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

The rauka is the ghost of the drowned in Sámi belief. This two-sentence account opens the section of rauka legends in Halász's collection; it was told in Pite Sámi by Sámi of Arjeplog parish and taken down at Saltdalen in Norway in 1891. It says what a rauka is: when someone has died in the water and no one knows of it, the rauka goes about in human shape, so that the dead may be seen and found.

Translation

The rauka is such a one as goes about in a person's shape. When someone has died in the sea, or in water, in rivers, in lakes, and people do not know that someone has perished, then the rauka goes about, so that they shall see it and find it.

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. 35, p. 48, in the section of rauka 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). The raʼuḳa (also printed raʼuka) is kept in Sámi in the English as rauka; Wiklund gives its verb, raukastet, "to haunt (of one who has drowned)" (Wiklund s.v. raukastet, "spuken (von einem ertrunkenen)"). Takkar is "such, of that kind" (Halász IV s.v. tąkkąrą, "solcher", Lule takkar); skuivēn is "in the shape" (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. SKUWE, "imago, simulacrum … forma, skapnad"), and almača is "a person's", later "people" (Wiklund s.v. almače-, "Mensch"). Kosse is "when" (Halász IV s.v. koassie, "wann; als"; Wilbur p. 252, gåsse, "when"). Nākan is "someone" (Halász IV s.v. nākane, "jemand", from Swedish någon; Wilbur p. 150, nagan, "some"); japmam is "has died" (Wiklund s.v. japme-, "sterben"; Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. JABMET, "mori"); sēvan is "in the sea" (Wiklund s.v. sæ̨va-, "Meer", from Old Norse sǽr; Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. SÅW, "mare, haf"); jala is "or" (Wilbur Table 9.4, jala, "or"); čǟcin, with Halász's variant čācin, is "in water" (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. TJATSE, "aqua, vatten"); jokoin is "in rivers" (Wiklund s.v. joᵓko-, "Fluss, Bach"); jǟwrin is "in lakes" (Wiklund s.v. jąuʽre-, "(Binnen-)See"). Ē tētē is "do not know", the negative verb in the third person plural (Wilbur Table 8.26, eh) with "know" (Wiklund s.v. tęɔte-, "wissen"; Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. TETET, "scire"); fērram is "has perished" (Wiklund s.v. fąṟa-, "umkommen", with fąraɔtaɔka-, "a place where someone has perished"). Vāi is "so that" (Wiklund s.v. vaɪ, "dass, damit"); kilhkė is "they shall", the auxiliary of the future in the third person plural present (Wilbur p. 150, gillge, "will\3pl.prs"; Halász IV s.v. ḳaḷăḳa-, "werden, sollen, wollen"); vɵidnēt is "to see" (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. WUOIDNET, "videre, se"), and kaʼudnat "to find" (Wiklund s.v. kąuᵃna-, "finden"; Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. KAUDNET, "invenire, finna").

Read from context, or not settled by the dictionaries, and named here: the last clause, vāi kilhkė vɵidnēt ja kaʼudnat, names no object; the English gives "see it and find it", and whether "it" is the rauka that is seen, the dead who is found, or both, the Sámi does not say. Mannā, "goes", is rendered "goes about". Jǟwrin may be singular or plural ("in a lake", "in lakes"); jokoin is read as plural. 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.

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Source Text: Raʼuḳa

The Pite Sámi text as printed by Halász (1893), no. 35, transcribed from the page images in his phonetic spelling.

Raʼuḳa lē takkar, ku’te mannā almača skuivēn. kosse nākan lē japmam sēvan jala čǟcin (čācin), jokoin, jǟwrin, ja almača ē tētē, āhte lē nākan fērram, tē mannā talle raʼuka, vāi kilhkė vɵidnēt ja kaʼudnat.

Source Colophon

Ignácz Halász, Svéd-lapp nyelv V: Népköltési gyűjtemény a Pite-lappmark arjepluogi egyházkerületéből (Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 1893), no. 35, p. 48. 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, ǟ, ɵ, the raised stroke of the checked syllable (written here ʼ), and his bracketed variant (čācin). His Hungarian translation and his notes are not reproduced.

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