S2 Ep 11: Nina Mielipäivä on Sámi Myth & Memory

 In this episode, I speak with Nina Mielipäivä, author of Mythology of the Sámi - Minorities Within Minorities, about the sacred myths and spiritual traditions of the Sámi peoples across the Arctic regions of Scandinavia and the Kola Peninsula. We explore the spiritual traditions of the Arctic North, the importance of preserving Indigenous stories, and the deep pull to reconnect with heritage after family ties and traditions have faded across generations.  

Nina's links:

https://www.youtube.com/@Fairychamber

Buy Mythology of the Sámi - Minorities Within Minorities: 

https://a.co/d/09sFz4VC

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to that Pennsylvania Witch podcast. On today's episode, I welcome author, artist, and folklorist Nina Mirapava. And Nina has written a delightful book entitled Mythology of the Sami: Storytelling and Voices of Minorities Within Minorities. Thanks for coming on today, Nina.

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Thank you so much for having me. I'm happy to be here. Do you mind introducing yourself briefly? Sure. My name is Nina, and I am of mixed heritage. My father was a Finn. From my father's side, it's mainly Finnish. Then from my mother's side, it's more of a mixture. There is Uma Sami, Kemin Sami, so Finnish, a little bit of northern Sami. Grandpa was a Sami. He passed away seven years ago. A lot about this book is really me connecting with my grandpa's side of the family, the culture where he came from. Yeah. Some of the stories in the book were came from that storytelling tradition that I was introduced when I was a child.

SPEAKER_01 0:55

It's a wonderful book. Growing up in Finland, how present was that culture in your life? I mean, I know that you had it from your family, but was it something that you learned about growing up, or was it mostly the oral retelling from your family members?

SPEAKER_00 1:09

A bit of a mixture because in Finland we have several different Sami groups, and my grandfather, he came from the very old Forest Sami family, and the Forest Sami, they tend to be quite discriminated in Finland, sadly. But it's more like in the way people live their lives in this certain area. Basically, it's very self-sufficient. People hunt, people fish, people gather berries and mushrooms. They have very specific dialect that they speak. There's a lot of animism as well. So it's a bit of a its own culture. The whole basically northeastern area in Finland where this Sami culture where my family originates. It's a bit of its own. But it is somewhat different to mainstream Finnish culture.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

Well, I think that the animism is the common denominator with all of the all of the things that I've studied. And I think that's very beautiful, especially with indigenous people, because it is so different from modern society and how we relate to the earth. There's no separation with animism. I think that's beautiful. So was there a moment when you realized you wanted to explore these stories more deeply?

SPEAKER_00 2:20

Maybe not the specific moment, but just within say after the pandemic, in that during 2021, I lost both of my grandmothers and they died six months from each other. And then I had this sort of um very deep sense of longing to be part of something, you know, bigger. And I remember having this chat with my cousin, and we both talked about this sort of sadness you feel when you have lost all of your grandparents and you have lost all of your grandpas and all your fruit all of your grandmothers. You get this bit of a drifting feeling. I think maybe that was behind this book as well.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

I I can empathize with that, and I think I think you're right. You feel, I'm speaking from personal experience now, but you feel compelled to record that history because so much of it gets lost if you don't. It feels good to connect to your heritage. Did your perception of Sami culture change as you grew older?

SPEAKER_00 3:18

Thing is, when I grew up in the 90s here in Finland, there was lots of racism and like race stereotypes about this about the Sami in the media, in the pop culture. People are very critical about it now, of course. So with my grandfather, he didn't really like to speak about his Sami roots because of that. And it always made me a little sad. So definitely my perception has changed a bit, but also I have studied a lot more. I have studied the archaeology and history, so I'm a lot more aware of things. And just you see things that weren't taught to you in the schools, and you learn things about happened and how our perceptions are also changed by the narratives in the media, you know, all kinds of things. You get a lot more wider perspective and you grow older. Yeah, it's a it's a learning process always.

SPEAKER_01 4:09

Now, the phrase that you use, minorities within minorities, is that's powerful. What does that mean in the context of your work?

SPEAKER_00 4:17

Well, when I started to write this book, and I was like, I'm going to write a book about the Sami, and I will do that in English because there's not a lot of information in English. And uh, when I look at some of the other books that were written about the Sami, most of them were about you know reindeer Sami uh in Norway and in Sweden in in Lapland. But then I thought I should write about the Sami here in Finland, the les not Sami groups, because that's what I am more familiar with. So I ended up writing about the forest psali and the fishing salmi. So for all the listeners, we can roughly divide the psami groups into three different categories based on their old occupations. So first we would have fishermen Sami, and those would be like the sea Sami in the coast of Norway, or here in Finland the Inari Sami, they live by the Inari Lake. Traditionally they were fishermen. Then we have the forest Sami. Here in Finland, the forest Sami are the Gemin Sami and they live in the northeastern Finland. And sadly, the Gemin Sami they lost their language by the 1950s due to the finification policies here in Finland. Then there used to be also forest salmi in Norway. I don't think they exist anymore there. Then in Sweden there are forest Sami sort of in the southern Lapland area in Umaya, in Lulea, by the Pieter River. So there's quite a big forest Sami population also in Sweden. And then we have the reindeer Sami, or the also called as mountain Sami, and the Northern Sami. And this would be the northern Sami in Norway and very top of Sweden as well. I think also the Kuala Sami in Russia, I think they are also reindeer Sami. So there we have three major Sami groups. And a lot of times when people think about the Sami, a lot of people think about the reindeer Sami. It's sort of the perception that people have. So they there's not a lot of information about the other Sami groups. But this has some historical origins because in the 1800s, when there were anthropologists studying studying the Sami in Lapland, these are like based on old race theories, but these are not valid anymore. But these uh anthropologists they decided that the reindeer Sami are like on the top of the Sami, and all the other Sami groups are sort of fallen from grace. So it's a pretty racist theory. But here in Finland, there are some ethnonationalist reindeer Sami groups or northern Sami groups who still believe those old theories and they discriminate other Sami groups. And this has been going on since like the 1950s when the sort of Sami nationalist movements began. It's pretty crazy. Yeah. But also here in Finland, there's like 10,000 Sami altogether. 8,000 of them are northern Sami. So absolutely not. This doesn't apply to all Northern Sami. Yeah, that that happens.

SPEAKER_01 7:17

It happens. It's something that happens. It happened across the entire globe. It happened quite a bit here, of course. And we're finally starting to uncover some of the we all know about the things that happened here in the United States to the indigenous people and the the terrible treatment and the genocide and all of that. But what people are finally starting to realize is the the primary reason for the teaching and it to was to erase that culture. Because if you erase the language, if you erase the connection to the land, it's much easier to get people to conform to what you want as a society. And I think that that's really that's heartbreaking. And I'm really glad that you're telling your story. For listeners who might be unfamiliar, how would you describe Sami mythology?

SPEAKER_00 8:06

Very animistic, and um it emphasizes the connection between man and nature. So originally before all the land rights and whatever, the Sami believed that land or nature it was sort of borrowed from the spirits. So the spirits allowed people to live in the land or the family to live in the land for you know generations, but it was like a bargain between the spirits and the people.

SPEAKER_01 8:33

You can get behind that. A lot of people don't know how to differentiate. So Finland is actually not in Scandinavia, is that right?

SPEAKER_00 8:40

That's true.

SPEAKER_01 8:41

Yeah, a lot of people don't know how to differentiate what they would label as Scandinavian or Scandinavia or what region. People tend to lump all of this together with the Norse culture and the Norse mythology, and it's it's very different. What are some of the main differences between uh Sami culture and and this other type of mythology that is more widespread?

SPEAKER_00 9:04

Well, there's lots of animal worship. One of my favorite stories from the Sami com from the Huala Sami from Russia, they believed that their ancestor was this reindeer man called Miandash. People believed that all the way to the 1920s, I believe, that they all originated from this man. So Miyandash, he was a son of a witch, and he was born in this land that was like between the living and the dead. And when he would leave his home, he would turn into a reindeer. And eventually he married a human woman, and then they had children together, and the children became also shapeshifters. They become reindeer in the human world. So the family line continued. So it's a very interesting story. But also in Lapland, in general, also the Sami area, it covers Laplands of Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Russia. There's this belief. Oh, there are multiple beliefs because you know the regions have different types of uh beliefs. The many Islamic groups believed that the great reindeer spirit, the great reindeer spirit would usually be a man or a reindeer. Then you would sacrifice reindeers for him in hope to have good luck when with reindeer herds. Also, the sun goddess is very interesting, the Salmiths. Sun goddess was mostly worshipped in the Laplace of Sweden, and her name was Beve or Paivi, and it depends on the dialect. White female reindeers were sacrificed for the sun goddess. And I think the sun goddess is fascinating because you can find her around the northern Europe, the Baltics, the Balts also worship the sun goddess. And here in Finland, people also worship the sun goddess before Christianity, and also the Vikings had their own sun goddess. I think it's fascinating how they all just have their own sun goddess, their own version of it. And if you look at the Sami shaman drums, there are different types of shaman drums. The drums that can be found from Lapland of Sweden, they usually have the sun in the middle, because the sun was the giver of life. The shaman drums that can be found from the forest Sami, they usually have three-layered worlds. So you can see the three different worlds. There's the R-world, the middle world, then there's the underworld, which is the world of the dead and the spirits, and then there is the world above, which is the world of the gods. So the forest Sami shaman drum has those three layers. There are not that many Sami shaman drums left. The original ones, many of them were destroyed by the church. And there was this big collection of Sami Shaman drums in Denmark in a museum, but it burned in a fire. It was in the 18th century. There are not that many Sami shaman drums left. There are modern drums, there are many modern drums, but like the old drums. I think there are only like two Gami Sami Shaman drums. One of them is in Germany in a museum, and another one is here in Finland in in Arizami Museum.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

The artwork and the designs on the drums that you have in your book are beautiful. And there are so many differences. What kind of spirits, beings, or forces appear in Sami stories?

SPEAKER_00 12:17

Well, if we continue with the forest Sami, I think they have quite fascinating mythology. They worship basically two deities, a thunder god and a hunter goddess. The name of the thunder god they worshipped was called Tiermes. They sacrificed Axis for him or something like that. And uh Thunder is a very powerful force, of course. And then the hunter goddess, her name was Acke, and people sacrificed reindeer for her, also while deer, and then I think they had this custom to paint caves with blood to honor her, and also like it's pretty common with the Sami, this worship of large stone formations. So this also happened with Tiermes and Acke. There were these large stones that were sort of dedicated to deities, and then people would leave sacrifices underneath the stones. Yeah, then the sort of standing stone traditions then got Seta. One of the functions of the Zeta was that because it's a large stone, you would leave sacrifices underneath the seta. If it was a fishing seta, you would leave fish, and then it was believed that the seta was more like a portal. It would sort of connect your request with a certain deity or deity. So if you would leave fish, then you would ask the fish gods to give you fish. So the seta would, you know, be a mediator between man and the divine. Same with the reindeer seta. And then there were also seda's for families where generations might go and work with the certain stones. It's quite fascinating. So the seta itself, it's like a gate between the divine and the humans. With reindeer seta, I know that sometimes people would hang like antlers above the stone. So the antlers would point out to the skies, then you would have direct connection with the god or goddess.

SPEAKER_01 14:10

That's fascinating, actually. I've been studying, just tracing the roots of an antlered goddess that I am very familiar with, who I think has been filtered through the lens of many different generations because she's called a forgotten goddess. And then some people argue that she doesn't exist at all. Goddesses in general, specifically reindeer antlered goddesses, um, have been depicted in a lot of European mythology that we've uncovered and that I've been looking into because there's a goddess that we know today is Ellen of the Ways. And I think it there's so much more to that story. When we see an antlered goddess with reindeer antlers in a southern European culture, to me, that tells me that someone from the north brought their traditions down with them when they immigrated, when they moved their families. A lot of times people don't give credit to the cultures that that this would have originated from, in my opinion, that they likely originated from. Because we have a female goddess archetype with reindeer antlers. And I had to look into this because I didn't know enough about it. But of course, the the female reindeer doesn't shed her antlers in the winter. And I think that we can trace a lot of the animistic belief to the Sami people, to these animistic cultures that lived well before these myths would have originated in kind of the southern area of Europe. That's just a theory. But I think it's an I think a lot of these concepts are much older than we give them credit for. And in some ways they've been adapted or forcibly taken in other in other ways. Are there any specific myths or figures that you that you find especially meaningful?

SPEAKER_00 15:55

The story of the three goddesses, and this comes from Sweden as well, that I like. It's the three daughters of Matterakka. She's like the, I guess you could say, Mother Earth type of goddess. She's also the mother of life, or sometimes like a grandmother deity. So basically, these are like the deities that were worshipped in Sweden. When the child was born, the life was given by Radi, who was like the god of justice kind of uh life. He would breed life to the child, and then in the womb, Matterakka, the mother earth would sort of piece the child together, give the physical form to the child, and then there were she had three daughters, three sisters. They were called Yuksaka, Uksakka, and uh Saraka. Saraka was protector of women and girls, and uh goddess of childbirth. So when a woman was giving birth and when the birth was successful, the woman would sacrifice porridge for Saraka, and then Yuksaka was the protector of boys and men and goddess of hunt. When the parents wanted to have a boy child, they would hang like a bow and an arrow to the cradle, and they would ask Yuksaka to give them a boy child. Sometimes people believe this could be people could do that still when the woman was pregnant, so she could like reverse the gender of the child. Yuksaka would like look after the boy or the man throughout their lives, and then Saraka would look after the woman, and then Uksaka, who was the third goddess, she was more gender neutral, she looked after all the children when they were born, and the name Uksaka it refers to the doors or whole doors of the home. So she would guard like uh gateways and entries, and the child when she child would be you know running around the house and the the yard. They are depicted these three goddesses in the in the shaman drums, in the bottom of the shaman drum, right? These are like the Swedish shaman drums. I always thought that was very cute. You are protected by three sisters, and then I believe that in Sweden at some point there was a bit of a cult following of uh Saraka or she had this own like groups that followed her or worshipped her, like also men worshipping her. Christianity began to spread in Lapland. There were those people who, you know, followed the old ways. So if the child was christened in the church, but the family wanted still uh follow the old ways, they would wash away the Christian baptism and then they baptized the child again in the name of Saraka. So I thought that was fascinating. So little moments of rebellion going on.

SPEAKER_01 18:38

That is fascinating. One thing that fascinated me, and I was surprised I had never heard it before, but in reading about Sami mythology in your book and also some other books that I purchased because I went down a rabbit hole because of your book. Um, the sun is often seen as a female uh life-giving force, which we briefly touched on, almost like a mother to the world. And then the moon was considered uh to be kind of like the other end of that spectrum, the male, um, the opposite of what other indigenous cultures believe. Most other indigenous cultures believe. Yeah. Interesting. Do you think that obviously it's probably because it was so important that the sun returned every year because of how how harsh the weather is um in the north?

SPEAKER_00 19:23

No, I do think it has to do with the darkness in the winter time, just also maybe the coldness. Because when you see the moon in the sky and you live somewhere way up north, people thought the moon was suspicious because you know it replaced the sun. But then when the summer came, you know, it was all plentiful, there's more food to eat, there's more warmth. So I think it does have to do with the environment. Yeah, the stories about the moon are quite fascinating because sometimes he's very suspicious uh character. Maybe he's a troll, maybe he's an evil spirit. You never really know about the moon. Then when we think about Greece or Egypt, then it's the opposite. The moon is a female and often very feminine character, sometimes a cultural difference.

SPEAKER_01 20:10

When you think about the sun as the life giver, because that is the reason why we're able. I mean, there are many factors about why life is able to exist on this planet, but the sun is the reason why we're able to live here. And so the sun as the life giver, that makes sense to me. What are there any values or um worldview that these stories and these mythologies tend to reflect more often than not?

SPEAKER_00 20:37

I think, especially when it comes to the summits, there's a lot of respect for other beings, like you know, animals. Even though people did hunt and fish, there was also this deep respect to have live a sustainable lifestyle. Like if you would fish, then you would leave some of that fish to the lake, or you would release some of the catch with the reindeer and with the bears. So if people would find, for example, a killed a body of a or skeleton of a reindeer or a bear, they always had to be buried with full skeleton. So if you had some like a piece of bone missing, then it it would mean that this animal could not reincarnate in the next life. So they all had always had to be buried with all the bones. That was a very big uh part of the belief that you know it's not only humans who reincarnate, but also the animals. Every everything is part of the circle of life.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

That is fascinating. Can you talk a little bit about the Sami belief surrounding reincarnation?

SPEAKER_00 21:41

Yeah, it it does change at some point when there is more um elements from Christianity. But um one of the stories that I like is that this idea that when a shaman would travel to the underworld, maybe in a form of a bird or a They would require knowledge from the pass away people. They would travel to the underworld to meet other shamans who had, you know, lived before. Then they would require knowledge that way. So there's not a lot of written information about the recarnation or the recarnation process, but there was this belief that a person might be reborn back to their family, or some of their energy might come back, or that you know some of the passed away relatives they might be almost become like a worship figures in the family, that you would honor your ancestors, you would leave them gifts.

SPEAKER_01 22:39

I know that preserving indigenous mythology is important, and we've spoken a little bit about why it's important to you. What challenges exist when you're sharing these cultural traditions that have historically been marginalized or attempted to be a rape?

SPEAKER_00 22:55

Well, here in Finland, I don't know how it is in Norway and in Sweden, but we are not really taught a lot about the Sami when we are in schools. And uh I did once read from some teacher that oh, teachers can teach about the Sami, like doing those models when they can decide themselves what they want to teach. Teachers can decide themselves. But how many teachers are desired decide to teach about the Sami if they don't know about the culture or if they don't have like a affiliation to the culture? So most of us don't really learn anything because of that. And that's uh difficult. And then we have this, you know, very um limited knowledge about the Sami, or it's very stereotypical idea of all the Sami being the reindeer herders or something, which is not really the case. But here in Finland, I would say in the past 10 years, there's been a bit more things going on with a lot of the new organization being organizations being found. So that study, you know, forest Sami heritage and then fishermen Sami heritage and revive the language, things like that. But it's very still in the in the in its starting point, I should say. But still, people are working on things, which is cool.

SPEAKER_01 24:10

I don't even want to bring this up, but I have to because when you talk about the stereotypical, a lot of people recognize you know, the the stories and the imagery from Lapland and other areas, just the reindeer. That's it. That's all they focus on. Um, have you had a lot of people asking you about the movie Frozen or Frozen 2 in particular? Because there were some things about that and recognizing a culture that maybe hasn't been recognized globally. But I would imagine that you probably had a lot of questions about that as well, because of that film.

SPEAKER_00 24:45

A little bit, yeah. A little bit. I did uh include uh an interview in my book about frozen films. Yeah, I the second frozen film, it was done together with um groups of uh northern Sami from Norway. So there was uh indigenous people like making the movie as well, going through it. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:08

Are there often uh voices within Sami communities that are overlooked? You said that the forest Sami particularly.

SPEAKER_00 25:14

Yeah, especially here in Finland, uh the forest Sami and then you know Ari Sami as well, somewhat. That's because here in Finland, the Sami parliament, it's mainly made of um northern Sami, and they notoriously like to discriminate other Sami groups. And this has been going on for a long time. But now the thing is when forest Sami here in here in Finland, when they were sort of targeted with the finofication policies, and this started in the 1600s, Finland was part of Sweden at the time under the Swedish crown, and then it was beneficial for the King of Sweden to try to use finalification policy for the forest Sami. And the finovification policies here in Finland, it mostly targeted the Gusamo area, which is also where my grandpa was from. And this um this is a county in northeastern Finland, it's very close to the border of Russia. So it was uh targeted with the finalification policies. So basically, the king of Sweden told all the priest in the area to force the Sami to speak Finnish and erase the language and erased the culture. That's because this area is very rich when it comes to natural resources. It's the place where the salmon goes to migrate in the rivers, and there's tons of woodlands and animals. And when I went through like my ancestors' you know, names and where they lived, they're like these tax registers, how much beaver first and foxtales they had paid to the King of Sweden taxes and all that. So the king wanted to tax people, that's why they were converted. They were targeted with the finovification policies, and this led to the loss of language. Then in Sweden, the reindeer herder that were Northern Sami, they weren't really targeted with the same language policy that early because the King of Sweden saw them more beneficial, because the King of Sweden needed meat for its army, and the army was fed, and the fur was used from the reindeer from the reindeer, from the reindeer herders. So the language shift uh happened much later on. And here in Finland with the Sami parliament, because it's mostly made of northern Sami, the way they sort of don't want in Ari Sami and the Forest Sami to vote in the Sami register is now with the new language policy, which basically means that you can only vote in the Sami parliament if your parents or grandparents spoke a Sami language. With most uh the Sami groups here in Finland that were forest Sami and Fisherman Sami, the language was erased already 300 years ago. So there's no way you can prove if your your grandmother uh spoke uh the language. You probably your you know great-great grandmother, maybe, but not your grandmother. In Norway, it's if your great if you can prove that your great great great grandmother spoke a Sami language, you can vote in the Sami pal. So it's very deliberate. So it's a very small group of Sami who can vote in Finland in the Sami pal.

SPEAKER_01 28:30

Yeah, that is really limited. That's really limited.

SPEAKER_00 28:34

There's politics for you. Yeah, the Finland Sami parliament gets funding from the Finnish government, so they get 8 million euros for a year or two for Sami culture, but it's only like nine people who decide things, they all know. So this is this has created lots of friction in Finland with the Sami. And then in Sweden they have their own Sami policy and in Norway. And I heard that in Sweden they also have some kind of strange um policies when it comes to the forest Sami in Sweden as well. But it all goes back to what I said in the beginning, cost those race theories in the 1900s. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 29:14

Dina, what was it like? What was it like growing up where you grew up with your grandparents? Did you did you hunt, did you fish, did you explore or hike or appreciate the land around you?

SPEAKER_00 29:25

Yeah, my grandpa actually, he used to work as a forest ranger. So he was always fishing. I don't he didn't really like to hunt, but I do remember being a little girl that I would walk with him in the woods and then he would tell me stories about the animals and the trees. Oh, just later on I realized many of them were Sami stories. Yeah. But he was very much in tune with the environment. He he loved being outside. He was a very outdoorsy person. Even if it's like it's like minus 30 degrees. He was just in the woods fishing.

SPEAKER_01 30:00

Remembering those stories is is so beautiful. I love that. It's it's really fascinating that you got to hear those stories um from your own your own ancestors. Can you tell me about what was the writing process for this book? Because this book is wonderful. I'm gonna uh I'll have a link um so people can purchase it. I've actually already sent it out to my my friends in my reading group suggest that they purchase it because it's really great. Oh, you're welcome. What was the writing process like for it?

SPEAKER_00 30:26

Well, it was a lot of research. I started to study Sami myths already 10 years ago, I would say, 2015, just for my personal interest. And I knew that you know grandpa was a Sami, so I wanted to sort of connect with the culture to the myths, I would say. So I had sort of basic knowledge about the Sami mythology when I started to write. But then I went through all the you know history of the phinification policy, which which there was a lot of records, I would say. There were there was lots of information about it, how people were sort of indirectly turned against their own heritage. But like in this area in Kusov with a lot of the priests, some of the tactics that they used to convert people from paganism to Christianity and then not to speak the language, it was quite sadistic. It's awful. But I read lots of court records from the 1600s and then read a lot about current Sami politics as well, a lot of the very complicated land rights, lots of lots of court records, lots of land rights, lots of books, lots of documentaries, speaking with some of my Sami friends and their experiences. Yeah, and talking about the the language. So, like um my ancestry, the Kemin Sami, the Kemin Sami language, it's it's quite fascinating. It's um sort of an Eastern Sami language. Now they are reviving the language. There's a university group that is uh reviving uh the language, but they used to call it as the language of demons and dogs, the priests. It's insane because it's a very beautiful language, what I've heard. And then there was this woman who I also quote in the book in in one of the interviews, who said that you know she was an she, I think she was an Inari Sami. And when her sister was born, was it in the 1960s or 1970s? The priest said that the mother cannot give the child a Sami name, they have to give them a Finnish name. So then the mother ended up giving a Finnish name to the daughter, even though they did want to give them a Sami name, but they weren't allowed to do that. Yeah, it's awful. It is awful, it's really racist as well.

SPEAKER_01 32:40

Very clear just in the brief jump into the history that I that I made, um, just to kind of research for our conversation and some of the references in the back of your book. Very biased, uh, very racist. What are there any lessons in in Sami mythology that you think are relevant today or that that should be relevant that could help people connect more to the world around them or to the nature spaces around them?

SPEAKER_00 33:06

Yeah, I think the connection with the nature, of course, is always important. Just what it comes to like seeing maybe the archetypical patterns in the midst, maybe they can help to understand the world a little better. Like I love archetypes, I love to study archetypes, and it's fascinating to me how a certain character appears in in mythology, in Lapland, and then I can find it from Africa or from China, and always think it's fascinating. But in the end, I think the reason why that is is because humans always like to have archetypes and we have similar storytelling patterns, and we are not really that different from each other, no matter where we come from. I think, especially for the Sami culture. For anyone who is interested in animism, definitely psalmic culture is a very good place to start. It's uh very fascinating, and also it has these layers in the belief systems. There are some elements from Christianity which are like later on added, but there's definitely some of the old, older worldview there as well. It's more about the living in peace with the environment.

SPEAKER_01 34:14

You yourself at the beginning of this interview said that you were searching for connection, and I think that these stories they connect us all. I agree. What do you hope readers take away from your book?

SPEAKER_00 34:26

Well, I hope that anyone who is interested in the Arctic cultures finds it fascinating, and also that I try to give like multiple points of views from uh different things. There are interviews, there are like historical documents, uh you know, and myths and legends. So you get like multiple different angles to the cultures and learn about history as well as being entertained by the stories.

SPEAKER_01 34:50

It's such a rich history and really beautiful. Um, so thank you for that. I appreciate it. Um, and I just want to thank you for joining us and sharing your insights and stories today. It's been fascinating to learn more about Sami mythology and the deeper ideas behind your book. If you enjoyed this conversation, then make sure you check out the book.

SPEAKER_00 35:12

Um, if someone wants to follow me online, my name is Weach of Kitka. Yeah, that's where you can find me on YouTube and other places. And the book is on Amazon and hopefully within the next few months also in Pars and Nobles. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:28

That's awesome. That's wonderful. Well, thank you so much. Um, I I appreciate you coming on. Um, and and until next time, you know, keep exploring these stories that shape our world.

SPEAKER_00 35:42

Absolutely. Thank you, Nina. Thank you.