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

A noaidi was a Sámi ritual specialist, healer and seer. This short legend was told in Pite Sámi by Sámi of Arjeplog parish and taken down by Ignácz Halász at Saltdalen in 1891. A noaidi comes to town and leaves his sledge and goods standing in the open in a yard; a thief who takes a bottle from the sledge in the night has to stand there holding it until the noaidi comes out to him in the morning.

Translation

A certain noaidi was once on his way to the town, and when he came there he left his sledge in front of a storehouse (in the middle of the yard). But he did not greet a single person in the town; instead he went straight to the churchyard to talk with the dead. And when he had talked and spoken with them, he went back into the town, and only then did he greet the people and talk to them; but he paid no heed to his sledge or his goods.

Then in the night a thief came and took the wine bottle from the sledge; but he could not drink from it, nor put the bottle back, but had to stand like that beside the sledge with the bottle in his hand. But when morning came, the noaidi got up and dressed and said: "Now I must go to that poor wretch who is now freezing." And he did set off there, and when he came, the thief was standing there with the bottle in his hand.

Then the noaidi took the bottle out of the thief's hand and poured some of that wine into a cup (or: into a bowl), and gave it to that thief to drink, and said besides: "So you are freezing there!" And he struck him on his rear (on the backside) and said: "So do not steal any more after this, nor do so at a later time." Then the thief went his way, back where he had come from.

— But that noaidi never put his goods away in a storehouse; he let them stand in the middle of the yard instead. He was not afraid of thieves because he had human servants who watched over all his goods. Yet the noaidi had no leave to speak foully to those who touched his goods; he had rather to talk kindly with them and let those rogues go in peace, back where they had come from.

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. 49, p. 69, in the section of noaidi 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 noiṭē of the Sámi is given its usual English name, noaidi (Wiklund s.v. noiʹte-, "Zauberer"). The words that decide the reading were checked as follows. rutnat, said of the noaidi's talk with the dead and of his last talk with the thieves, is "to speak, to chat" (Wiklund s.v. rutna-, "sprechen, schwatzen"; Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. rudnet, "dicere, loqui"); sāḳastam is "conversed" (Wiklund s.v. sakaste-); jāmiki are the dead (Wiklund s.v. jamıkakə-, "der Schatten eines Abgestorbenen, Gespenst", and jamıkuča-, "Leichnam"). lāḳēṭe, in "paid no heed", is "to concern oneself about" with a negative (Wiklund s.v. laḳete-, "sich um etwas bekümmern"; Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. laketet, "curare, bry sig om"). aʼibmut is "to be able, to manage" (Wiklund s.v. aiʹmute-, "vermögen"; Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. aibmotet, "förmå, orka"); pēďďat is "to put" (Wiklund s.v. peḑa-, "legen, setzen, stellen"); rɵptūt is "back" (Wiklund s.v. ruəptu-, adverb ruəptut). aināt, which joins three clauses, is "but rather" (Wiklund s.v. ainat, "sondern, aber"). virĕhtī and virhtiw are past and first-person forms of "must" (Wilbur §13.1.5.1, virrtit), and monno is the full form of "I", not "we two" (Wilbur, Table 6.1, mån~månnå 1sg; Halász IV s.v. manna, monno "ich"), so the noaidi goes to the thief alone. stahkār is "poor wretch" (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. stakkar; Friis 1887 s.v. Stakkar); kollūmen is "freezing" (Wiklund s.v. kolu-, "frieren; erfrieren"). lījkī is "poured" (Halász IV s.v. lieihket, "giessen, eingiessen"); kuksai is "into a drinking cup" (Wiklund s.v. kukse-, "Becher, Kelle"; Halász IV s.v. kuksie), and the alternative Halász gives in brackets, lihtai, is "into a vessel, a bowl" (North Sámi lihtti, Friis 1856 s.v. Litte). ēllu is the negative imperative "do not" (Wilbur, Table 8.26, ele/ilu). mañgēp pālēn is "at a later time": mañgēp is the comparative of "after" (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. MANGEB, "comparat. posterior, den sednare"), and pālēn is "time, occasion" (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. pale, "vicis, gång"). kēinūps is read as kēinu, "way" (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. keino, "via, väg"), with the possessive ending "his" (Wilbur §5.5); ūmites likewise is "his goods", from the noun that North Sámi has as oabme, "thing; property" (Friis 1887 s.v. Oabme). vurhkē is "put away, store" (Wiklund s.v. vuərʹkute-, "verwahren"); aʼihtai is "into a storehouse", the Sámi storehouse raised on four posts (Wiklund s.v. aiʹəte-); šalljū-kœuṭēli and salljū-kɵuṭīlėsnē are "into" and "in the middle of the yard" (Wiklund s.v. šalju-, "ebener Platz um die Hütte", and s.v. kuəutele-, "in der Mitte", whose illative is -li); pājai and pāďďat are "let" (Wiklund s.v. paḑa-, "lassen, gestatten"). palā is "fear" (Wiklund s.v. pala-, "sich fürchten"). In the sentence about the servants, inī is the past of "have, keep" (Wilbur §8.5.3 and p. 237, adnet, past inijmä "we had", a verb that once meant "use, keep"); svaʼidnasit are servants or farmhands (Wiklund s.v. svaiʹnase-, "Knecht"; Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. swaines); ulŭmu is "human, person" (Wiklund s.v. ulᵘmu-, a Gällivare form entered together with ulmuče-, "Mensch"; Halász IV s.v. uḷŭmuča, uḷŭmuče, "Mensch", Lule ulmuč), standing before svaʼidnasit as an attribute: servants who are people; mah is "which, who" (Wilbur, Table 6.7, ma(h)); and rīdnuhėn is "watched over", a third person plural past (compare Wilbur's ságast-e-n, Table 8.23) of the word for herding and tending (Wiklund s.v. rœiʹnuhe-, "hüten, weiden"; Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. reinohet, reinohattet, whose example is a master bidding his servant tend his reindeer). In the last sentence, lik is "yet, still" (Halász IV s.v. liek, lik, "doch"); lōpēp̣ anē is "had leave", the same phrase as Halász IV's luhpiep ütni, "er durfte" (s.v. luhpie; also Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. loppetet), with anē, "have" (Wilbur, adnet); vastēt hōllot is "to speak foully", the very phrase of Lindahl–Öhrling, wastet hålet, "obscena loqui, tala oanständigt" (s.v. WASTET, adv. "turpiter, fult"), set against čāppakit tāi rutnat, "talk kindly with them", in the same sentence; hōllot is "to speak" (Wilbur, hållåt "say"; Lindahl–Öhrling, hålet); tāvvērit are goods, property (Wiklund s.v. tavere-; Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. tawer); tūhtatėlli is read as "touched" (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. tuottet, tuottetallet, "tangere, vidröra"); skēlmait are rogues (Friis 1887 s.v. Skælbma; Wiklund, "Schelm, Spitzbube"); and rāfēsne is "in peace" (Wiklund s.v. rafe-). Also from the dictionaries: kärrēs, the sledge (Wiklund s.v. ḳerese-, "offener, bootförmiger Lappenschlitten"); lɵʼihtā, "left" (Wiklund s.v. luıᵉɔte-, "lassen, loslassen"); čɵǯǯut and čɵǯǯēl, "stand" and "got up" (Wiklund s.v. čuɘǯu-, "stehen", and čuɘǯele-, "aufstehen"); ārrat, "morning" (Halász IV s.v. ärete, "der Morgen", äredn "in der Früh"); koʼikū, "to", a postposition after tan stahkāren (Halász IV s.v. ḳoaikā, with the forms koaiku, kuoiku, "zu; in; an"); čāppakit, "kindly", the adverb of "fair, fine" (Wiklund s.v. čabe-, "schön", with the form čapaḳe-; Halász IV s.v. čappie, "schön"); and ville, "besides, any more" (Wiklund s.v. uḍnıḳ, where vıl uḍnıḳ is "noch").

Some readings rest on context, and are named here. uihtos, in "he did set off there", is read as "indeed", after Halász IV's oihte, uihte, "in der Tat, wirklich"; the form with -s is in no dictionary, and "together" is not possible, since the noaidi speaks of himself alone. spihkī, "struck", is in none of the dictionaries and is read from the context of a blow mañēltasāi, "to his rear", glossed by Halász himself in brackets as pahtai, "to the backside" (Friis 1887 s.v. Båtta); the noun mañēltas- is itself read from context, as a word built on "after" (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. MANGELEN, "postea"). runāṭa sijāi, "talk to them", is read as a derivative of rutnat, "to speak"; that form is in no dictionary. tiste, "from it", and tiss, "after this", are read as forms of the demonstratives ending in -ste, "from" (Wilbur, Table 6.3), and tahte vīnast as "some of that wine". ta in the noaidi's two speeches is taken as the particle dä, "then, so" (Wilbur). In the sentence about the servants, jute is taken as "because" (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. JUTTE, "quod, quia, at, emedan", whose first example gives a cause), and inī, "had", and rīdnuhėn, "watched over", are plain past forms, so the English follows the Sámi: "He was not afraid of thieves because he had human servants who watched over all his goods." Read plainly, this says that his servants kept him from fear; since the story leaves his goods standing alone in the yard, it can also be read as saying that it was not human servants that kept him from fear. The other reading of jute, "so … that" ("he was not so afraid of thieves that he kept human servants"), needs a word for "so" that the Sámi does not have, and is not followed. Halász's bracketed variant jǟmiki beside jāmiki, "the dead", is a second spelling of the same word and has no separate English.

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.

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Source Text: Noiṭē ja sûllaḳen pirra

The Pite Sámi text as printed by Halász (1893), no. 49, transcribed from the page images in his phonetic spelling.

tē lī sōmēs noʼiṭē mannamen stāððai ja ku pōhtā tohkō, lɵʼihtā son kärrēsau aihtē owṭoi (šalljū-kœuṭēli), vala ī aktauk almačau pûrāstahtī stāðan, vala vœʼlĕgā ńᵘœʼlᵉḳā kirhkū-karĕṭai jāmiki (jǟmiki) rutnat. ja ku lī rutnam ja sāḳastam sijain, mannā son viste stāððai ja tē eskan almačit pûrastahhtā ja runāṭa sijāi, vala ī lāḳēṭe kärrēsau jala ūmites.

tē ijān pōhta akta sûla ja vallṭā vīdna-flāskau kärrīsist; vala ī tiste aʼibmut juhkat jala pēďďat flāskau rɵptūt, aināt virĕhtī son nauhte čɵǯǯut kärrēsen pālhtan ja flasska kētan. vala ku ārrat šaddā, čɵǯǯēl noʼiṭē pajās ja kärᵉvuṭa ja jahhtā: «virhtiw talle monno vœʼlĕḳēt tan stahkāren koʼikū, kuhte lē talle kollūmen.» ja vœʼlĕḳā uihtos tohkō ja ku pōhtā, lī sûla čɵǯǯūmen tasne flasska kētan.

tē vallṭā noʼiṭē flāskau sûllaken kētast ja lījkī tahte vīnast kuksai (jäla: lihtai) ja vaddā tunn sûllaḳī juhkat ja ville jahhtā: «kōllūmen ta lä ton tasne!» ja spihkī sū mañēltasāi (pahtai) ja jahhtā: «ēllu ta tiss ville sûlātu jala nauhte takā mañgēp pālēn.» tē vūlhki sûla kēinūps, koste son lī pōhtam.

— vala tut noʼiṭē ičči kossek ūmites aʼihtai vurhkē, aināt pājai čɵǯǯūt salljū-kɵuṭīlėsnē. iččī son sûllaḳist palā, jute inī ulŭmu svaʼidnasit, mah rīdnuhėn kaʼihka sū ūmit. valā ī lik noʼiṭē lōpēp̣ anē vastēt hōllot tāiṭa, kute sū tāvvērit tūhtatėlli, aināt virĕhtī čāppakit tāi rutnat ja pāďďat täite skēlmait mannat rāfēsne, koste lē pōhtam.

Source Colophon

Ignácz Halász, Svéd-lapp nyelv V: Népköltési gyűjtemény a Pite-lappmark arjepluogi egyházkerületéből (Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 1893), no. 49, p. 69. Public domain. Transcribed from the page images of the scan of the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (REAL-EOD 4154), with Halász's phonetic spelling kept letter for letter, including his raised vowels, his dots above and below, and his variants in brackets; line-end hyphens are joined, and his second paragraph is divided here at the same places as the English. His Hungarian translation and his notes are not reproduced.

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