The Sami existed before any other currently living ethnic group in Europe

Modern genetic and archeological science indicate that the Sami is the last remaining fraction of the oldest indigenous people of Europe, who originated from the gathering and hunting people that followed the border of the melting inland ice to Scandinavia about 10,000 years ago.

Visiting Tage, friend of Roland, in his tipi outside his house, Aug ‘07

UNESCO has defined four world heritage sites, where there still are an indigenous people living within their culture. The Sami’s Laponia is one of them! (The other three are the Aborigine’s Uluru-Kata Tjuta and Kakadu National Parks in Australia and the Maoris’ Tongariro National Park on New Zealand.)

There are 80,000 Sami living in the arctic north of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia, to the Sami called “Sapmi”. Their livelihood has through generations been fishing and hunting, in which the reindeer always played a central role. The 1600s agricultural colonization of the north resulted in these trades being economically marginalized, in which many Sami changed to reindeer husbandry.

Sami family, Norway. around year 1900. Photo from “Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia”.