §38, pp. 155–165), §38 (pp. 165–167), and §39 (pp. 168–169). Friis (1821–1896) was Professor of Sami Language at the University of Christiania and one of the foremost Sami-language scholars of the nineteenth century. The bear hunt material draws on Fjellstrom (1755), Læstadius, Tuderus, and Scheffer. The Bear Song (18 lines) is translated from Friis's Norwegian rendering of Tuderus's text — a Finnish-Sami mixed-language fragment of which Friis notes that his own translation "does not correspond well" to the original words; it is presented here as a scholarly curiosity, not as a pure Sami text. The sakku game description and flood legend are translated directly from Friis's 1871 Norwegian. This is a first English translation.

Note: §40 of Friis — Bæive barnek (Sons of the Sun), the only surviving Sami epic poem — is reserved for a dedicated future session, as it requires careful handling of the embedded Swedish poetic fragments (Fjellner's transcription) that constitute the epic's only surviving form.

Translated and formatted for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.

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Source Text

Ceremonier ved Bjørnefangsten

Da Bjørnen af Lapperne ansaaes for et helligt Dyr, der stod under Læibolmai's særlige Beskyttelse, iagttoges i ældre Tider en hel Del Ceremonier, naar man skulde paa Jagt efter den, og naar man var saa heldig at dræbe den. Disse Ceremonier omtales af flere gamle Forfattere, f. Ex. Leem, Scheffer og fl., men udførligst af P. Fjellstrom i hans Bog: „Berattelse om Lapparnes Bjornfånge. Stockholm 1755". Da disse Ceremonier ganske vist stamme fra den hedenske Tid, kan det maaske her ikke være paa urette Sted at finde anført det Vigtigste af, hvad derom berettes dels i hans Skrifter, dels af L. Læstadius.

Naar Lapperne skulde paa Bjørnejagt, pleiede de aldrig at benævne Bjørnen med hans rette Navn, guofca, men omtalte ham og Alt, hvad der stod i Forbindelse med Jagten, med særegne mystiske Ord. Om Bjørnen selv brugte de saaledes Udtrykket basse vaise, (helligt Vildt), eller buolda-aggja, (Bakke-Bedstefader), eller buolda-boadnje, (Bakke-Manden), eller buolda-cuobo, (Bakke-Padde), eller muodda-aggja, (Pels-Bedstefader), og fl. Som Exempler af Bjørnesproget, „uforstaaeligt for Andre end Bjørnejægere", kan anføres, at Sang, (juoigem), hed: sigjem; Øie, (calbme), hed: naste, (o: Stjerne); Øre, (bæIlje), hed: auros; Skind, (nakke), hed: látek; Hjerte, (vaibmo), hed: jalos, (o: Mod, Dristighed); koge, (vuossat), hed: guordestet, o.s.v. Baade Ceremonierne og Sproget skal efter Lappernes egen Forklaring, siger Fjellstrom, have sin Oprindelse fra følgende Sagn, som han har hørt fortælle i Lycksele Lapmark...

[Source text continues in Tulku/Tools/uralic/friis_lappisk_mythologi_raw.txt lines 6932–7497.]

Source Colophon

J.A. Friis, Lappisk Mythologi, Eventyr og Folkesagn. Christiania: Alb. Cammermeyer, 1871. Public domain (author died 1896). Source scan: archive.org identifier lappiskmythologi00frii, University of Toronto scan.

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