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

§§32–35

These four sections follow directly from the preceding account of sacred sites (§31), turning from the landscape of worship to the objects and acts of worship themselves. §32 describes the god-images the Sami placed on their Basek — stone images found in nature and consecrated by the noaide, and carved wooden images made from birch-stumps, each bearing its deity's mark painted in the sacrificed animal's blood. §33 records the curious autumn rite of the Kovre, the sacred doe — a whole reindeer skinned without iron tools, frozen stiff, and dedicated standing on a mountain as a fertility offering, with a detailed comparison to the Finnish Kekri festival. §34 traces the ritual calendar of Sami sacrifice, centered on the great autumn slaughter but extending through the full year. §35 gives the fullest account we have of Sami sacrifice in practice: the noaide's ceremonial dress, the selection and approval of the offering animal, the strict protocol of slaughter and dismemberment, the feast-prayers, the bone-collection in the birch-bark Damen-garre, and the distinct offering customs for each deity — Radien, Horagales, the Junkerne, the Sun, Sarakka, the Dead, and Rota.

Friis was Professor of Sami Language at the University of Christiania (Oslo) and drew on the most reliable missionary-ethnographic sources of the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries — Jessen, Leem, Rheen, Nærø, Samuel Rehn, Hogstrom, Scheffer, and others. This translation is made from his 1871 Norwegian. The work is an archival ethnographic text, not a collection of Sami-language sacred songs — Friis writes in scholarly Norwegian about Sami religion, embedding Sami terms throughout.

§32. Sieide and Seite — The God-Images

On a Basse stood the Sami's god-images, which could be either stone or wood. These images were supposed properly only to represent the invisible deity, though some Sami may also have imagined that the divinity could temporarily inhabit the image. On the whole, their sense of the relationship between image and invisible deity seems to have been somewhat unclear. Idol-worshippers in the same sense as other Asian peoples — who believe that the gods are bodily present in their images and inseparable from them — the Sami were by no means. For this reason they could set up an image for a single occasion and afterward throw it away as worthless, or the very same image could at different times represent different gods. According to Samuel Rehn, new wooden images were made for the god Horagales every autumn, somewhat before the great autumn slaughter, "so that the god should have a new, beautiful dwelling."

Regarding the meaning of the word Sieide or Seite, considerable confusion and contradiction reigns among the various authors. Hogstrom says that when the images were of stone they were called Sieide or Seite, but he knew the situation only in Swedish Lapmark. The Norwegian authors also use the term Sieide, but mean by it the same as the Basse or the place where a god-image stood, and Leem translates Sieide as "oracle." Scheffer seems to mean by Seite a god-image in general, and in some cases where one is more specifically described it is characterized as Gædge-Ibmel — Stone-God — and Muorra-Ibmel — Tree-God. Samuel Rehn translates Seite as manes, but reveals his complete ignorance of the Sami language by rendering the question the noaide put when an offering was to be brought — Maid væroid Jabmek sitte? — as "What kind of offering will you have, o manes?" For sitte is, as Læstadius also remarks, not Seite in this context, but the Sami verb sittet: to will, to wish, to demand. The sentence therefore says nothing about Seite but simply: "What offering do you demand, O Dead?" However the concept may have been that the Sami in different places attached to Sieide or Seite — god-image or god-image-site — the word does not appear to be genuinely Sami. It is not found in Finnish or other related languages, but it does appear in Old Norse and the Germanic languages in the not greatly differing form Seidh or Seiðr, which denotes a particular kind of sorcery. "If the Sami Seida derives from Old Norse — which is probable — it likely originally denoted a god-image the Sami used in performing their sorcery-arts, a function that god-images still have among several related peoples."

The stone images — or, as Hogstrom calls them, Seiterne — were not made by craft, but were either found at some prominent point as a strangely formed, upright boulder, which was then worshipped as a symbol of the deity, or the Sami found by a waterfall or on a shore a stone that through weathering had acquired an unusual form. This he would take and set it up on the spot or carry it to a Basse and place it there. Castrén reports, however, that he had seen on an island in Lake Enare an image that had been fashioned by human hands. "It was assembled in part from different stones, which were clearly meant to represent the different parts of a human body, and on top of the Seida lay a large stone representing the head." But perhaps this is a misunderstanding on Castrén's part — the stone he thought was a head may in the Sami's own understanding have been the entire god-image, which, as almost always, stood on a base or elevated platform built of stone.

As a rule several images were set up in the same place. The largest represented the head of the family. A somewhat smaller one represented his wife, and one or more still smaller ones represented the couple's children. Around each of these images — separately for each — was built a ring-wall of stone, and on top of this a timber fence, where timber was available nearby, the better to protect the deposited offering from theft. Likewise a scaffold was sometimes built on which the offering was placed near the stone god — more on this in the next section. Throughout Finnmark there still remain at many places visible ruins of these ring-walls, though the images themselves have of course disappeared, having been overturned and discarded either by the missionaries or by the Sami themselves. Only individual images that nature itself set up, and which are too large to be overturned or destroyed, still stand here and there as reminders of the heathen age. Some of the ring-walls that were raised around the images have, on the other hand, still survived unchanged. Notable among these is one found at the bank of Laxelv water in Porsanger. A few years ago traces were still present of the timber logs that had once lain on top of the ring-wall. Inside the wall there is a pyramid built of round stones, and in the top of this pyramid one can still clearly see the hollow between the stones in which the actual god-image once stood. The pyramid is hollow, and inside the hollow the author found, when he last saw the site, still bones of various animals and fish.

The stone images the Sami found and set up could be of very different sizes. Some were so small that they could easily be lifted. "At some places it was customary," says Hogstrom §19, "every year to lift up the stones, and in winter to lay fresh pine branches under and around them, in summer green leaves, which the Sami did bareheaded as he approached, crawling on all fours, as when he was otherwise going to offer." From the stone's lightness or heaviness one could conclude whether the god was favorably or unfavorably disposed. "The stone gods," says the same author, "seem to have been held by the Sami in far greater holiness than those of wood." For the stone ones were formed by the gods themselves; the wood ones by human hands.

All horns from slaughtered reindeer were always brought to the gods as an offering. They were arranged as a fence around the image, and this was called Coarvve-garde — the Horn-Fence. Not many years ago the remains of the horn-masses that had been offered at certain places could still be found, but now — since reindeer antlers have become a trade commodity — they have entirely disappeared. According to Leem, beside the two tall stones found on the summit of the mountain Sølfargapper in Porsanger, which served as idol-images, "were placed in a crisscross pattern long poles of dry pine, alternately carved with three straight notches and three crosses, presenting the following characters: niXXXIII+++HIXXX." Probably these marks recorded the number or nature of the offerings that had been brought.

Besides images of stone, the Sami had also images of wood. These were set up in forested areas on a scaffold built from four or more perpendicularly driven stakes. On top of these stakes split logs were laid side by side, so that they formed a roof-like surface or so that the whole thing looked like a great table on very tall legs. Such a scaffold is called luovve and is still used by the Sami to store various goods out of reach of dogs and predators. The wooden image was placed either on top of this scaffold or beside it, but the offering was always laid up on the scaffold. The trees standing in the forest around the luovve or altar were always stripped of branches from the bottom and a good way up the trunk. "These altars," says the author of the Nærø Manuscript, "can be so large that they contain twenty to thirty loads of wood. Such altars they have standing, each to honor his three great gods, far up in the forest toward the mountains. Missionary Kildal burned in Ofoten over fourteen days forty such altars with all the images and bones lying on them — bones that at some altars were found in such quantity that they, not counting the altar itself, could not have been hauled away at once even with five or six horses."

The wooden images, says Hogstrom, were made from the lower part of tree trunks, especially birch. The root itself was shaped as a head, and some of the trunk formed the body and legs. Jessen reports "that the wooden images were one and a half to two ells high and about one ell thick. They fashioned the image so that it bore some resemblance to the mark by which that same idol was depicted on the sacred drum, and so that every god might recognize his own offering and no other might appropriate it and benefit from it at foreign expense, they also placed the idol's name before the image" — which presumably means that they painted the god's mark on the image in the blood of the sacrificed animal, as it was depicted on the sacred drum. "The eyes they made recognizable with the fat of the animal. Beside the Værro-muor — offering-tree — or image, they placed yet another sign, which they called Kielde-muor (gieldet, to forbid, to guard — thus: the Protection-Tree). This consisted as a rule of two branches of birch, one on each side of the image, bent together at their tops above it. The root, which formed the image's head, was placed upward and the trunk fixed in the ground — except when they were offering to Radien-acce or Radien-kiedde; in that case the image was placed reversed, with the root downward. When they offered to the Sun or Moon, they placed beside each image a tree fashioned at the top as a ring set with prongs, and smeared it on all sides with blood. When they offered to the Saivvo-people, they used stones instead of trees, which they likewise smeared with blood and adorned with the fat of the offering." "Into Horagales's image's head," according to Scheffer, "a spike was driven, or, according to Jessen, something was fixed to the image that was supposed to represent a hammer." "These images," says Hogstrom, "either stand permanently in their set places and are visited annually with offerings when the Sami comes in their vicinity during migrations, or they are erected every year in autumn at the places where the Sami slaughter their reindeer. It has, however, happened that the Sami have done damage to others' private god-images or chopped to pieces the horns and bones that had been offered to them."

§33. Kovre and Kevre — the Finns' Kekri

The Ter Sami — or the Sami who live on the peninsula east of Kola in Russian Lapland — had, according to Læstadius, until not very many years ago a custom of offering in a peculiar way a whole reindeer to secure luck with reindeer-breeding. This, he says, proceeded in the following manner: each reindeer-owner presented his best and most beautiful animal for this purpose, and from among these the noaide selected one. This animal was to be skinned without the aid of iron implements — a requirement that may indicate the rite was very ancient, or dated from a time when iron tools were not yet known. After the reindeer had been skinned, it was left to freeze stiff and then set upright on a mountain, where it was consecrated by the noaide and the assembled crowd through singing and incantations to the deity of the whole settlement, to whom offering was then made. Probably it was not the skinned reindeer body that was actually worshipped, but rather it stood in the same relationship to the deity who was thought to promote reindeer-breeding as other images stood to other gods. In all probability it was a female reindeer — a simle — that was sacrificed, and from this one may explain the peculiar circumstance that several of the Basse-varek — sacred mountains — which Leem enumerates bear the epithet Basse aldo — holy doe — for example: Mæiske vare basse aldo, Holy-Doe Mountain of Mæiske; Nieid vare basse aldo, Holy-Doe Mountain of the Maiden; and others. Though nothing is mentioned about this in the missionaries' writings, it was probably also the custom in Finnmark in the oldest times to offer a whole reindeer in autumn for luck with reindeer-breeding. What indeed points to this is that on drum No. 1 one finds a female reindeer placed among the highest gods as an offering.

Kovre or Kevre, as this offering-reindeer was called by the Ter Sami, is probably the Finns' Kekri, Kakri, or Koyri, which according to Agricola was a deity who had care for the welfare of livestock. In honor of this deity the Finns formerly held a festival in autumn at All Saints' Day — which the Finns therefore still call Kekri — at which a sheep was slaughtered and eaten together with other food in honor of the divinity. The Sami's Kovre or Basse aldo — Holy Doe — and the Finns' Kekri were therefore in general a symbol of abundance and fertility, but it is now no longer possible to determine whether the Sami borrowed the idea from the Finns — or the Finns from the Sami.

§34. The Sacrifice Seasons

Læstadius believes that the Sami's regular or great festival of sacrifice was appointed to the autumn — to the close of September. This is the time when the Sami customarily slaughter their bull-reindeer before the rutting season begins. The meat that is not immediately consumed is sold or stored dried in sheds until spring, when reindeer are unfit for slaughter. In December too there was in all likelihood a larger sacrifice festival. That month is called in Sami Basse-manno or Bassatis-manno — Roast-Month or Sacrifice-Month or Holy-Month. Castrated reindeer and does are at this time fattest and are therefore slaughtered by the Sami.

Besides the offerings brought at these great festivals, the Sami offered regularly throughout the year, as their weal or woe demanded thank-offerings or propitiary offerings — now to one, now to another of their many gods and guardian spirits. In every such case the noaide determined by means of the sacred drum what offering should be brought.

§35. Sacrifice Ceremonies

When the Sami who was to offer was not himself a noaide, he had to summon one who knew all the ceremonies of sacrifice. The noaide had first to prepare himself for the offering through fasting and washing his whole body. In certain cases — for example in life-threatening illnesses — it could happen that an animal was to be offered whole and entire. In that case no sacrificial feast was held and no guests invited. But otherwise the Sami held, as other pagan peoples do, a feast-gathering at the sacrifice. As many guests were invited as were needed to consume the meat of the slaughtered animal on the spot. When the day of offering arrived and the guests came, the noaide dressed himself in his finest clothes. Around his right hand he wore a brass chain. A belt he wore so that it lay over his right shoulder and under his left arm, like an order-sash. Over his shoulders he wore a white linen cloth, and on his head, when offering to any of the goddesses, a linen cloth shaped like a woman's cap, around which again, according to the Nærø Manuscript, was placed a wreath of leaves and flowers. "When one now asked the noaide," says Jessen, "what his adornments — chain, belt, and so forth — were meant to signify, he replied that it was all a sign of the willingness and readiness with which they brought their offering."

After being thus redimitus ad sacra peragenda — dressed for the sacred purpose — the noaide first inquired by means of the drum, to which deity one was to offer (in the case where no particular god's specific help was needed), and what offering was to be brought. If this was a reindeer — as was most usually the case in autumn at the slaughter-time, while at other times and in particular circumstances other offerings could be brought — the animal was separated from the herd, and through its right ear was fastened a white, red, or black thread, according to the nature of the deity to whom the offering was destined. The animal selected for sacrifice had to be entirely without blemish or flaw. Samuel Rehn has further explained that to make certain the idol would accept the offering animal, they pulled a few hairs from the underside of the animal's throat and fastened these with some adhesive substance to the ring laid on the drum. If now the ring, says Rehn, moved when the drum was struck toward the image of the god to whom one intended to offer, it was a sign that the god would receive the offering. If the ring did not stir from its place, another animal had to be chosen. It naturally depended on the noaide's skill to make the ring move and stop where he wished.

Once the animal had been chosen — and, according to the Nærø Manuscript, garlanded around the head just as the noaide or sacrificing priest was — the whole company made its way to the Basse where the god-images stood, or else a wooden image was erected for the occasion at the spot, at some distance behind the tent. Before setting out, however, one had to take care that all the dogs were tied up. If any of them got loose, one believed that beasts of prey would immediately fall on the herd, or that the dogs themselves would start to bite the animals to death. No woman was permitted to have anything to do with the offerings the men brought. She was not allowed to approach the sanctuary or its consecrated precincts, nor to cross the path the men followed when going to the offering-site, nor even to look in the direction where it lay. Women were not, however, prevented from making on their own initiative smaller private offerings to the female deities.

Arrived at the offering-site, the noaide stabbed the animal directly in the heart with a knife, so that after a minute or two it fell dead. Then the hide was removed, in which all the guests participated. After the entrails had been taken out, some of the blood was collected in a bowl brought for the purpose, after which the noaide dismembered the animal according to the natural joints, so that no bone was broken. "Thereupon the noaide cut off," says Jessen, "the nose, eyes, ears, heart, and lungs, as well as a little flesh from each limb — but above all he was not to forget the genitals, when it was a male animal — and laid these aside as offerings." As the rest of the animal was dismembered, it was cast into an offering-kettle. After the kettle had boiled for about half an hour, a few more pieces were taken up — or, according to others, a little from each limb — as an additional offering and laid aside with the rest, while the remainder boiled on. When the meal was ready, "the noaide and all the offering-guests fell on their knees and blessed the meal, and prayed the deity to whom the offering was destined to mercifully receive the offering and assist them in the matter for which he was chiefly invoked." Thereupon the noaide helped himself to a piece of meat, saying: Dat læ Horagales, Sarakka eller N.N. biergol — "This is Horagales's, Sarakka's, or N.N.'s flesh!" All the guests did likewise and said the same. When all was consumed — and according to the Nærø Manuscript the entire offering had to be consumed the same day, so that absolutely nothing was left — the noaide, and after him the others, each drank a bowl of meat-broth with the words: Dat læ Horagales eller N.N. garrel — "This is Horagales's — or N.N.'s — toast!" After the meal had ended, all fell again to their knees and prayed the god to whom they had offered not to disdain the offering but mercifully to receive it.

Thereupon the noaide carefully gathered all the bones together and laid them, along with what had earlier been set aside, in a trough or in a kind of birch-bark coffin, called Damen-garre. All the bones were laid in their natural order, and the whole was sprinkled with the collected heart-blood. The noaide then carried this offering to the image. He had to approach it bareheaded, crawling on his knees. As he set the offering beside the stone image or placed it on the luovve when such was present, he exclaimed: "Dear N.N., receive this offering from my hand and help us!" (in this or that matter). Then the image was likewise smeared with blood and marked with figures, while its eyes were anointed with the fat of the offering. If the offering took place at a spot where no image or offering-luovve was found, the offering was buried in the ground and the image fashioned for the occasion placed above the grave — or, according to the Nærø Manuscript, one sometimes even "buried it in the ground inside the tent," presumably only when the offering was destined for Sarakka, who was believed to dwell by the hearth.

"When the noaide," says Jessen, "was asked to explain why the bones were so carefully collected in the Damen-garre, the answer was that one believed the offering animal received from the god to whom it was offered not only its flesh, life, and limbs back in full, good condition, but — that it even — (in Saivvo, that is) — became far larger and more magnificent than it was at the time of its slaughter." According to the same author, however, it seems as though the whole animal was not always consumed on the spot, but only the fore-part. "The hind-part they considered unworthy to be eaten as an offering, and it was therefore sent home for household use." Perhaps they later brought those bones to the offering-site, if they wished the animal to be revived in Saivvo.

Offerings to the Different Gods

No specific offering to Radien-acce is mentioned in the missionaries' writings, but that offerings were made both to him and to his son Radien-kiedde is clearly evident from Jessen's words: "When one offered to Radien-acce or Radien-kiedde, the image of these was fashioned like Horagales's image — from a birch stump — but placed in an inverted position compared to this one." Women were also permitted to eat of the offering to Radien and his family.

To Horagales, reindeer seem particularly to have been offered, though nothing specific is related. Only does Jessen observe that no female or castrated male animal was to be offered to him. It is therefore improbable that the female reindeer found on drum No. 1 figure 7, which the drum's commentary calls "an offering to the three great gods," was intended for Horagales — though this image may have designated the holy doe "Kovre" described in §33. On drum No. 3, judging by the size and form of the antlers, a bull-reindeer is clearly depicted in the upper section of the gods. Likewise on No. 5. No woman was permitted to eat of the animal offered to Horagales. The author of the Nærø Manuscript further relates that people also offered him "long and great hammers with which he was to drive away evil beings" — an idea evidently borrowed from the Norsemen's accounts of Thor.

In the Swedish Lapmarks it seems that offerings were made especially to the Junkerne mentioned in §22, whose images were of stone. The most common offering was a reindeer, which, as with Horagales, had to be a bull-reindeer. "Before the animal was slaughtered," says Scheffer, "it was distinguished by threading a red cord through its right ear. The one who slaughtered the animal took the horns, the bones of the head and neck, the hooves, the shin-bones, and some blood, and carried these to the mountain where the Storjunker stood, in whose honor the offering animal had been slaughtered. As soon as the Sami caught sight of the god, he bared his head and approached with the greatest reverence, crawling on all fours. He smeared the image with blood and fat from the animal, placed the horns around the stone. On the right side he laid the genitals, and on the left side a piece of tin to which was attached a red thread and a small silver coin." If a stone image stood in such a position that it was impossible to approach very close, the Sami took a stone, dipped it in the sacrificed animal's blood, and threw it up against the stone image.

On offerings to the Sun, see §19 above. No female reindeer might be offered to the Sun or Moon, nor black animals nor old animals. When a reindeer was offered to the Sun, it was first distinguished by threading a white cord through its right ear. Then a piece of flesh was taken from each limb, these pieces were fastened on a willow-branch bent into a circle about half the diameter of a barrel-hoop, and hung up on the offering-luovve behind the tent or gamme. Likewise the bones were arranged in a circle on the luovve — in honor of the Sun. No woman was permitted to eat of the offering to the Sun.

To the Akkerne — the female divinities — and above all to Sarakka, the women offered daily, as described above in §21. Of everything consumed each day, Sarakka received her share, and when one moved from one place to another a little milk-soup was spilled on the ground as a thank-offering for having fared well in that place.

Nearly all authors mention that the Sami offered to the dead, both to the Saivvo-people and to the beings in Jabmi-kuci-aibmo — to the former out of gratitude for services rendered, to the latter to placate them, as discussed earlier in §32. When they offered to the dead, says Scheffer, they used no images as when offering to Horagales and other gods, but consulted the drum alone or struck it during a sorcery-song in which appeared the question: Maid væroid, jabmek, sitte (or sittebetet) — "What offering do you demand, O Dead?" When the ring's passage on the drum had determined what offering was to be brought, and when this was a reindeer, a black thread was threaded through the animal's right ear. The meat was eaten, but a piece of heart and lungs was taken and divided into three parts. Through each part a small horn-tip was stuck, first dipped in the animal's blood. The whole was placed together with the bones of the animal — from which the flesh had been eaten — in a kind of box or basket fashioned in the shape of a reindeer-sled, and buried in the ground.

When the dead person's relatives or close friends passed the places where their deceased lay buried, they would throw to them a piece of tobacco or something else the deceased had been especially fond of in life. Most often they would slaughter the reindeer with which the dead person had been driven to the grave, after which the bones were buried in the earth. The same is related by Leem, who adds that they placed various things in the coffin with the dead — for example bow, arrow, axe, and fire-making tools, as well as some food; or scissors and needles and so forth when it was a woman. In Russian Lapland the author had seen at the bank of Imandra that the Sami still practice laying down various tools on the dead person's grave — axe and knife — but these tools were always damaged or almost completely ruined, the axe for example struck with its edge against stone until it was useless. Presumably this destruction was carried out so that no one would be tempted to steal the things.

Just as the Sami offered to the dead in general, so in dangerous illnesses they offered specifically to Rota, the lord of the realm of the dead — sometimes even a whole horse (§26). Hogstrom reports that the Sami especially at Christmas-time would offer to Rutu. For this occasion they made a few small funnels or rolls of birch-bark, in which was placed a piece of every kind of food eaten on Christmas Eve (called in Sami Ruotta-æked — æked meaning evening) and Christmas morning. If they had flour, they would also make a small cake, fill it with milk and cheese, roast it on coals, and lay it with the rest. Then they stuck two splinters, made like spades, a third of an ell long, through the birch-bark vessel and hung it in a tree near their dwelling. The tree was stripped of branches from the bottom, stripped of bark, and painted with crosses.

Vows

Besides these regular offerings to the different gods at set times of year, the Sami would also offer on countless various occasions in daily life. When something went against them, or their animals fell sick, says Hogstrom, they made a vow to a certain god or to several gods to offer this or that if they achieved their wish or escaped the ill. When, for example, a reindeer fell sick, they made the vow that if it recovered, at a set time they would slaughter it and not hack apart or lose any of its bones, but preserve them all for the god to whom the vow was made, and from whom the help was expected to come. What the Sami thus promised, he kept inviolably. If it happened that a dog dragged off a bone from such an animal, the dog had to lose its life, and one of the dog's bones was offered in its place.

Colophon

Source: J.A. Friis, Lappisk Mythologi, Eventyr og Folkesagn (Christiania: Alb. Cammermeyer, 1871), §§32–35 (pp. 137–155). 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. This is a first English translation of these sections, produced directly from the 1871 Norwegian, with Sami terminology preserved throughout. The source text is an archival ethnographic document — Norwegian scholarly prose about Sami religion, not a collection of Sami-language sacred texts. Consulted reference: Uno Holmberg-Harva, The Mythology of All Races, Vol. IV: Finno-Ugric, Siberian (1927), as a post-draft background comparison only; no English was derived from it.

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

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Source Text

§32. Sieide eller Seite, Gudebilleder

Paa et saadant Basse stod Lappernes Gudebilleder, der kunde være enten af Sten eller Træ. Disse Billeder skulde egentlig blot repræsentere den usynlige Guddom, men en Del Lapper har dog maaske ogsaa tænkt sig, at Guddommen midlertidig kunde opholde sig i Billedet. I det Hele tåget synes deres Forestilling om Forholdet mellem Billedet og den usynlige Guddom at have været noget uklar. Billeddyrkere i samme Forstand, som andre asiatiske Folkeslag, der tro, at Guderne ere legemliggjorte i Billederne og uadskillelige fra disse, have Lapperne dog ingenlunde været. Derfor kunde de for et enkelt Tilfælde opstille et Billede og senere igjen bortkaste det som værdiløst, eller selvsamme Billede kunde ved forskjellige Leiligheder repræsentere forskjellige Guder. Efter Samuel Rehn — gjorde man for Guden Horagales nye Træbilleder hver Høst, nogen Tid før den store Høstslagtning, „for at Guden skulde have en ny, smuk Bolig."

Med Hensyn til Betydningen af Ordet Sieide eller Seite hersker der hos de forskjellige Forfattere megen Forvirring og Modsigelse. Hogstrom siger, at Billederne, naar de vare af Sten, kaldtes Sieide eller Seite; men han kjendte ikke til Forholdene andre Steder end i svensk Lapmarken. De norske Forfattere bruge ogsaa Udtrykket Sieide, men mene dermed det samme som Basse eller Stedet, hvor et Gudebillede stod, og Leem oversætter Sieide med Orakel. Scheffer synes med Seite at mene et Gudebillede i Almindelighed, og i nogle Tilfælde, hvor samme nærmere beskrives, karakteriseres det som Gædge-Ibmel, Sten-Gud, og Muorra-Ibmel, Trægud. Samuel Rehn oversætter Seite med „manes," men røber sin fuldstændige Ukyndighed i det lappiske Sprog, idet han gjengiver det Spørgsmaal, som Noaiden gjorde, naar Offer skulde bringes: Maid væroid Jabmek sitte? med: „Hvilket Slags Offer ville I have, o manes!" Sitte er nemlig, som ogsaa L. Læstadius bemærker, i denne Forbindelse ikke Seite, men det lappiske Verbum sittet, ville, ønske, forlange. Der staar altsaa paa Lappisk Intet om Seite, men kun: „Hvilket Offer forlange I, Døde?"

[Source continues for §§33–35 — original Norwegian text available in Tulku/Tools/uralic/friis_lappisk_mythologi_raw.txt lines 6485–6892.]

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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