a Pite Sámi legend from Arjeplog, from Ignácz Halász, Svéd-lapp nyelv V (1893)

The kitniha are the underground people of Sámi belief, who keep herds of their own beneath the earth. This short legend was told in Pite Sámi by Sámi of Arjeplog parish and taken down by Ignácz Halász at Saltdalen in Norway in 1891. A young woman herding reindeer hears a kitniha yoiking below the ground that they mean to keep something of her young master's; a calf that falls into a crevasse is pulled out, but a barren reindeer cow that falls in after it is lost, and is heard grunting under the earth.

Translation

Once a young woman heard, while she was herding the herd — the day there was still cool, and there was mist over the earth — she heard then that a kitniha was yoiking and saying there below, that now they would keep something from the young master.

Then a white reindeer calf fell into a crevasse, but the people pulled it up. But after that a big barren reindeer cow fell into the crevasse, and they could not get it up again. They only heard how the reindeer cow grunted there under the earth.

That was the keeping that the kitniha had already spoken of in the night, that they would take from the young master: what she was indeed herding was one of his reindeer cows. — The name of the place where the kitniha was heard yoiking is Roptē-poššū.

Colophon

Translated from the Pite Sámi of Ignácz Halász, Svéd-lapp nyelv V: Népköltési gyűjtemény a Pite-lappmark arjepluogi egyházkerületéből (Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 1893), no. 26, pp. 35–36, in the section of kinē (kitniha) legends. Halász took these texts down in 1891 at Saltdalen from Sámi of Arjeplog parish, and printed a Hungarian translation after each, which was not consulted: it was masked out of the page images before translation.

The words that decide the reading were checked in K. B. Wiklund's Lule-lappisches Wörterbuch (1890), in Lindahl and Öhrling's Lexicon Lapponicum (1780), in Halász's South Sámi dictionary (Svéd-lapp nyelv IV, 1891) and in Joshua Wilbur's A Grammar of Pite Saami (2014). Kitniha are the underground people, and kinē is one of them (Wiklund p. 35 s.v. katnɪhe-, nom. kanej, "unterirdischer Mensch"); the name is kept in Sámi in the English. Thullit in the title is "to keep, hold" (Wiklund p. 147 s.v. tolɪje-, marked N.G., "halten, einhalten"), the infinitive after sihti, "want" (Wilbur Table 8.1, p. 154, sihtat). Ēlūp̣ is "the herd" (Wiklund p. 9 s.v. ælu-, "Herde"); kālūs is "cool" (Wiklund p. 31 s.v. kalus, "kühl (vom Wetter)"); jɵiʼḳā and jɵʼiḳat are "yoik(ing)", the Sámi chant (Halász IV p. 92 s.v. juóiket, "singen"; Lindahl–Öhrling p. 96 s.v. JUOIKET, "Lapponum more canere"); vûlēsne is "below" (Wiklund p. 174 s.v. vuəle-, "unten"); pọ̄ntėst, pọ̄nṭest is "from the master", from Swedish bonde (Lindahl–Öhrling p. 34 s.v. BOND, "rusticus, bonde; herus, husbonde"). Viʼlĭḳės is "white" (Wiklund p. 169 s.v. vel'ḳe-, "weiss"); mēssē is a reindeer calf (Wiklund p. 66 s.v. mese-, "Rennkalb"; Halász IV p. 234 s.v. miesie, "Renntierkalb"); kahhčā, kahhča is "fell" (Wiklund p. 35 s.v. kaɔča-, "niederfallen"); kēssin is "pulled" (Wiklund p. 38 s.v. ḳese-, "ziehen"); sāla, sāllai is "a crevasse" (Wiklund p. 113 s.v. sala-, "Gletscherkluft"); pajās is "up" (Wiklund p. 86, pajas); stāinak is "a barren reindeer cow" (Halász IV p. 148 s.v. stáináke, "eine gelte (unfruchtbare) Renntierkuh"; Lindahl–Öhrling p. 431 s.v. STAINEK); allṭū and ālṭuist are reindeer cows (Halász IV p. 9 s.v. alta, "Renntierkuh", Lule alltuo); rowkai is "grunted", the call of the reindeer cow (Halász IV p. 240 s.v. raukit, "grunzen, blöcken", said of the cow and her calf); toppēn is "there" (Wiklund p. 147 s.v. topɪ, "dort"); ačin sija vallṭēt is "that they would take" (Halász IV p. 4 s.v. ača-, the auxiliary of purpose, plural ačin); suihti is "was herding" (Halász IV p. 145 s.v. süihtet, "weiden lassen, hüten"), and uihtus before it "indeed" (Halász IV p. 20 s.v. oihte, uihte, "in der tat, wirklich, fürwahr"); kulluj is "was heard" (Wiklund p. 48 s.v. kulu-, "gehört werden").

Read from context, or not settled by the dictionaries, and named here: thullė si lič talle nûrra pọ̄ntėst muttūn mihte, the words of the yoik, is read as "now they would keep something from the young master": thullė is taken as the verb, the third person plural present of thullit (the ending of sihtė, "they want", in no. 22; Wilbur Tables 8.15–8.16, pp. 171–172), with si, "they", and muttūn mihte as "something" (Lule and North Sámi muhtun, "some", with the pronoun "what"); Halász IV (p. 234 s.v. mihte) gives mihte only as "a mountain valley", which does not fit the sentence, and lič is not decided. The closing tē lī tat thullė takes up the word of the yoik, and the English gives it there as "the keeping". Rīdnuhēmēn is read as "herding", muʼróhkū as "mist" (compare Wiklund p. 23, muruoku "der Nebel"), tahta as "there", mañḳēl as "after", abĭjat pūktē as "could … get up", and jō ijān, "already in the night". The mark over the o of muʼróhkū, like an acute, is not explained in Halász's key and is kept as printed. Roptē-poššū is a place name and is kept in Sámi. Halász's bracketed variant jᵘɵʼikā is kept in the Source Text; the English gives the word once. Pite Sámi is close to Lule and South Sámi; where no dictionary of those languages decides a word, the reading is named here.

No English translation of this text is known to us.

© 2026 Tianmu Anglican Church. This English translation is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0: you may share and adapt it for non-commercial use with credit to the Good Works Library, tianmu.org. The source text keeps its own terms. For other uses, see Rights and Reuse.

🌲

Source Text: Kitniha thullit sihti

The Pite Sámi text as printed by Halász (1893), no. 26, transcribed from the page images in his phonetic spelling. Line-end hyphens are joined; Halász's second paragraph is divided here at the same place as the English.

aktan āikēn kullā akta nûrra khuidna, kō lē ēlūp̣ rīdnuhēmēn, — kālūs päʼivē lī ville tahta ja muʼróhkū ētnama paďďēl, — tē kullā son, āhte kinē jɵiʼḳā (jᵘɵʼikā) ja hollā tatne vûlēsne, āhte thullė si lič talle nûrra pọ̄ntėst muttūn mihte.

tē akta viʼlĭḳės mēssē kahhčā sāllai, vala tē kēssin almača tāp̣ pajās. vala tahte mañḳēl kahhča stûrra stāinak sāla sisa ja iččin ville tāp̣ abĭjat pūktē. kullin valā, kokte allṭū rowkai toppēn ētnama vûlin.

tē lī tat thullė, mau kinē jō ijān lī hōllom, ačin sija vallṭēt ja nûrra pọ̄nṭest tat uihtus suihti, tē lī tahta akta sū ālṭuist. — tān lānṭan namma, kosne tat kinē kulluj jɵʼiḳat, lī Roptē-poššū.

Source Colophon

Ignácz Halász, Svéd-lapp nyelv V: Népköltési gyűjtemény a Pite-lappmark arjepluogi egyházkerületéből (Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 1893), no. 26, pp. 35–36. Public domain. Transcribed from the page images of the scan of the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (REAL-EOD 4154). Halász's spelling is kept letter for letter, with his length marks, dots above and below, breves, raised vowels, ɵ, ó, ď, the raised stroke of the checked syllable (written here ʼ), and his bracketed variant. His Hungarian translation and his notes are not reproduced.

🌲