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13 SÁMI PEOPLE
The Sámi people, whom other nations have referred to as Lapps or Laplanders, have inhabited the territory of
present-day Finland since ancient times. Sámi ethnicity is based, above all, on language and culture; to be a
Sámi is to be a member of a cultural group. Like other groups, Sámi people cannot be defined on grounds of
race; they are an indigenous people, not just a language or an ethnic minority.
As an indigenous people, the Sámi have the constitutional right to cultural self-government, and this has been
exercised by the Sámi Parliament, which was founded in 1996, and its predecessor, founded in 1973. Its 21
representatives are elected every four years in elections in the municipalities within the Sámi Domicile Area. The
Sámi Parliament is responsible for defending the Sámi people’s rights and monitoring matters related to their
standing. It formulates proposals and initiatives and issues statements on matters within its jurisdiction, and also
decides on the distribution of funds that have been granted to the Sámi people. The definition of an indigenous
people is based on international law: they have a strong, living, historically unbroken association with a given
region, and they have maintained their distinct cultural and social institutions, e.g. the village meetings of the
Skolt Sámi. Indigenous peoples’ rights are communal rights that apply to the whole group, whereas minority
rights generally apply only to individuals. One of indigenous people’s fundamental rights is their right to self-
determination. Although this is recognised in the Finnish Constitution, it would appear that Finns have failed to
really grasp the concept of the Sámi as an indigenous people.
There are almost 100,000 Sámi people, spread out over four countries. More than half of them live in Norway
and the rest are in Sweden, Finland and Russia. Each country has a different definition of the Sámi people, so
demographic statistics do not provide clear data on the exact numbers. Half of the Sámi people in Finland live in
the Sámi Domicile Area in the northern municipalities of Inari, Enontekiö, Utsjoki and Sodankylä.
There are about ten Sámi languages, of which three
– Northern, Skolt and Inari Sámi – are spoken in Finland.
The most important Sámi municipality, Inari, is in practise a quatrilingual region. Around 70% of Finnish Sámi
speak Northern Sámi, which is also used in Sweden and Norway. There are considerable differences between
the Sámi languages, so speakers of different tongues cannot easily understand each other. The vast majority of
Sámi people are illiterate in their mother tongue, since until recently all Sámi people received their basic
education in the dominant Finnish language. This is despite the fact that the Sámi standard language was
created around 400 years ago, only a few decades later than the Finnish standard language.
The status of the Sámi language in Finland is theoretically guaranteed by the Language Act, which states that
Sámi people in the Sámi Domicile Area have the right to use their own language in official situations. In practice,
however, the authorities are not generally required to speak Sámi, and interpreting services are needed.
Reindeer breeding, hunting and fishing are traditional sources of livelihood for the Sámi people, who have
always been opposed to the excessive exploitation of natural resources. Sámi culture is based on what the
environment provides rather than intensive exploitation, construction or clearances. Reindeer, as arctic
licheneating ruminants, are a good example of animals that are useful to people. They need only small amounts
of water and are thus well adapted to the northern snow and ice-covered regions close to the tree line. Intensive
forestry, clear-cutting and alterations to the surface environment destroy valuable lichen pastures and make it
necessary to provide the reindeer with supplementary feeding, which can make it too expensive to practice this
livelihood.
Sámi culture is currently fragmented, and an intensive assimilation process is under way. Finnish philosopher
Olli Lagerspetz has said that contented natives indicate that the dominant culture has been successful in its
colonisation, whereas protesting natives indicate that colonisation and assimilation has not yet succeeded, and
must therefore be continued. In the Finnish context, Sámi reindeer herders are the only voices raised against the
destruction of forest pastures, but they have been able to defend their core cultural values.
It appears that the Finnish state still aims to assimilate the Sámi people into the dominant population
– at
least as far as their status as an indigenous people and their consequent rights are concerned. To prevent this
process of assimilation and emigration, the Sámi Parliament has planned the creation of a cultural centre to
promote the integration of the modern way of life into the traditional culture in a manner that would conserve
strong basic values. The northern universities are already committed to cooperation through lectures and
research. The Finnish government has understood the great importance of the cultural centre to halting the
assimilation process, and that is probably why it has been in no hurry to provide funding for its construction.
But after all, the Sámi people only want to forge a civil society based on their own cultural heritage.
Pekka Aikio
– Chair of the Sámi Parliament 1996–2008
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