Nordic Neoshamanisms

Palgrave Studies in New Religions and

Alternative Spiritualities
Series editors: James R. Lewis and Henrik Bogdan

Palgrave Studies in New Religions and Alternative Spiritualities is an interdisciplinary

monograph and edited collection series sponsored by the International Society for the
Study of New Religions. The series is devoted to research on New Religious Movements.
In addition to the usual groups studied under the New Religions label, the series pub-
lishes books on such phenomena as the New Age, communal and utopian groups,
Spiritualism, New Thought, Holistic Medicine, Western esotericism, Contemporary
Paganism, astrology, UFO groups, and new movements within traditional religions.
The Society considers submissions from researchers in any discipline.

A Study of the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness:

Religious Innovation and Cultural Change
Diana G. Tumminia and James R. Lewis
India and the Occult: The Influence of South Asian Spirituality
on Modern Western Occultism
Gordan Djurdjevic

Reading and Writing Scripture in New Religious Movements:

New Bibles and New Revelations
Eugene V. Gallagher

Sexuality and New Religious Movements

Edited by Henrik Bogdan and James R. Lewis

Nordic Neoshamanisms
Edited by Siv Ellen Kraft, Trude Fonneland, and James R. Lewis
 Nordic Neoshamanisms

Edited by
Siv Ellen Kraft,Trude Fonneland, and James R. Lewis
NORDIC NEOSHAMANISMS
Copyright © Siv Ellen Kraft, Trude Fonneland, and James R. Lewis, 2015.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2015 978-1-137-46139-1

All rights reserved.

First published in 2015 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN®
in the United States— a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world,
this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills,
Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-49893-2 ISBN 978-1-137-46140-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137461407
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Nordic Neoshamanisms / edited by Siv Ellen Kraft, Trude Fonneland,
and James R. Lewis.
pages cm. — (Palgrave studies in new religions and alternative
spiritualities)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Shamanism—Scandinavia. I. Kraft, Siv-Ellen, editor. II. Fonneland,
Trude, 1977– editor. III. Lewis, James R., editor.
BF1622.S34N46 2015
201.440948—dc23 2014035189
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Knowledge Works (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.
First edition: February 2015
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
 Contents

List of Figures vii

Introduction: Nordic Neoshamanisms 1

Part I Background
1 Late Modern Shamanism: Central Texts and Issues 13
Olav Hammer

Part II Late Modern Shamanism in Nordic Countries

2 The Rise of Neoshamanism in Norway: Local
Structures-Global Currents 33
Trude Fonneland
3 The Way of the Teacher 55
Merete Demant Jakobsen
4 Shared Facilities: The Fabric of Shamanism,
Spiritualism, and Therapy in a Nordic Setting 67
Anne Kalvig
5 Shamanism—A Spiritual Heritage?: The Significance
of the Past in Shamanic Discourses 89
Torunn Selberg
6 Metroshamanism: A Search for Shamanic
Identity in Modern Estonia 103
Henno Erikson Parks
7 New Age Medicine Men versus New Age Noaidi: Same
Neoshamanism, Different Sociopolitical Situation 127
James R. Lewis
vi Contents

8 More or Less Genuine Shamans!: The Believer in

an Exchange between Antiquity and Modernity,
between the Local and the Global 141
Bente Gullveig Alver

Part III Neoshamanism in Secular Contexts

9 Sami Shamanism and Indigenous Film: The Case
of Pathfinder 175
Cato Christensen
10 Contextualizing Exhibited Versions of Sami Noaidevuohta 191
Stein R. Mathisen
11 The Festival Isogaisa: Neoshamanism in New Arenas 215
Trude Fonneland
12 Shamanism and Indigenous Soundscapes:
The Case of Mari Boine 235
Siv Ellen Kraft

Notes on Contributors 263

Index 267
 Figures

2.1 SF Logo 45
6.1 Map of Estonia 106
6.2 Map of Siberian Estonian Villages (Siberi Eesti
Külade Kaart) 117
11.1 Festival Poster 2012 216
 Introduction: Nordic Neoshamanisms

During the mid-1970s, Ailo Gaup, then a young Sami journalist from
Oslo, traveled to Finnmark, the homeland of his ancestors, in search
of a Sami shaman. Gaup had studied scholarly accounts of the pre-
Christian Sami religion, commonly understood as a form of shaman-
ism, but had not found descriptions of how – in practical terms – to
initiate a trance and embark upon journeys. At the Tourist Hotel in
Kautokeino, he met Ernesto, a Chilean refugee with the necessary
qualifications from South American contexts. Gaup’s first visit to
the spirit world of his ancestors took place with the help of Ernesto,
Chilean traditions, and an African djembe-drum (Gaup 2005:86–98).
Over the next decade, he further developed his skills, through train-
ing at Michael Harner’s Foundation for Shamanic Studies in Esalen,
California. By the late 1980s, he was back in Oslo, established as a
professional shaman and ready to take up the task of reviving the
spiritual practices of his ancestors. There is, according to Harner’s
perspective, a core content in the multitude of traditions that together
constitute “world shamanism.” Each of these should be recovered
and reconstructed, in order for their richness and complexity to come
forth, and each of them offers unique contributions to the common
source.
Indicative of the complex interactions behind Nordic neoshaman-
isms, Gaup’s story speaks of global influences as well as local traditions,
including – in the case of the Sami – intersections between cultural and
religious revival. One aim of this book is to take seriously such inter-
actions, through case studies from Nordic settings. Another aim is to
explore the relationship between neoshamanism and New Age spiritu-
alities on the one hand and secular contexts on the other. A third is to
take seriously the ethnic dimension of these currents and intersections,
through a specific focus on Sami and Norse versions of neoshamanism.
Nordic shamanisms have become part of the international scene, but
are also “home grown” – on local lands and through the use of local
2 Nordic Neoshamanisms

traditions, including the Sami and Norse religions of the ancient past.
Both have been central to the shape and inventory of neoshamanism in
the Nordic countries, and by 2014 constituted their most active and pro-
filed parts. Together, they offer rich opportunities for watching second-
and third-generation neoshamanism evolve, and challenge some of the
central assumptions of neoshaman and pagan research—for instance,
that these religions cater primarily to urban romantics for whom connec-
tions to nature have in practice been lost, that the noble savage depends
upon distance in time and space, that pagans tend to be either recon-
structionists (oriented toward the reconstruction of “their own” pasts
and traditions) or eclectics (mixing elements from various traditions, see
Srtmiska 2005), and that they differ substantially from New Age spiritu-
alities. Through the chapters in the present book, contributors question
these presuppositions. Nordic shamanisms, we argue, attract people in
cities as well as in rural areas; the “noble savage” is no longer limited to
distant landscapes; the distinction between reconstructionism and eclec-
ticism is difficult to maintain among entrepreneurs like Gaup and his
followers, and boundaries between neoshamanism and New Age have
become increasingly blurred.
In substantial ways, scholarly research has contributed to the global-
ization of neoshamanism. Nordic neoshamans, like their colleagues else-
where, turn to studies by anthropologists and historians of religion in
order to revive and reconstruct the religions of their ancient past, both
with respect to descriptions of particular religions, and to what – more
generally – shamanism is, as an ism. The contemporary study of religion
is, as Friedrich H. Tenbruck phrased it, “confronted with the effects of
its own systematizations” (cited in von Stuckrad 2003). Neoshamanism
is an unusually clear example, as a movement in which

Academic specialists (mostly anthropologists holding a PhD) act as religious

specialists on a “shamanic field of discourse,” which cannot be understood
without taking into account the formation of euro-American concepts in early
modern times. (Stuckrad 2003: 264)

In academic circles, “shamanism” has been highly contested during

the past several decades, due partly to these historical trajectories and
to their results, including widespread notions of shamanism as an ism
(Rydving 2011, Znamenski 2007, Svanberg 2003, Stuckrad 2002). In
this book we take as our starting point emic vocabularies, that is, the
ways in which notions of “shaman” and “shamanism” are today used by
practitioners and others who relate to them, as designations of religious
choices, preferences, and lifestyles. Our concern, then, is not with sha-
manism as an analytical concept or with the issue of whether this concept
 Introduction 3

makes sense historically—outside of the areas of its origin—in Siberia.

We are concerned with sensemaking on emic grounds, including ways
in which contemporary shamans anchor their practices in ancient pasts,
or what they see and experience as ancient pasts. Notions of traditions
and authenticity, similarly, are approached from the perspective of ongo-
ing religion making. “Traditions,” as we view them in these pages, are
authentic to the degree they are articulated as such. We leave it, that is,
for the shamans to discuss and to decide upon what is or is not “authen-
tic,” and relate this issue to their ongoing concerns rather than to matters
of historical continuity.
We will return (in chapter 1) to the contribution of Carlos Castaneda
and Harner, both of whom began their careers as anthropologists, then
gradually went native, shaman style. Harner’s ideas are today con-
tested among practitioners, but many of the pioneers behind Nordic-
style neoshamanism, including some who are today critical of his ideas,
themselves received their first training at Harner’s center in the United
States. Ongoing debates and controversies also indicate their continuing
relevance.
The US influence was particularly pronounced during the first stages
of neoshamanism in Nordic countries. Indian-style shamanism reached
this region during the 1980s, along with New Age and occult impulses.
The turn to local traditions occurred at different times, notably through
the energy and enthusiasm of individual entrepreneurs (Lindquist 1997:
189). A leading figure of Swedish paganism, Jørgen I. Eriksson, was
already criticizing Harner during the 1980s, and encouraged people to
search for local traditions. In Denmark, Annette Høst, who had received
her initial training from Harner, began including seidr by the early 1990s,
a ritual practice known from Norse religion, as a part of her courses. In
Norway, as mentioned above, Ailo Gaup established himself as a Sami
shaman in the late 1980s.
Our concept of “Nordic shamanism” refers both to the geographical
frame (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden), and to his-
torical resources. Estonia, which is represented in one chapter, is widely
thought of as a Baltic state, but belongs geographically to Northern
Europe, and has historically been connected to what is today consid-
ered the Nordic countries, and is regarded by many Estonians as cultur-
ally Nordic (see Parks, in this volume).1 Ties among the Scandinavian
countries (Norway, Sweden, and Denmark) have been particularly close,
historically and today. People in these countries speak mutually com-
prehensible languages (the Sami excepted), have adopted similar wel-
fare systems, cooperate through Nordic political organizations, and
their populations are among the wealthiest and best educated in the
world. Religious similarities are also substantial. Norway, Sweden, and
4 Nordic Neoshamanisms

Denmark share a history of predominantly Christian populations and

strong national churches.
All three countries have during the last decades become religiously
more diverse, due to immigration, secularization, and the influx of
new religions and New Age spiritualities (Christensen 2010). The lat-
ter started out as fairly marginal countercultural movements during
the 1960s, gradually became established as economic markets, and
increasingly catered to mainstream audiences, for secular as well as
spiritual orientations, and crisscrossed established religious and secular
boundaries. The sheer size and turnover of Nordic New Age markets
indicate that mainstream populations are involved. Products like alter-
native medicine attract clients with various religious and secular mind-
sets (Kraft 2011, Frisk 2013, Sorgenfrei 2013). New Age-style coaching
and mindfulness have been described as contemporary religious reviv-
als (Hornborg 2012), and increasing interests in so-called “paranor-
mal” experiences among Christians are expressed in terms of New Age
vocabularies (Henriksen and Pabst 2013). The increasing presence of
New Age spiritualities in films, music, and television similarly indicates
mainstream appeal – if “only” as entertainment (Kalvig 2013, Endsjø
and Lied 2011). In the following, we try to paint Nordic neoshamansim
in its cultural context, relating it both to the local mainstream cul-
tures in which they are situated and to contemporary neoshamansim
globally.
The development of economic markets may to some extent explain the
blurring of boundaries between the sacred and the secular, on the one
hand, and New Age spiritualities and neoshamanism on the other. Both
the specialization (niche developments) and the hybridization of prod-
ucts (products catering to both religious and “secular” needs) make sense
from the perspective of the market mechanism – of entrepreneurs trying
to make a living from their religious interests and talents (Kraft 2011).
Many neoshamans specialize in one particular tradition, but allow for
combinations, cater to clients with different needs and interests, and
offer their products in typical New Age arenas like festivals and fairs. At
times, little but the title (shaman) signals an orientation toward “shaman-
ism.” The most publicly-profiled book on “shamanism” to come out of
Norway in 2012, Shaman on High Heels, was written by a woman who
appears to have no interest whatsoever in “shamanism,” but nevertheless
chooses to designate herself as a shaman, and is known in Norwegian
popular media as such.
Adding to this wide range of products and specializations, both Norse
and particularly Sami shamanism are used in various tourism settings,
and in festivals and place-marketing strategies, as part of the cultural
heritage of particular places. These forms of shamanism are offered by
 Introduction 5

professional Sami shamans and secular agents, and they draw on trends
in the spiritual milieu as well as in the experience economy. Secular and
spiritual actors and institutions share an interest in landscapes of wilder-
ness and opportunities to experience the past, and they draw – to some
extent – upon the same spiritual vocabularies.
Recent developments in the form of organizations reflect the diversity
and hybridity referred to so far. The most important among new comers
is Sjamanistisk forbund (the Shamanistic Association), which in 2012
was established as a Norwegian religion in the legal sense of the term
(Fonneland 2014). The Shamanistic Association (SA) has from the start
included both Sami and Norse-oriented shamans and shamanistic prac-
tices, and combines a view of shamanism as a universal path with an
emphasis on local roots and connections. Its goal, according to official
statements, is to serve as a tradition keeper for northern neoshamanic
traditions, which, according to some of the leading shamans, dates back
some 30,000 years, to a time when Sami and Norse paths had not yet
diverged.
Although obviously not exhaustive, Nordic Neoshamanism indicates
some of the diversity and breadth of the contemporary neoshamanistic
setting, as well as important currents and currencies. Sami shamanism
is the most complex and multifaceted shamanistic tradition thus far to
emerge in Nordic landscapes, and has therefore been granted particular
attention. Adding to its position as a “proper religion” and to the typical
register of courses and workshops, Sami shamanism has entered experi-
ence and entertainment institutions such as museums, festivals, tourist
locations, theaters, music, and films, and also comes in a cultural heri-
tage-style version, as part of Sami nation-building and the ethno-political
field of indigenous revival (Kraft 2009)

Outline of the Chapters

The book is divided into three parts: “Background,” “Late Modern
Shamanism in Nordic Countries,” and “Neoshamanism in Secular
Contexts.” The first part begins with a chapter by Olav Hammer in
which macro theories are brought into focus, providing readers with a
background for the balance of the volume. In chapter 1, “Late Modern
Shamanism: Central Texts and Issues,” Hammer reasons about how such
canonical texts as Mircea Eliade’s Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of
Ecstasy (1957) and Michael Harner’s The Way of the Shaman (1980)
mirror the Western postmodern context in which they were created. Both
the ethnographic and neoshamanic image of shamanism have become
part of the modern human mythical understanding of how humans and
6 Nordic Neoshamanisms

the world are constructed. Whether Eliade is considered a “better” sci-

entist than Harner, they are comparable from a different perspective,
Hammer argues.
Part 2, “Late Modern Shamanism in Nordic Countries,” consists of
seven case studies of particular persons, groups, and institutions, and
indicates the variety of contemporary neoshamanism. In chapter 2, “The
Rise of Nordic Neoshamanism in Norway: Local Structures—Global
Currents,” Trude Fonneland describes key contexts and events behind the
rise of a Nordic neoshamanistic milieu in Norway. The article explores
the dynamics through which abstract concepts and ideas find moorings
in a local community and in participants’ reality here and now, gradually
generating distinct cultural fields.
Chapter 3, “The Way of the Teacher,” explores Danish neoshamanic
courses rooted in Michael Harner’s teachings. Merete Demant Jacobsen
shows how second- and third-generation course organizers create their
own understanding, both of the shaman and of the spiritual needs of
modern people. The chapter provides insight into ways in which the con-
cept of shamanism is merging with other approaches to the spiritual and
other belief systems, and how each teacher creates his or her own con-
glomerate of spiritual practices.
In chapter 4, “Shared Facilities: The Fabric of Shamanism, Spiritualism,
and Therapy in a Nordic Setting,” Anne Kalvig analyzes “shared facili-
ties,” represented by people using and creating spiritual reservoirs
marked by neoshamanism(s), spiritualism, and alternative therapy. She
describes how this unfolds within the contemporary spirituality scene in
Norway, offering insights into the production, consumption, and media-
tion of contemporary spirituality, under the wide umbrella of Nordic
shamanism.
Chapter 5, “Shamanism—a Spiritual Heritage? The Significance of
the Past in Shamanic Discourses,” discusses the importance of the past
in supplying an anchor and authoritative foundations for spiritual ideas
and practices. Torunn Selberg highlights descriptions and narratives
relating shamanism to traditions from an ancient past and shows how
interpretations of ideas about the past take on sacral and mythological
dimensions.
Henno Eriksen Parks’ (chapter 6) takes as his starting point Estonian
sources, under the title “Metroshamanism: A Search for Shamanic
Identity in Modern Estonia.” A primary focus is on connections between
local traditions of witches, healers, and shamans, all of which fall under
the Estonian label of nõid. “Metroshamanism” is proposed as an alter-
native to the problems connected to the “shamanism” in contemporary
ethnological and religious research—as it more accurately portrays the
religioscape of modern shamanic practices.
 Introduction 7

In chapter 7, “New Age Medicine Men versus New Age Noaidi: Same
Neoshamanism, Different Cultural-Political Situation,” James R. Lewis
analyzes the contrast between the contexts of New Age Sami shamanism
and New Age Native American shamanism. Relating how the neosha-
manism found in North America and the neoshamanism that has taken
root in the Nordic region of Europe have come to embody different social
significances, he emphasizes the importance of being aware of how new
contexts supply new meanings, to avoid the error of essentialism.
Bente Gullveig Alver (chapter 8) tells the story of the Sami woman
Ellen Mari Gaup Dunfjeld, and her career as a shaman. Among the
issues at stake, as the title of the chapter indicates, are notions of “More
or Less Genuine Shamans,” in this case connected to complex negotia-
tions of local traditions and traditions from outside; “The Believer in an
Exchange between Antiquity and Modernity, between the Local and the
Global.”
Part 3 deals with neoshamanism in secular contexts—in films, fes-
tivals, museum displays, and music. Cato Christensen (chapter 9) dis-
cusses the relationship between Sami shamanism and Indigenous film,
taking as his empirical starting point The Pathfinder (1987) and The
Kautokeino Rebellion (2008), by the Sami filmmaker Nils Gaup. These
films, Christensen argues, have contributed in important ways to percep-
tions of the Sami religious past, both inside and outside of Sami com-
munities. They belong to a broader international tendency to use feature
film to convey and (re)construct indigenous peoples’ culture, identity,
and history. Several such “indigenous films” promote spirituality as a
marker of indigenous groups’ ethnic and cultural particularity.
Stein R. Mathisen, in chapter 10, “Contextualizing Exhibited Versions
of Sámi Noaidevuohta,” investigates and contextualizes attempts to dis-
play Sami shamanism—the Sami shaman’s drum (goavddis) being the
most central exhibit, in museums, exhibitions, and other similar touristic
displays. Mathisen further discusses how these versions relate to coloniz-
ing histories, aesthetic valorizations, and (ethno)political considerations,
and not least how they connect to other prevailing (but conflicting) nar-
ratives of Sami religion, culture, and identity
Chapter 11, by Trude Fonneland, “The Festival Isogaisa: Neosha-
manism in New Arenas,” examines stories, products, and services that
take shape as a Sami shaman festival opens its doors to the public for the
first time. Fonneland asks what is included and what is excluded in the
marketing of Isogaisa as an attractive happening. She further explores
the role the past and Sami pre-Christian religion play in the production
of the festival experience, and examines how what is distinctly local at
Isogaisa is highlighted on the basis of global structures and organizations
to create interest in a chosen product at a specific destination.
8 Nordic Neoshamanisms

Finally, in chapter 12, Siv Ellen Kraft explores the relationship between
music and shamanism through a case study of Mari Boine, a leading
world music artist and one of Norway’s most influential musicians. Titled
“Mari Boine—World Music, Shamanism and Indigenous Soundscapes,”
the chapter explores Boine’s connections to the neoshamanistic field and
to notions of “indigenous music,” as well as the shamanistic content of
her texts and performances. A primary argument is that Boine has con-
tributed to a cultural heritage-style version of shamanism, and has helped
soften resistance toward shamanism in Sami circles.

Note
1. Estonia was part of medieval Denmark during the thirteenth–fourteenth and
again in the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries, and of Sweden from
1561 to 1721. There are also numerous links between the mythical cosmol-
ogy of the Finno-Baltic and the Northern Teutonic peoples, with early con-
tact influencing lexical exchanges, cultural phenomena, and some theological
conceptions.

References
Christensen, Henrik Reintoft. 2010. Religion and Authority in the Public Sphere
Representations of Religion in Scandinavian Parliaments and Media, PhD
dissertation, The Graduate School of Theology and the Study of Religion
Department of the Study of ReligionFaculty of Theology University of
Aarhus.
Endsjø, Dag Øystein, and Liv Ingeborg Lied. 2011. Det folk vil ha: Religion og
populærkultur. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.
Fonneland, Trude. 2014. “Sjamanistisk Forbund: Ein ny religiøs organisasjon tek
form,” Din. Tidsskrift for religion og kultur 1: 93–112.
Frisk, Liselotte, and Peter Åkerbäck. 2013. Den mediterande dalahästen: Religion
på nya arenor i samtidens Sverige. Stockholm: Dialogos Förlag.
Harner, Michael. 1980: The Way of the Shaman: A Guide to Power and Healing.
San Francisco, Harper & Row.
Henriksen, Jan-Olav, and Kathrin Pabst. 2013. Uventet og ubedt: Paranormale
erfaringer i møte med tradisjonell tro. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.
Hornborg, Anne-Christine. 2012. Coaching och lekmannaterapi—en modern
väckelse. Stockholm: Dialogos förlag.
Kalvig, Anne. 2013. Åndelig helse: Livssyn og menneskesyn hos alternative tera-
peutar. Oslo: Cappelen Damm Akademisk.
Kraft, Siv Ellen. 2009. “Sami Indigenous Spirituality: Religion and Nation
Building in Norwegian Sápmi.” Temenos: Nordic Journal of Comparative
Religion 4: 179–206.
———. 2011. Hva er nyreligiøsitet. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.
 Introduction 9

Lindquist, Galina. 1997. Shamanic Performances on the Urban Scene: Neo-

shamanism in Contemporary Sweden. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell.
Pharo, Lars Kirkhusmo. 2011. “A Methodology for a Deconstruction and
Reconstruction of the Concepts ‘Shaman’ and ‘Shamanism,’ Numen 58:
7–70.
Rydving, Håkan. 2011. “Le chamanisme aujourd’hui: constructions et décon-
structions d‘une illusion scientifique,” Études mongoles et sibériennes, cen-
trasiatiques et tibétaines 42 (DOI: 10.4000/emscat.1815).
Sorgenfrei, Simon (ed.). 2013. Mystik och andlighet Kritiska perspektiv.
Stockholm: Dialogos.
Stuckrad, Kocku von. 2003. ”Discursive Study of Religion: From States of the
Mind to Communication and Action,” Method and Theory in the Study of
Religion, 15: 255–271.
———. 2002. “Reenchanting Nature: Modern Western Shamanism and
Nineteenth-Century Thought.” Journal of the American Academy of
Religion, 70(4): 771–799.
Strmiska, M. F. (ed.). 2005. Modern Paganism in World Cultures: Comparative
Perspectives. Santa Barbara: ABC Clio.
Svanberg, Jan 2003: Schamanantropologi i gränslandet mellan forskning och
praktik: En studie av förhållandet mellan schamanismforskning och neoscha-
manism. Åbo: Åbo Akademis Förlag.
Znamenski, Andrei A. 2007: The Beauty of the Primitive: Shamanism and the
Western Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
 I

Background
 1
Late Modern Shamanism: Central
Texts and Issues

Olav Hammer

Shamans and the Modern World1

Shamans and their séances exert a striking fascination for people in the
Western world. Thousands of articles and books—both academic and
popular—have been written about the subject. The words shaman and
shamanism no longer belong merely to the professional jargon of scholars
of religion and anthropologists, but have become part of everyday lan-
guage. Shamanism has even, as few other religious phenomena, inspired
people in modern times to create their own innovative versions. There is a
wide variety of neoshamanic rituals that one accesses through books and
via courses of various lengths and costs. The experiential nature of much
neoshamanism is apparent from such recent titles as Serge Kahili King’s
Urban Shaman (1990), Alberto Villoldo’s Shaman, Healer, Sage: How to
Heal Yourself with the Energy Medicine of the Americas (2000), Tony
Samara’s Shaman’s Wisdom: Reclaim Your Lost Connection with the
Universe (2012), and Sandra Ingerman’s The Shaman’s Toolkit: Ancient
Tools for Shaping the Life and World You Want to Live In (2013). For
readers of such volumes, it is clear that shamanism is not an exotic prac-
tice found among various indigenous peoples, but practices that can be
sampled by anybody willing to buy a book and try out the methods found
there.
Although neoshamanism belongs to the same cultic milieu in which
New Age practices are offered, the Western world’s fascination with sha-
manism is by no means a recent phenomenon; the historical background
has been meticulously documented by Ronald Hutton (2001), Kocku
14 Olav Hammer

von Stuckrad (2003), Andrei Znamenski (2007), and other researchers.

Most of this earlier history is no doubt unknown territory for present-
day practitioners of neoshamanism. Contemporary attitudes to shaman-
ism outside academia are rooted in a very small number of widely read
books. The classic of all classics, Mircea Eliade’s Shamanism: Archaic
Techniques of Ecstasy, first published in French in 1950, has been cen-
tral to both the academic world’s understanding of the phenomenon and
to the popular imagination. Eliade’s pioneering work came to define a
concept and an often-implicit theory of how to approach that concept—
something few other works have succeeded in accomplishing.
Another seminal text is Michael Harner’s The Way of the Shaman
(1980). For the academically trained reader, the juxtaposition of Eliade
and Harner might seem absurd. The same research community that once
hailed Eliade’s book as a milestone has marginalized or scorned Harner’s
work. For many people outside academia, however, the concept of sha-
manism has become redefined so that it is effectively synonymous with
Harner’s neoshamanism. When in the autumn of 1997, Ma Oftedal was
expelled from her position as a priest of the Church of Sweden, one of
the main reasons was that she practiced shamanistic rituals with her con-
firmation candidates. The case was extensively covered in the Swedish
media, but nobody seemed to pay attention to one of the most striking
aspects of the case: no Siberian or Native American rituals took place
in the Swedish confirmation camp, but rather so-called drum journeys,
rituals that had been created by Harner. 2
Together, these two books have been so influential that one might call
them the canonical texts of Western neoshamanism. One can, of course,
deal with texts of this nature in a variety of ways. Perhaps the most obvi-
ous perspective would be to evaluate them in relation to the ethnographic
data we have on indigenous shamanisms. In this chapter, I will pursue
a different approach and consider how such canonical texts mirror the
Western context in which they were created. Regardless of whether Eliade
is considered a “better” scholar and Harner an “inferior” one (or perhaps
even no longer a scholar at all), they are comparable from a different
perspective. Both have become instrumental in shaping modern people’s
understandings of the spiritual legacy of indigenous peoples.

Modern Religiosity in Three Stages

Sociologists of religion Rodney Stark and William Bainbridge have devel-
oped a tripartite typology of modern religious formations. 3 The least
demanding, the audience cult, is based on access to information through
books, magazines, and broadcast media, but also through personal
 Late Modern Shamanism 15

contacts. The interested audience comes into contact with different reli-
gious options by passive consumption of information; active involvement
is not required. A form with a somewhat higher degree of commitment,
the client cult, is based on the same kind of market economy in which
most other goods and services are offered. One participates in the reli-
gious activity by paying a fee and taking part in a course, or participating
as a client in a therapeutic situation. Even in client cults involvement is
frequently minimal. After completing a course, interested clients often
move on to other religious alternatives, without immersing themselves in
depth in any of them.
The third form, the cult movement, is an organization with mem-
bers and a leader, in which the top echelon typically attempts to define
the dogma, mythology, rituals, and other religious activities with which
members are involved. Unsurprisingly, cult movements demand a consid-
erably more stable commitment than the two other forms.
Loosely structured religious milieus like neoshamanism can take on any
of Starks’ and Bainbridge’s three variants. Through books, large groups of
people come into contact with a new imaginary world. The many people
who have read and appreciated Carlos Castaneda’s books on the mysteri-
ous Yaqui shaman Don Juan—or titles such as Olga Kharitidi’s Entering
the Circle and Harner’s The Way of the Shaman—without actively car-
rying out the rituals described in them or fully accepting the cosmology
they present, represent a very broad, but moderately engaged audience
cult. The audience cult’s only common interpretative framework would
be that indigenous peoples possess superior knowledge, and possibly,
also, that altered states of consciousness can impart insights that our
everyday consciousness is unable to provide. For an audience cult of this
kind, it does not really present a problem that Castaneda’s books, and
probably also Kharitidi’s, are works of fiction. As it is sometimes said in
New Age circles: the important thing is not whether something is true in
any objective sense, but that it works in one’s own life.
Both factual descriptions of shamanism like Eliade’s and fictional
depictions such as Castaneda’s can serve as the basis for a wide audience
to form opinions on the phenomenon of shamanism. A Google search
will quickly reveal that Internet sites about shamanism can refer to Eliade
and to neoshamanic literature side by side, as if they fall into the same
category. Eliade’s book has also met with the somewhat strange fate of
being reprinted in paperback edition in Penguin Publishing’s Arcana
imprint, a series that otherwise consists of handbooks in astrology and
cheap editions of A Course in Miracles. The categorization is less surpris-
ing than one might initially think. To this we will return.
In order for a client cult to be established, something more than
reading experiences is required. Once a practice-based client cult
16 Olav Hammer

arises, any remaining links to indigenous peoples are fully severed—

probably because both creators and consumers of neoshamanistic courses
are modern, often urban, people with a Western cultural background.
Finally, for a much smaller group of people who have passed through the
audience and client cult stages, neoshamanism becomes a fully organized
cult movement. Such cult movements bear unmistakable traits of the late
modern context within which they arise, as has been amply documented
by Galina Lindquist.4 This small core of firmly dedicated neoshamanic
practitioners will not be discussed further in the present chapter.

Mircea Eliade on Shamanism

The bare essentials of Eliade’s life can be summarized in a few sentences.
Eliade was born in Bucharest in 1906. He started his university studies
in philosophy in 1925 and became a disciple of and friend with the phi-
losopher Nae Ionescu. Because Ionescu was actively involved in fascist
politics, Eliade’s contact with his mentor subsequently came to tarnish
Eliade’s reputation. Eliade’s own political sympathies continue to be dis-
cussed in an often highly polemical literature, but this aspect of his legacy
is not crucial for present purposes. After World War II, Eliade moved to
Paris and taught history of religions at Sorbonne. In 1956, he was invited
to the University of Chicago by then-professor of history of religions,
Joachim Wach, and stayed there until his death in 1986.
Eliade was from an early age an academic with encyclopedic ambi-
tions. Scholarly trends have gone in the direction of increasing special-
ization: many years of study are needed to master the languages, the
sources, and the literature of any given religious tradition. Eliade’s
omnivorous interests belong to a largely bygone age. A Master’s thesis
on Italian Renaissance philosophy was followed by studies in Sanskrit at
the University of Calcutta and a PhD on yoga. After finishing his studies,
Eliade embarked on an amazingly prolific career as a writer on highly
diverse topics, which—to quote one of Eliade’s book titles—ranged from
“primitives” to Zen. Some 20 monographs and no less than 1,500 texts
of other kinds, from articles and novels to short stories and reviews,
comprise his bibliography. Much of this written output continued to be
characterized by an all-encompassing approach, with examples taken
from all parts of the globe and all historical periods. The span of topics
is also wide, from general surveys of the history of religions, to works
on particular religious phenomena. Much of this oeuvre is character-
ized by a way of understanding religion that has been heavily criticized
over the last decades. The point of summing up the main issues with his
work is, however, not to engage in yet another unrewarding round of
 Late Modern Shamanism 17

Eliade-bashing, but to uncover some of the presuppositions underlying

his work on shamanism, and to show that precisely the same character-
istics of his approach that many academics have found rather hard to
accept are the very same features that can appeal to spiritual seekers.

Nostalgic Hermeneutics
In his writings, Eliade creates a distinction between two modes of being.
Archaic, religious man experienced a distinct difference between pro-
fane and sacred time, and between secular and sacred space. For modern
people, however, both time and space have largely become experientially
homogenous, a mode of being in the world that in Eliade’s descriptions
comes across as a state of loss. Thus Eliade’s way of presenting the con-
trast between archaic and modern people can be roughly characterized
as nostalgic antimodernism. Nevertheless, Eliade finds authentically reli-
gious human beings in most times and places, from the shamanic cul-
tures of hunter-gatherers to medieval and renaissance alchemists. Even
modern human beings are in a sense crypto-religious, 5 which leads to
the strange and perhaps unintended consequence that the initially sharp
distinction between the archaic homo religiosus and the profane modern
human being dissolves as soon as it is established.

The Sacred
Writers like Eliade who had long careers and left extensive corpora of
texts are often read in dramatically different ways. In Eliade’s case, the
picture is further complicated by his preference for presenting numerous
brief concrete examples over extended discussions of theory, method, and
definitional issues. What, precisely, did Eliade assert when he suggested
that archaic, religious man was acutely aware of the sacred?
Perhaps Eliade understood the sacred as a category that members of
a religious tradition ascribe to certain places, times, or objects. As in the
work of Émile Durkheim, people are the agents who describe something
as sacred. If so, the “sacred” is hardly more than a convenient label for
things set apart, that is, for whatever triggers a certain form of behav-
ior among the members of a tradition. However, if one interprets “the
sacred” in Eliade’s texts as a term denoting a distinct ontological cat-
egory, as critical commentators have done, Eliade appears to construct
a theology according to which the sacred actually exists and decides to
manifest itself.6
The sacred and the profane are not just two categories; they also stand
in a hierarchical relationship, in which “the sacred” is the superior term.
To quote Eliade, “All history is in some measure a fall of the sacred, a
limitation and a diminution.”7 As a consequence, only the profane can
18 Olav Hammer

or should be understood in profane terms, that is, as something that can

be truly explained by invoking sociological, psychological, or historical
factors. The sacred, as Rudolf Otto would have said, is something com-
pletely different, it is sui generis.

Individualism and Elitism

Eliade’s understanding of religion as a nonreducible or sui generis phe-
nomenon pervades his way of writing about religious phenomena. All
sociological reasoning, according to Eliade, misses the essence of religion;
all historical depictions in the ordinary sense do as well. Since sociologi-
cal perspectives are so inimical to the Eliadean approach, Shamanism
has little to say about the social relations between the shaman and other
members of his group, and focuses on the individual shaman and his
heroic status. The archaic, religious person who is the ostensible main
protagonist of much of Eliade’s work is the deeply engaged religious vir-
tuoso, and in this sense Eliade’s approach is elitist.8
The shaman wields power even in Eliade’s world, but this is power in a
world of ideas, a power that is achieved in an initiatory crisis as the sha-
man strives to master the techniques for getting in touch with the sacred
realm. Both the yogi’s and the shaman’s liminal status fascinated Eliade,
who viewed his own life in terms of such initiations.9 The shaman, the
archaic initiate par excellence, seems partly to serve as Eliade’s alter ego,
a lone antimodernist culture hero.10 The down-to-earth social and politi-
cal power that shamans had in various cultures, by contrast, seem to
have been of little interest to him.

On Constructing Typologies
If the reading of “the sacred” as a distinct ontological category is cor-
rect, some puzzling questions arise. Given that religious phenomena in
Eliade’s view are not social or cultural, historical or psychological, but
something entirely distinct—how can observers who are inevitably cul-
turally and historically situated know when they have encountered any
particular religious phenomenon such as shamanism? What makes, for
example, the Mongolian religious expert who uses a drum as a ritual
means to contact various hierarchically ranked deities an example of the
same phenomenon as the Kwakiutl religious specialist who cures diseases
by enlisting the aid of various animal spirits and sucking out the illness
from the patient?
If all of history, the entire set of events that can be observed in the
world is merely a poor reflection of this utterly distinct category of the
sacred, how can one know anything about what a religious phenomenon
“really is”? The answer, it would seem, is close to that given by other
 Late Modern Shamanism 19

authors with similar hierarchical, idealistically based views of religion.

One knows because of an inner certitude, born perhaps of one’s own
spiritual maturity and development. Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of
Ecstasy is one of Eliade’s seemingly most empirically oriented studies. It
plays a minor role in much of the secondary literature on Eliade. Bryan
Rennie’s rich review of Eliade’s theoretical and methodological founda-
tions mentions it only in passing.11 This may be because the theoretical
discussion of the nature of shamanism takes up a limited space compared
to the many hundreds of examples given. However, Eliade’s way of iden-
tifying shamanism and discussing its concrete manifestations is in line
with his approach to religious phenomena as it appears in other works.
How is shamanism identified and defined? First and foremost, by
being localized in a Central Asian core area. Although shamanism exists
elsewhere, Eliade insists that “Shamanism in the strict sense is pre-
eminently a religious phenomenon of Siberia and Central Asia,”12 and
that “this magico-religious phenomenon has had its most complete mani-
festation in North and Central Asia.”13 On what grounds does Eliade
conclude that strict or complete shamanism is the Siberian and Central
Asian form of shamanism, and not, say, the religious practices of the
Sami of northern Scandinavia, the Amazonian Shipibo, or the circum-
polar Inuit? Presumably this distinction between shamanism in a strict
and a broad or loose sense of the word is connected to the historical
coincidence that made the Tungus language of Siberia the source from
which the word shaman was borrowed. The first attested instances of the
word in a Western language date back to the 1660s (Znamenski 2007:
5–6). The derived forms shamanism and chamanisme are only attested
much later: in English in 1780 and in French in 1801. At the time, the
word shamanism still denoted a Siberian religious practice. But from the
second half of the nineteenth century and onward, the word began to be
used more and more frequently as a generic term for religious phenomena
among other indigenous groups, such as Native Americans.
Rather paradoxically, for Eliade, even the Tungus with their strict and
complete form of shamanism apparently only practice a distorted form
of what shamanism really is: “Nowhere in the world or in history will a
perfectly ‘pure’ and ‘primordial’ religious phenomenon be found.”14 The
epistemological problem alluded to above recurs here: if all documented
forms of shamanism are impure or even corrupt, how does one know
that one has actually identified the phenomenon? Creating a definition of
shamanism and setting boundaries around the concept come with prob-
lems of a different order of magnitude than, say, defining Islam. Since
Islam is a self-designation, an empirically based definition could begin
by observing discourses and practices of groups that describe themselves
as Muslim, and gradually construct a chain of family resemblances that
20 Olav Hammer

connect various versions of what these groups self-identify as Islamic.

The work involved would, of course, be immense, but at least in theory
it would be possible to proceed along those lines. Shamanism, on the
other hand, is not a self-designation. Eliade just presents examples of
local religious practices and declares that they denote variations of the
same underlying phenomenon.
Although local specifics may be quite diverse, it does make sense to
construct a scholarly terminology that encompasses a number of such
local traditions. The alternative would be the rather fruitless exercise of
using only indigenous terms and therefore of failing to address similari-
ties between local concepts and practices. Such a terminology, however,
denotes ideal types designed as such by the scholarly community. There
is in no sense such thing as, for example, a “pure” or “original” creation
myth, initiation ritual, or diviner, with all empirical instances identified
in the historical record merely constituting a decline or a limited form.
Eliade’s problem is that he seems to conflate the activity of constructing
a boundary around a heuristically useful concept such as shamanism,
and that of discovering an already existing boundary around a natu-
ral category. Because all real, observable religious practices represent
decayed forms from a supposed original, Eliade’s concept of shamanism
appears to belong in a Platonic realm not directly accessible to empirical
observation.

Synonymization
A key element in Eliade’s (and, as we will see, in Harner’s) depiction
of shamanism is the insistence that observable religious phenomena are
basically superficial variations on the same underlying essence, and that it
is therefore legitimate to compare practices from various traditions from
different historical epochs and all parts of the globe. This way of reduc-
ing differences to shared essences, a discourse that we can call synony-
mization, has ancient roots and a long history, and it is impossible within
the confines of a brief chapter even to sketch the development of the idea
that the core elements of various religions are essentially all the same.15 In
a pretheoretical context, the idea of synonymization is found in concepts
as diverse as the conviction in much of Graeco-Roman intellectual cul-
ture that various names of deities refer to the same gods, and in the later
idea that much of what was of value in antique philosophy, Christian
thought, and various other traditions could be traced back to a peren-
nial philosophy. Structurally similar ideas were absorbed into the disci-
pline history of religions. By allowing a considerable interpretive freedom
when examining religious data from around the world, one could con-
clude that, for example, totemism was a well-defined religious practice
 Late Modern Shamanism 21

common to a vast number of different indigenous peoples, regardless of

where and when these people lived.
Eliade’s book Shamanism is permeated by synonymization. Already on
page 4, the reader is told that a number of etymologically unrelated terms
in the Tungus, Yakut, Mongolian, Buriat, and Tatar languages mean the
same thing, namely shaman. Much of what constitutes the taxon “sha-
man” depends on other broad categories set up on equally synonymizing
grounds. One of the shaman’s primary functions is to undertake a ritual
journey. His body may remain as in a coma, while a part of him embarks
on a voyage through heavenly or underground realms. For this reason, as
Eliade expresses it, “the shaman is the great specialist of the soul.”16 How
is this soul constituted? Cross-culturally, conceptions vary greatly. Some
people think that human beings have one soul, others that they possess
between three and seven different souls. The soul, according to some
local beliefs, dwells in birds after the human body’s death. According to
others the soul—or one of the souls—risks being eaten by demons. In
some cultures, the soul is identical with the shadow, in others the soul is
a life force that is located the blood, and in yet others the soul is equal to
the breath. On what grounds are all of these beliefs examples of the same
concept, and why is this concept usefully labeled by our word “soul”
with all its Christian connotations? The reasons for adopting this term
are never clearly explained, but depend on the same tacit assumption that
similarities are important and differences trifling.

Ancient Wisdom
Outside of academia, the idea of a perennial philosophy has had a consid-
erable attraction. Who are the carriers of the ancient wisdom? Over time,
a range of different cultures has been identified as particularly wise. As
intellectual fashions have changed, the prime candidate for this role has
been ancient Egypt, a generalized Orient, sometimes specified as India,
Tibet, or the Himalayas, or even imaginary cultures, the Atlantis myth
being the best-known example of the latter.
Indigenous groups have on various occasions been identified as par-
ticularly wise people. Hence, when French explorers came in contact
with Brazilian Indians in the late 1500s, an image of the Indian as a
positive moral antithesis to the supposed decadence of the French upper
class was created (Léry 1990). Representations of indigenous peoples as
primitive and barbaric nevertheless remained staple fare over the follow-
ing centuries. The contemporary surge of interest in, or rather projection
of positive fantasies onto, indigenous groups is a late-twentieth-century
phenomenon, which has been extensively surveyed in critical literature
such as Berkhofer 1978, Deloria 1998, and Huhndorf 2001. Eliade’s
22 Olav Hammer

Shamanism is certainly not an overt espousal of such projections, but

can be read as an endorsement of indigenous spiritual wisdom by readers
aware of his fascination with archaic homo religiosus.

The Allure of Shamanism

What appears from one perspective to be a series of complications or even
unsolvable problems with Eliade’s approach can, from another, be seen
as active assets. For a person interested less in the ethnographic specifics
of ritualism among one indigenous culture or another than in the appre-
ciation of shamanism for the spiritual insights it might give us, the way
Eliade describes shamanism has several attractions. Shamanism is not
an umbrella term designating a range of quite distinct phenomena, but is
part of the shared human heritage. It is no longer primarily linked to the
specific social structure of, for example, a seminomadic group of reindeer
herdsmen in Siberia, but is an individualistic quest for inner, spiritual
power. Nor is it connected to, for us, exotic cosmologies and concepts of
personhood, but is a technique that deals with well-known phenomena
such as “the soul.” At the same time as shamanism is made compatible
with a modern, Western cultural context, it becomes an expression of a
nostalgic sentiment of loss for an archaic mode of life, when people were
supposedly in tune with the sacred. Finally, this sacred is (perhaps) not
just a culturally postulated transempirical entity, but may really exist as
an ontological domain of its own. As we will see, these are characteris-
tics that also resonate with the way Harner describes shamanism in his
canonical text.

Michael Harner and the Emergence

of Core Shamanism
If Eliade’s approach to shamanism can partly be understood as resulting
from his personal background and his intellectual preferences, things are
rather different with Harner and his version of neoshamanism. Harner
has published rather sparingly, has not revealed much of his biography,
and is not involved in academic debates on theoretical and methodologi-
cal issues. The main features of Harner’s understanding of shamanism
can be found in his book The Way of the Shaman, and information
on his method that can be obtained at first hand by participating in
courses,17 or at second hand via, for example, sources published by prac-
titioners of Harnerian neoshamanism,18 and from texts that advertise his
courses.19 Information on how Harnerian neoshamanism was created is
harder to glean from published sources. In particular, The Way of the
 Late Modern Shamanism 23

Shaman presents the reader with a puzzling lacuna. The introductory

chapter describes Harner’s dramatic experiences as an anthropologist
overwhelmed by a hallucinogen-induced altered state of consciousness.
The rest of the book serves as a manual explaining how to perform a
set of much less intense rituals. The difference between shamanism in
Amazonian Peru and in the neoshamanic setting is immense, but noth-
ing in the book explains how Harner made the transition from one to the
other. How, when, and why Harner decided to create the drum journey
and other rituals is left outside the discussion.
A few basic facts are clear enough from his publications. Harner stud-
ied the practice of Amazonian shamanism during field work conducted
in 1961 and 1964. Around that time, he also began to experiment with
the use of drum to provoke altered states of consciousness. In the 1970s,
he began holding workshops for small groups of people. The first center
for training in neoshamanic methods was founded by Harner and his
wife, Sandra, in 1979, and was transformed into a foundation in 1987.
Merely presenting such bare facts, however, says next to nothing about
what must have been a fundamental transmutation for Harner himself,
from academic researcher to spiritual teacher.

Fundamental Traits of Core Shamanism

The presuppositions that undergird Harner’s approach to shamanism
must be reconstructed from the end result, the neoshamanic method
itself, and the social setting that Harner created in order to disseminate
this method. Such a reconstruction reveals that all of the fundamental
features of how Eliade presented shamanismits—quasi-independence of
any particular ethnographic context, its heroic individualism, the poten-
tially distinct ontological status of the “sacred” encountered by the reli-
gious hero figure, and so on—can also be found in Harner’s The Way of
the Shaman, but are here taken to the next level.
Firstly, the synonymization that characterizes Eliade’s Shamanism:
Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy is even more extensive in Harner’s book.
Rituals from three different continents are modified and merged into the
ritual repertoire of the neoshamans. References to half a dozen differ-
ent ethnographic traditions can coexist on the same page. Secondly, the
social aspect of shamanism, the interaction between the local group and
the shaman, that still plays some role, albeit a subdued one, in Eliade’s
depiction of shamanism, has disappeared completely. Neoshamanism in
Harner’s case is very much a story of a heroic journey of self-discovery
into alternate worlds, but Eliade’s elitism is here replaced by a character-
istic oxymoron of contemporary spirituality: everybody can become a
hero on a quest. Various forms of modern religiosity, from transpersonal
24 Olav Hammer

psychology to Transcendental Meditation and from Scientology to New

Age, revolve around a sacralization of each person’s individual self. 20
Neoshamanism, too, is presented in similar terms, and the heroic quest
is at least in part a journey of self-discovery. Conversely, and unlike sha-
manism in ethnographic contexts, there is no socially defined role that
awaits the person who pursues this quest. What kind of objectives must
be completed in order to be acknowledged as a successful neoshamanic
practitioner? What broader purposes does one as a practitioner fulfill?
One presumably needs a significant amount of entrepreneurial spirit in
order to create a neoshamanic social role on one’s own, highly personal-
ized terms.
Thirdly, neoshamanism operates with a vaguely defined cosmology
that leaves what is perhaps the most basic question a would-be practitio-
ner might ask unanswered: in what sense does the visionary world that
one visits on the drum journey “really exist”? Epistemologically, neo-
shamanism resembles Paganism and New Age in that it rarely demands
an overt leap of faith. A form of mild skepticism is encouraged—at least
rhetorically. For many people in the New Age milieu, the important thing
is not to believe in reincarnation or angels, but just to be open to the idea
that past lives or transcendent beings may exist. Harner presents neosha-
manic cosmology in similar terms. The Way of the Shaman explains that
there are two different forms of consciousness. Everyday consciousness is
the way of perceiving the world what we all know. Shamanic conscious-
ness is what we gain access to by learning to undertake drum journeys.
At the start of the journey of discovery, one should not worry about
whether the shamanic world “really” exists, or whether it is a product
of one’s own mind. Play with the fiction, be open to the possibility that
the power animals and the different worlds you visit have their own exis-
tence, and see what results such an open attitude can lead to.
Fourthly—and here Harner goes well beyond anything Eliade
suggests—the claim that shamanism is a form of generic ritualism prac-
ticed by members of very diverse societies means that modern, urban
middle-class Westerners can also access the insights imparted by sha-
manism. The fact that Harner’s book is a do-it-yourself manual for
presumptive neoshamans in the West gives the text a distinct feeling.
Particularly telling in this respect is the iconography in Harner’s book,
which by means of 15 illustrations describes neoshamanism as a practi-
cal project to be undertaken by any reader. Harner’s suite of illustrations
begins with a drawing made by a Shuar shaman. The caption explains
how the head of another Shuar shaman, who is in an altered state of
consciousness, is surrounded by a golden aura. The choice of starting
out with this illustration anchors Harner’s neoshamanism—a decidedly
modern religious construction—in an indigenous context. At the same
 Late Modern Shamanism 25

time, a subtle synonymization states that there is no essential difference

between the reader of Harner’s book, sitting in his living room chair at
home, and the Shuar shaman in the rain forest. The concept of an aura
(referred to in the caption) is a widespread component of modern alterna-
tive religiosity. Harner implicitly states that a contemporary concept with
its most proximate roots in early twentieth- century Theosophy21 is the
“same” as an (unspecified) concept held by the Shuar.
The ethnographic anchorage continues in Figures 2 and 3 (from the
Hopi Indians), Figure 4 (an Inuit mask), and Figure 5 (Tibetan). Then the
context switches in Figure 6. We see a figure beating a drum, presum-
ably embarking on a “shamanic journey.” This is no Native American or
Siberian shaman, but a balding, bespectacled middle-aged man facing
away from the reader. The portrait, in fact, bears a striking resemblance
to Harner himself. Most of the remaining illustrative material depicts
Westerners. The sequence of images in The Way of the Shaman with its
tacit switch from ethnographic materials to drawings of modern practi-
tioners of drum journeys suggests that shamanic techniques and experi-
ences anchored in archaic cultures are nevertheless universal, and thus
available to any seeker from a Western background.
Other features of the book add to this presentation of neoshaman-
ism as a culturally decontextualized form of do-it-yourself spirituality.
Modern religiosity in Pagan or New Age versions is often vague on belief
but highly ritualized. Many therapeutic methods that exist within the
New Age milieu are based on the ritualized manipulation of a kind of
vital force or “energy.” Practitioners can have precise opinions as to what
methods should be used, but little interest or ability in explaining the
origin and nature of the “energies.” Harnerian neoshamanism follows
the same pattern. The central ritual, the “drum journey,” is described in
detail in The Way of the Shaman. Introductory courses provide hands-on
instruction on precisely how the ritual should be performed. The point
of the ritual is to access another dimension of reality, a shamanic reality
populated by various beings. The precise geography of that realm and its
ontological status are, as we have seen, left deliberately vague. There is a
rhetorical purpose served by this vagueness: neoshamanism is presented
as an utterly individualistic quest. Shamanic reality is open to virtually
everybody, and anyone experimenting with the shamanic rituals learns
of the new dimension of reality he or she is accessing through personal
experience.
The claim that shamanic knowledge is available to everybody is,
however, a truth with some important qualifiers. Courses in Harnerian
drum journeys are promoted and sold on market premises. People who
teach courses obviously need to receive an income that is sufficient to
cover their living expenses and generate at least a modest surplus. Drum
26 Olav Hammer

journeys and other neoshamanic rituals are therefore necessarily treated

like any other goods—available for those able and willing to pay for the
courses. These are priced roughly at the same level as New Age offerings
of similar duration. At the time of this writing (2014), two-day work-
shops in topics such as shamanic healing and shamanic dreamwork were
offered for roughly $250. As yet another sign of the commodification of
shamanism, Harner’s method has given rise to a series of spin-off prod-
ucts. Just as there is merchandise associated with most other spiritual
alternatives in the marketplace, there is a Shamanic Store, where books,
CDs, drums, and other products can be ordered online.

Religiosity and Bureaucratization

The New Age milieu is characterized by utterly fluid organizational forms.
Readers of inspirational books and individuals with a more or less passing
desire to try out one or another of the many products available on the reli-
gious market will form loose networks of friends with similar interests,
but are only rarely willing to join forces in a more structured way. Therein
certainly also lies a part of the allure: such forms of religiosity constitute
an oasis of Gemeinschaft in a desert of Gesellschaft. Harnerian neosha-
manism is a striking departure from this general picture of a large number
of individuals doing their own thing in whatever way they please. The
training as a shaman is not only structured on commercial principles but
also exhibits a high degree of formalization. Whereas indigenous forms
of shamanism tend to be reproduced by apprenticeship, that is, a relation-
ship over a long period of time between individuals with strong personal
ties, Harnerian neoshamanism is thoroughly bureaucratized. Given that
thousands of people have participated in courses in neoshamanism, such
a high degree of formalization is probably inevitable.
Harner’s school of neoshamanism, the Foundation for Shamanic
Studies (FSS) as presented on his website www.shamanism.org, is orga-
nized very much like other American private educational centers, that is,
as a foundation governed by a board of trustees and a number of executive
officers. For each step in the training there are formalized requirements,
set dates, a schedule, and carefully specified learning goals. The intro-
ductory course, for instance, needs to be completed under the aegis of a
certified FSS faculty member to provide the basis of subsequent studies.
These include a range of courses, such as a Five-Day Harner Shamanic
Counseling Training, a Two-Week Shamanic Healing Intensive, and at the
top level, a Three-Year Program of Advanced Initiations in Shamanism
and Shamanic Healing. Specific requirements can be waived by a
review board that processes individual applications for participating in
higher-level echelons of the training. The three-year program, it may be
 Late Modern Shamanism 27

noted, is adapted to the realities of the employment situation of most

people in the modern West, and in reality consists of six weeks distrib-
uted over the three years.
Admission requirements for each course are carefully specified. Upon
completion of a given number of such courses, a certificate is issued. A
caveat on the website reminds potential participants that a certificate is
not the same as being a bona fide shaman. Despite appearing to downplay
the significance of these documents, the FSS website provides detailed
information on how to qualify for, for example, a bronze, silver, or gold
certificate. For a credential at the highest level, the gold certificate, a long
list of individual steps is listed, and all the formalities and costs of receiv-
ing the desired document, including an online form to be filled out by the
applicant, are explained in detail. At this point, the distance between the
Siberian Tungus’ local religious specialist and the neoshamanic founda-
tion’s bureaucratized method of training would-be shamans seems vast.

Notes
1. The present text is a reworked English-language version of an article origi-
nally published in Swedish as Hammer 2000. The tight publication schedule
under which the original text was revised has unfortunately made it impos-
sible to take newer sources into account. Michael Harner in 2013 published
a book entitled Cave and Cosmos: Shamanic Encounters with Another
Reality, which I was not able to consult for more recent information on his
views.
2. A drum journey is a ritual in which participants, to the sound of a drum,
visualize how they travel down through a hole in the ground and reach an
alternate reality, often described as a landscape populated by animals.
3. Stark and Bainbridge 1985: 19–37.
4. Lindquist 1997
5. This idea is ubiquitous in Eliade’s writings. See, e.g., Eliade 1961.
6. See, for example, Morris 1986: 174–181 and the sources referred to there.
7. Eliade 1964: xix.
8. Olson 1992: 4
9. Olson 1992: 169.
10. Regarding the shaman as Eliade’s alter ego, see Olson 1992: 169.
11. Rennie 1996.
12. Eliade 1964: 4 (emphasis added).
13. Eliade 1964: 6.
14. Eliade 1972: 11.
15. The history of the twin ideas of a primeval theology (prisca theologia) and
perennial philosophy (philosophia perennis), and of the belief that most or
all religions are essentially the same, are extensively documented in Figl
1993 and Hanegraaff 2012.
28 Olav Hammer

16. Eliade 1964: 8.

17. Harner’s courses illustrate a particularly difficult circumstance for the field-
working researcher. Neo-shamanism as an audience cult is openly available
through vast quantities of printed material. Neo-shamanism as a cult move-
ment can be approached through traditional fieldwork of the kind Galina
Lindqvist conducted (1997).
With client cults, the situation is different. All training after the initial
weekend course commands high fees—in order to achieve the highest levels
of shamanic training, the expenses quickly add up. My own first-hand expe-
rience is limited to an introductory course held in Copenhagen by Jonathan
Horowitz.
18. See, for example, Sørenssen 1990.
19. See www.shamanism.org.
20. See Heelas 1996.
21. The modern concept of aura, a colored light surrounding the physical body,
which can be seen and interpreted by people with a special gift, was popu-
larized by the Theosophist Charles Leadbeater in his book Man Visible and
Invisible, published in 1903.

References
Berkhofer, Jr., Robert F. 1978. The White Man’s Indian. New York: Knopf.
Deloria, Philip. 1998. Playing Indian. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Eliade, Mircea. 1961. The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion. New
York: Harper Torchbooks.
———. 1964. Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
Figl, Johann. 1993. Die Mitte der Religionen: Idee und Praxis universalreligiöser
Bewegungen. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.
Hammer, Olav. 2000. “Senmodern shamanism—om två kanoniska texter,” in
Thomas Larsson (ed.) Schamaner: Essäer om religiösa mästare. Falun: Nya
Doxa, 211–226.
Hanegraaff, Wouter J. 2012. Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge
in Western Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Harner, Michael. 1980. The Way of the Shaman: A Guide to Power and Healing.
San Francisco: Harper & Row.
Heelas, Paul. 1996. The New Age Movement: The Celebration of the Self and the
Sacralization of Modernity. Oxford: Blackwell.
Huhndorf, Shari. 2001. Going Native: Indians in the American Cultural
Imagination. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.
Hutton, Ronald. 2001. Shamans: Siberian Spirituality and the Western
Imagination. London: Hambledon.
Kharitidi, Olga. 1996. Entering the Circle: The Secrets of Ancient Siberian
Wisdom Discovered by a Russian Psychiatrist. San Francisco: HarperRow.
Léry, Jean de. 1990. History of a Voyage to the Land of Brazil, Otherwise Called
America. Berkeley: University of California Press.
 Late Modern Shamanism 29

Lindquist, Galina. 1997. Shamanic Performances on the Urban Scene: Neo-

Shamanism in Contemporary Sweden. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell.
Morris, Brian. 1986. Anthropological Studies of Religion: An Introductory Text.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Olson, Carl. 1992. The Theology and Philosophy of Eliade. London:
Macmillan.
Rennie, Bryan. 1996. Reconstructing Eliade: Making Sense of Religion. Albany:
SUNY Press.
Sørenssen, Arthur. 1990. Den stora drömmen: en invigning i praktisk shaman-
ism. Stockholm: Vattumannens förlag.
Stark, Rodney, and William S. Bainbridge. 1985. The Future of Religion:
Secularization, Revival and Cult Formation. Berkeley: University of
California Press.
Von Stuckrad, Kocku. 2003. Schamanismus und Esoterik: Kultur- und wissen-
schaftsgeschichtliche Betrachtungen. Leuven: Peeters.
Znamenski, Andrei. 2007. The Beauty of the Primitive: Shamanism and the
Western Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
 II

Late Modern Shamanism in

Nordic Countries
 2
The Rise of Neoshamanism in Norway: Local
Structures-Global Currents

Trude Fonneland

Prior to the late 1990s, neoshamanism in Norway differed little from

neoshamanisms found elsewhere in the Western world. Since then, prac-
titioners of neoshamanism in Norway have been increasingly engaged in
working to recover the indigenous traditions of their country and ances-
tors. A Sami version of neoshamanism has been established, along with a
new focus on Norse traditions as sources for the development of neosha-
manistic practices, notions, and rituals.
As a manifestation of these trends, a local shamanic association con-
cerned with the preservation of both Sami and Norse shamanic tradi-
tions was granted status as a separate religious community on March
13, 2012, by the County Governor of Troms, Northern Norway. This
means, according to the laws regulating religion in Norway, that they
may perform religious ceremonies like baptism, weddings, and funer-
als, and, additionally, obtain financial support relative to membership.
Interestingly, this shamanic association appears to have been created in
order to meet the criteria required for obtaining the rights of Norwegian
religious communities; the national jurisdiction thus inspired a diverse
group of professional entrepreneurs to join forces and organize them-
selves. It is, at the same time, likely that the Sami dimension of these
endeavors contributed positively to the Governor’s decision.
In a northern European context, this was the first time a neosha-
manic movement was able to obtain the status of an official religious
community (see Fonneland 2014a; 2014b). However, this association is
but one of many examples of how shamanism is expressed in contempo-
rary Norway. In addition to the approval of this association, the growing
34 Trude Fonneland

interest in shamanic practices is reflected in, among other things, the

alternative fairs (Alternativmesser) that take place in cities all across the
country.1 At these fairs, neoshamans and other New Age entrepreneurs
market their goods and services by highlighting the uniqueness of the
Arctic North, and the general public’s interest and attendance has risen
annually. A growing number of Sami shamans offer their services on
home pages on the Internet (Fonneland 2010), and yearly neoshaman
gatherings are arranged. Not least, a Sami neoshamanic festival, Isogaisa,
has been established that gathers neoshamanic practitioners from all over
the world (see Fonneland, this volume).
The increasing eagerness to “recover” local traditions confirms
what Jenny Blain argues in her article “Heathenry, The Past, and
Sacred Sites in Today’s Britain,” namely that geographically and/or
ethnically local paganisms are becoming more popular and distin-
guishable. These reconstructionist pagans, Blain points out, explore
the traditions of a particular culture or region to which they trace
their heritage or feel a strong affinity, believing that historical docu-
ments and artifacts hold valuable clues to ancient religious practices,
relationships with deities and spirits, and pre-Christian people’s
worldviews (Blain 2005: 184).
It is these developments and increasing spiritual inventiveness that are
the focus of this chapter. I am particularly interested in how and what
happens when the global culture of neoshamanism interacts with a spe-
cific local culture—in this case, Norwegian society. Drawing on develop-
ments within the field of neoshamanism in Norway, the chapter ventures
between the local and global, highlighting how American Indian symbol-
ism might serve as a spark that prompts a spiritual seeker to step onto the
path of spirituality, making what is perceived as local traditions the basis
for a new global religious movement. The cultural creation developed by
practitioners of shamanism in Norway is here referred to as Nordic neo-
shamanism. Nordic neoshamanism can be described as a religious inno-
vation in which practitioners draw inspiration from what they perceive
as Sami, as well as from Norse religious traditions. This merging of Sami
and Norse traditions in turn provides insight into processes of religious
creation and creativity.
My analyses draw on interviews with leading practitioners of neo-
shamanism in Norway, participant observation at seminars and in ritual
performances, elucidating what neoshamans do, as well as on document
analysis of neoshamans’ and neoshamanic institutions’ home pages on
the Internet. 2 The chapter starts with locating the roots of what we today
know as Sami neoshamanism. Further, the processes connected with the
approval of SA are discussed. Finally, I highlight how these construc-
tions have been contoured by the domestic media and the local milieu,
 The Rise of Neoshamanism in Norway 35

and look at how these types of constructs can be said to be entangled in

conceptions of a common past and Nordic heritage. 3

Sami Neoshamanism in Norway

Precisely when the interest in and the revitalization of symbols and
beliefs from the pre-Christian Sami religion began is unclear. Political
upheaval and struggles in the Sami community in the late 1970s, such
as the protests related to the expansion of the Alta-Kautokeino River,
can nevertheless be highlighted as a spark for some of what today is
expressed within the neoshamanic environment in Norway (see also
Kraft and Alver, this volume). The “Alta affair” was triggered by the
Norwegian Parliament’s decision in November 1978 to approve a hydro-
electric project that involved the damming of the Alta-Kautokeino River,
which flows through central parts of Finnmark, Norway’s northernmost
county. After a prolonged period of acts of civil disobedience as well
as hunger strikes, the decision was effectuated in January 1981, despite
massive protests.
These demonstrations sparked a Sami ethnic revival, and are gener-
ally regarded as the beginning of the Sami cultural revival movement.
They also served as premises for what neoshaman Ailo Gaup has
referred to as the 78 generation—the Sami version of the 1968 generation
(Klassekampen March 11–12, 2006).
At the same time as these protests and demonstrations were play-
ing out, new cross-Atlantic religious ideas and trends were introduced
into Norwegian society. Just a decade earlier, anthropologists Carlos
Castaneda and Michael Harner had published books based on their field-
work among Indians in Mexico, Peru, and Ecuador that provided the
ground for a neoshamanic movement with an international scope. As
Bente Gullveig Alver describes in her chapter in this volume, “More or
Less Genuine Shamans,” Harner also visited Finnmark to gain knowl-
edge about the Sami culture and religion. Searching for traces of Sami
shamanism, he visited the Sami Mikkel Gaup, known as Healing Fox.
Harner’s focus on a core shamanism free from all cultural and social
contexts makes his religious practices easy to integrate into almost every
sacred symbolic language (see Harner 1980). His presence, courses, and
writings also came to influence the development of Ailo Gaup, recog-
nized as the founder of the Norwegian neoshamanic movement and the
first Sami neoshaman in Norway.
Gaup tells the story of his personal spiritual development—including
studies of scholarly literature on the pre-Christian Sami religion—in his
semiautobiographical The Shamanic Zone (2005). Gaup describes how
36 Trude Fonneland

he was sent from Kautokeino to a foster family in Oslo as an orphan, and

thus lost access to the land of his birth. Searching for his Sami roots, not
the least for traces of Sami shamanism, Gaup traveled back to northern
Norway and took part in the demonstrations against the damming of the
Alta Kautokeino River. The early phase of the ethnopolitical movement
was concerned with rights and politics, as well as identity issues, but for
Ailo they also served as a spark for a religious revival (see Fonneland
2010).
However, what Gaup found in Finnmark that could be related to the
practice of shamanism had no apparent connection to the noaidi tradi-
tions for which he was searching. At a hotel in Kautokeino, Gaup met
the Chilean refugee Ernesto, who both practiced drum journeys and was
willing to teach him the art. This was also how Gaup’s first shamanic
trance journey came about: accompanied by an African djembe drum
(Gaup 2005: 86–98).
The second step in Gaup’s training took place through several extended
stays at Harner’s Foundation for Shamanic Studies in Esalen, California.
Having thus been trained in the practice of neoshamanism, Gaup settled
in Oslo and established himself as a professional shaman. During its first
decade, the Norwegian shamanic movement was more or less a copy
of the system developed by Harner in the United States. Similarly, the
broader New Age scene in Norway differed little from its counterparts
in the United States and elsewhere in the world (see Fonneland and Kraft
2013).
Fieldwork conducted by Bengt Ove Andreassen and Trude Fonneland
on the New Age milieu in Tromsø in 2002 indicated that what was
expressed in the local New Age milieu did not seem to be tainted by
place-specific elements, and found few, if any, references to the pre-
Christian Sami religion (Andreassen and Fonneland 2002/2003). In his
study of articles and advertisements connected with indigenous spiritu-
ality in the Norwegian New Age magazine Alternative Network, Cato
Christensen similarly concluded that the Sami were more or less absent
from the otherwise extensive material on shamanism, paganism, and
indigenous people (2005).
However, over the course of the first five years of the new millennium,
the situation gradually changed. From this period forward, professional
neoshamans were depicted as representing an ancient Sami shamanic
tradition (Christensen 2007), and the Norwegian New Age scene was
increasingly filled with Sami shamans, symbols, and traditions, along
with a new focus on local- and place-specific characteristics unique to the
northern region, particularly in terms of domestic geography (Fonneland
2010). Contemporary Sami shamanism has become a core subject within
 The Rise of Neoshamanism in Norway 37

the field of neoshamanism in Norway. The most profiled shamans, Gaup,

Eirik Myrhaug, Anita Biong, and Ronald Kvernmo, teach courses in
Sami neoshamanism and, except for Biong, have all published books on
the subject (see Gaup 2005; 2007; Kvernmo 2011; Brunvoll and Brynn
2013). Additionally, guided vision quests in the northern Norwegian
region, as well as courses on the making of ritual drums (runebomme)
have been added to the shamanistic offerings. The various products are
available through shamans’ home pages on the Internet, local media cov-
erage, Facebook groups, alternative fairs, and through local shops. A
variety of Sami ritual drums are, for instance, today offered in tourist
shops, at the annual New Age market, as well as on the Internet home
pages of Sami shamans (see Fonneland 2012).
The interest in seeking local roots can be seen in the context of a
growing reaction against Harner’s core shamanism. As early as the
1980s, the Swedish neoshaman Jørgen I. Eriksson, a proponent of north-
ern and especially Sami shamanism, was already writing extensively in
the Swedish neoshamanistic magazine, Gimle, pointing out that Harner’s
core shamanism stripped shamanic traditions of their cultural unique-
ness (see Svanberg 1994: 30).4 Eriksson comments,

Nordic shamanism lives an independent life again without any need for
crutches from the Turtle Island. This is a tradition that is in agreement with
the ancestors’ will and orientation, with one’s own earth, landscape, climate,
light and darkness, one’s own plants and animals. Therefore, those who want
to walk the way of the shaman do not need to carry coals to Newcastle any
more. The necessary knowledge and teachers are here. (Eriksson, in Gimle
N.o- 11 1986)

In the practice of neoshamanism, various religious entrepreneurs obtain

legitimacy through adaptation to the local environment and local cul-
ture. Featured cultural expressions are enrolled in discourses connected
to tradition and continuity that legitimate the entrepreneurs’ products
and services, and reaffirm a certain quality of life. By underscoring their
connection to “local” religious traditions, some of the practitioners of
Sami shamanism wish to distance themselves from their American ori-
gins and present their practices not as “core,” but as locally inspired.
The Sami neoshamanic movement participates in the global by pro-
moting the local. Global new religious currents are here painted with
local traditions and cultures, and transformed into something that prac-
titioners can present as local and particular—reshaping stories about the
local landscape and local religious traditions so that they appear in the
glow of authenticity. As such the Sami neoshamanic movement stands
out as a resource in the encounter with the global New Age subculture
38 Trude Fonneland

by drawing boundaries between what is perceived as real and what is

perceived as illegitimate, between the authentic and the commercialized,
between the unique and the common.
Negotiations and resistance regarding the merging of local and global
religious expressions are also a central concern within the newly approved
SA. In what follows I will focus on how neoshamanism in Norway has
developed from a loosely organized movement into an approved religious
denomination reaping broad support both from individual religious seek-
ers as well as on a political level.

Vision of a Shamanistic Association

The development of new religious organizations often starts with a vision.
In the case of SA, this vision is linked to a single person’s interaction
with the world of his spirits and spiritual helpers—a world that generated
a revelation. The person who received this revelation was Kyrre Gram
Franck, also known as White Cougar, now a leader of SA on the national
level. Franck has been involved in neoshamanism since the early 1990s
and says that he has had shamanic teachers inspired by American Indian
as well as Sami indigenous traditions. In Tromsø, Kyrre has been a well-
known local shaman and healer for a long time. He is also the organizer
behind “The World Drum Project,” a shamanic nonprofit organization
founded in Norway in October 2006 that focuses on peace and envi-
ronmental issues.5 Kyrre can be viewed as a soteriological entrepreneur.
He is a founder, an organization builder, a role model, and a motiva-
tor. As the association’s appointed leader, Kyrre’s personal background,
his interests, friendships, and networks allowed him to put his imprint
on the rise and development of the association (see Lindquist 1997:189).
Regarding his vision, Kyrre tells me,

It is difficult to express these images and feelings in words, but the vision came
to me in a dream. That is, not in an ordinary dream, but in a state of trance
and communication with the spirits. One of my spiritual helpers, an old man,
came to me and showed me a picture of Scandinavia. He then told me that
I should start up something called the Norwegian Shamanic Association. I
could see that there was a slight contradiction here, but the explanation is
probably that it is not me who will be starting up shamanic associations in the
other Scandinavian countries. The vision also brought images and feelings of
people sharing spiritual knowledge and learning, and I was told to focus on
the past. Even though the Shamanistic Association embraces shamanism in its
many variations, it is at the same time important for us here in the north to
protect the northern traditions associated with shamanism. So what we hope
to accomplish in the long term is to develop the Shamanistic Association into a
tradition keeper for the northern traditions. (my translation)
 The Rise of Neoshamanism in Norway 39

This story can also be seen as a “call” narrative. It emphasizes Kyrre’s

experience of being chosen, and is interpreted as an injunction to use his
special abilities for his fellows. Like other “call” narratives, the story
is based on a series of events that are connected and interpreted as a
summons from “outside”—from divine powers (Alver and Selberg 1992,
72–74; Alver 2011, 137–138). According to Kyrre, the intention behind
the establishment of SA is that the association will develop into a unify-
ing force with the ability to strengthen individuals’ and groups’ rights to
practice shamanism. Not least, he hopes that the association will develop
into a true alternative for those who adhere to shamanistic belief systems,
and that the construction of life-cycle ceremonies like baptisms, confir-
mations, weddings, and funerals will help increase people’s interest in
neoshamanism.
As a first step toward the recognition and formalization of a neosha-
manic association, Kyrre shared his vision with his friends in the local
neoshamanic milieu. One of them, Ronald Kvernmo, who had been
engaged in the development of the Sami neoshamanic festival Isogaisa
(see Fonneland chapter 11, this volume), urged Kyrre to drop the word
“Norwegian” from the association’s title. According to Kvernmo, this
word could be offensive to neoshamans involved in and inspired by
Sami neoshamanism.6 After consulting the spirits about this potential
amendment, the name of the association was changed to the Shamanistic
Association.
Kyrre’s central position is also reflected in the organization of SA,
in which, in addition to being a leader, he also has the status of vision
keeper. According to the board protocol, in cases in which decisions
might lead to significant changes in the vision, the vision keeper retains
veto power. The position of vision keeper will follow Kyrre for life. He
will also choose the person who will take over as leader of the associa-
tion when he resigns. Due to his role as both vision receiver and vision
keeper, Kyrre is a central catalyst in terms of how SA is profiled, and what
is to be emphasized and possibly omitted in the creation of the group’s
identity and community. This is also, as Galina Lindquist argues, what
is striking in the world of neoshamanic performances: “an important
condition of its existence, its performative expressions, hinges entirely
on certain individuals” (1997: 189). At the same time, the leader nev-
ertheless exerts no strict control in relation to what members want to
highlight as sources of authority and authenticity. In SA, Kyrre points
out, they strive for a flat organizational structure in which each member
has a chance to take part in processes connected with developing the
association. Dialogues reflecting interactions between members, leader,
and board members are realized through discussions that take place on
Facebook. Here members interact, ask questions, and take part in the
40 Trude Fonneland

process of decision-making. For example, a member of the Facebook

group makes the comment that

those who are actively involved and dedicate their time to the association are
also helping to shape these visions, so the role of the Vision Keeper must not
be to engage randomly in determining all the guidelines, January 16, 2012 at
12:20 p.m. (my translation)

Lone Ebeltoft, who is the leader of the local association in Tromsø,

replies,

Thanks for these fine comments :) I also imagine a Vision Keeper as a tradition
keeper—one who only intervenes if the board considers changing the main
paragraph (section 1.1) in SA, January 16, 2012 at 1:15 pm (my translation).

Further Kyrre comments,

That’s right. A Vision Keeper is not intended to cast a veto in everything. . . . As

mentioned this is a vision that came to me about two years ago. Therefore it
is important for me that the vision is adhered to, but the ability to veto takes
effect only where it would lead to a substantial changes in the main paragraph
where the vision is expressed, January 16, 2012 at 3:01 p.m. (my translation).

Nevertheless, there is great variety in terms of each member’s level of

activity and involvement. On Facebook, it is clear that some voices are
expressed more frequently than others, and that some dominate in vari-
ous dialogues. SA consists of a group of people who have highly divergent
views of what creates power in terms of neoshamanistic practices and
rituals, and whose dedication and engagement varies. These participants
are also actors who, to varying degrees, put their imprint on and leave
traces in the development of SA.7
At the same time as an interaction between the board and individual
members is highlighted as central to the development of SA, the exter-
nal forces of Norwegian governmental laws and regulations are also
playing a role in shaping the association. Norwegian legislation and
policy toward religious communities have direct consequences for SA’s
design and maneuverability. The Religious Communities Act that was
introduced in 1969 provides a framework for religious organizations in
Norway. The Act ensures virtually equal treatment of the Norwegian
Church and other religious communities and denominations. No country
provides the same level of financial support to religious communities as
Norway, and by this arrangement the country represents an outer point
where State and municipal grants form most of the resource base for
 The Rise of Neoshamanism in Norway 41

the Norwegian Church, and where other religious communities receive

similar public subsidies per member (see Askeland 2011).
Two years after receiving the initial vision, the application process for
a neoshamanistic association began. In this process, governmental regu-
lations were dealt with in many arenas. Initially, Franck applied to the
County Governor for permission to start a neoshamanistic organization.
But this proved difficult because of the bureaucratic system and the rules
regulating freedom of belief. If SA was going to have a chance at get-
ting approval to perform neoshamanistic life-cycle ceremonies, they first
needed to establish themselves as a religious community.8 Governmental
regulations also impacted the design of these ceremonies. For a wed-
ding to be considered legally binding, for instance, certain formulations
needed to be included. SA, then, is a construct designed to meet the
requirements for the recognition of religious communities, highlighting
how religious practices are adapted, transformed, and changed to fit gov-
ernmental regulations.

The Process Starts—the Letter to the

County Governor
The letter Franck sent to the County Governor to establish both a national
board located in Tromsø and a local neoshamanistic association is dated
January 16, 2012. It contains information in a number of paragraphs
that deal with everything from rules for membership, to objectives, to
rules for leaders of local religious communities, to matters relating to
the design of the Association’s life-cycle ceremonies. Not least, the letter
contains SA’s confession of faith in the first section:
§1.

The power of creation expresses itself in all parts of life and human
beings are interconnected with all living beings on a spiritual plane.
Mother Earth is a living being and a particular responsibility rests
on us for our fellow creatures and nature. All things living are an
expression of the power of creation and therefore are our brothers and
sisters.
A shamanistic faith means acknowledging that all things are ani-
mated and that they are our relatives. And that by using spiritual tech-
niques, one can acquire knowledge through contacting the power of
creation, natural forces and the spiritual world. A shamanistic faith
involves a collective and individual responsibility for our fellow crea-
tures, nature beings and Mother Earth. Mother Earth is regarded as
a living being.
42 Trude Fonneland

Shamanistic practice means the use of shamanistic techniques both

for one’s own development and for helping our fellow humans and
other creatures. This means that creation is sacred and one celebrates
the unfolding of the life force. (my translation)9

This confession articulates, according to Kyrre, the main parts of his

vision. It is with respect to this section that the vision keeper retains the
power of veto. The main emphases here are the struggle to protect the
environment, a holistic worldview, and Mother Earth as a key symbol
for shamanistic practitioners. The symbolic values and ideals empha-
sized in this paragraph are not unique to Nordic neoshamanism, and
can also be found in neoshamanic activities across the globe (see Beyer
1998, Stuckrad 2005). From the very beginning, Mother Earth has been
a central touchstone in neoshamanic practices. She is an essential figure
to which one attributes power as well as offers sacrifices. A broad state-
ment like this serves to encompass the diversity of practitioners of neo-
shamanism, and excludes no one on the basis of their national or ethnic
identity.
One of the other points highlighted in the letter is that the group will
be divided into primary members and other members. Primary members
are persons who are not members of another faith, while other members
are those who want to support SA, but who are affiliated with another
denomination. These persons cannot sit on the board, but otherwise have
the same rights as primary members. The annual fee to participate in the
Association was, for 2012, 150 Norwegian crowns per member (19.99
EUR). SA receives 500 Norwegian crowns (66.62 EUR) in governmental
support every year for each primary member. Currently SA consists of 85
members from all over the country, 67 of whom are primary members.
SA is also registered as its own group on Facebook, with 1,345 persons
participating.
The letter to the County Governor further states that SA is to be a
focal point for persons adhering to a neoshamanistic faith and that their
goal is to designate and educate ceremonial leaders across the country.
The ceremonial leaders’ tasks are to hold regular gatherings for members
and others who wish to participate, and this is especially important at
the solstices, equinoxes, and full moons. According to the laws regu-
lating religious bodies in Norway, as an approved religious community
SA may also perform such religious ceremonies as baptism, confirma-
tions, weddings, and funerals. A group of members is currently working
on developing a ceremonial repertoire that will form the basis for the
association’s life-cycle rituals.10 This work is organized through a closed
group on Facebook, with 19 people taking part.11 Drafts and ideas con-
cerning the development of the association’s main ceremonies are shared,
evaluated, and discussed. Appropriate guidelines for the people who will
 The Rise of Neoshamanism in Norway 43

be appointed ceremonial leaders have also been created. The candidate

must be at least 23 years of age and have at least five years’ experience
with shamanistic practices. Ceremonial leaders will be appointed by the
main board.
Its organization as a religious community gives SA a privileged role.
The approval from the County Governor provides for SA to be a primary
representative of the Norwegian neoshamanic milieu in public, although
this does not necessarily reflect the situation within the community.
Likewise, the State’s accreditation implies an acceptance of shamans in
the present, for their activities, attitudes, and conceptions, and it is fur-
ther a means for SA to reach out to potential members and gain attention
for themselves and their message.

Bridging Norse and Sami Traditions

Even though SA emphasizes shamanism as a universal phenomenon and
embraces neoshamanism in its many variations, at the same time it pro-
motes an agenda of emphasizing local roots and a local connection.12
In his vision, Franck was told to focus on the past. This focus is also
highlighted in SA’s official statement, in which it is emphasized that their
goal is to develop the organization into a tradition keeper for Nordic
neoshamanic traditions.
According to(Franck and Ebeltoft), Nordic shamanism embraces both
Norse and Sami pre-Christian traditions. By gathering Norse and Sami
traditions under the same roof, they can be disseminated to a larger num-
ber of potential members. This is a strategy of inclusion that dissolves the
taxonomies of insider and outsider and that is about who has privileged
access to the traditions of the past. The term “Nordic neoshamanism”
creates a common Nordic approach and a focus on shared traditions. In
our conversation, Kyrre and Lone emphasize that the goal is to restore
the original roots of Nordic shamanism, preferably back to 5,000 to
10,000 years ago when the differences between the “nature religion prac-
tices” of the various local tribes were minimal.
Neither Kyrre nor Lone are of Sami origin, although many of SA’s
members are. As mentioned, Sami neoshamanism has been marketed as
an alternative to Harner’s core shamanism in Norway since the early
2000s. This is a topic of contention, and there has been constant dis-
cussion about who has the right to take part in and practice what is
perceived as Sami traditions (see Myrhaug 1997). The leader and board
members of SA wish to avoid such tensions and not be accused of stealing
traditions. The drawing of inspiration from a time when the boundaries
between Sami and Norse traditions were supposedly blurred can be seen
as an attempt to circumvent such tensions.
44 Trude Fonneland

This desire to merge Norse and Sami traditions is expressed, for exam-
ple, in the wedding ceremony that the association developed and that
was approved by the County Governor. During the ritual, the bride and
groom together hold a ring made of iron and copper. Iron in this context
is meant to symbolize the Norse community, while copper is linked to the
Sami past and Sami traditions. The first wedding ceremony organized by
SA in Troms was held at Bjørnefjell, northern Norway, on June 24, 2013.
According to the local newspaper Fremover, the ceremony took place
just before midnight and lasted about 45 minutes. A photo in the news
paper shows a bride and groom wearing blue wool clothes decorated with
an Arctic symbol, encircled by family, friends, shamans, and not least,
nature.13 In a statement to Fremover, Kyrre highlights that the wedding
ritual is reconstructed from both Norse and Sami shamanic traditions
and that the main elements of the ritual include the reading of poems, the
lighting of a sacred fire, and not least, the burial of a braid. This braid
has been made in advance and consists of the couple’s hair, silver threads,
wool, and other assets of importance. The braid, according to Franck, is
meant to symbolize the couple’s fertility, and is buried as an offering to
Mother Earth (Fremover July 10, 2013).
To bring Nordic shamanism into the present, SA’s focus on northern
traditions is also portrayed in their logo. Here Sami and Norse symbols
are entwined in a joint expression.
In the logo, the Sami Sun symbol, beaivi, encircles Yggdrasil, known
as the tree of life in Norse mythology, with a drumming shaman in the
foreground. The logo expresses SA’s desire to unite traditions, to find a
model of a community in the past that all members can view as a resource
for their practices in the present—a resource for identity and community.
They seek to turn back time to a period when religious traditions formed
the basis of community and were not (or so they imagine) identified with
specific ethnic groups. The ideal is not to exclude anyone from taking part
in a reconstruction of religious traditions. These different approaches to
the past are undertaken as part of creating new practices, enacted and
endowed with meaning, revealing how a distinctive new cultural milieu
is gradually generated.
Parallels can also be drawn here to what Fredrik Gregorius describes
as the basic notions of Nordic culture in Swedish Norse organizations—
namely the notion of an authentic, organic Nordic culture living on in the
guise of Christianity that is seen as more appropriate for people living in
northern areas (2008:132). This is precisely what practitioners of both the
Sami and the Norse traditions emphasize. Authenticity is localized to dis-
tant times and places, in a Nordic pre-Christian past that the detrimental
influence of civilization has not yet touched. Embedded in this quest for
 The Rise of Neoshamanism in Norway 45

Figure 2.1 SF Logo.

a Nordic past we can thus also trace a critique of civilization—a form of

antimodernism and antiurbanism. What neoshamans seek, what is per-
ceived as real and organic, is found in nature prior to the modern period.

Accessing the Past—Crafting Identities

To invoke “tradition” in order to legitimize one’s religious beliefs and
practices is central to Western religious history, from antiquity to the
present. According to Lindquist, the types of “invented” traditions that
take form in the neoshamanic milieu often refer to a past so distant that
there are no living memories to challenge—or support—their images
(1997:129). This then is a past far away in the mists of time, which can
be touched only indirectly, through narratives, popular culture, myths,
legends, and sagas, as well as through neoshamans’ religious experiences.
The quest for a Nordic neoshamanic heritage involves liberation from
46 Trude Fonneland

established discourses about the past, and opens the past for individual
approaches and interpretations. But as Lindquist further states,

For such a “constructed” past to be meaningful, it has to be helpful in under-

standing the present, and it must be anchored to people’s current social con-
cerns. Tradition becomes living only when it is projected on to, and enlivened
with, the actualities of today’s life. (129)

In SA as well as in Sami shamanistic practices outside of SA, local forms

of neoshamanism are brought to life via the theme that these traditions
correspond with our nature, our ancestors, roots, climate, and mind-set.
These are traditions retained in our landscape, in old burial places and
archeological sites, and thus are available to everyone inhabiting the north-
ern latitudes.14 The idea is that nature has the power to “release” ancient
energy and knowledge. The Northern Lights as well as the midnight Sun
are highlighted as domestic spiritual qualities that connect past to present.
Similarly, the scenery with its plains, lakes, and mountains is interpreted
as doors into the world of the ancestors. The landscape is interpreted as
having the imprints and traces of the ancestors, and this crossover between
time and space gives places a touch of mystery. As folklorist Anne Eriksen
points out, “The past ceases to be a bygone age; it can be perceived as a
now because it is related to a here—a here that is also part of contemporary
man’s own direct experiences” (1999: 92, my translation).
The longing for the past contains a creativeness in which people con-
tinually construct their traditions, values, and myths, and thus a connec-
tion in their own lives (see Selberg 1999 and Fjell 1998). History lies open
for reinterpretation and can be adapted to the individual’s desires and
needs; it is optional rather than obligatory. This contributes to unsettling
the overall authority that is no longer to be found in specific religious tra-
ditions, but is expressed in the individual seeker. Religious actors put the
different parts together according to their own accounts, interpret with
their own hearts, and replace parts when they find it appropriate to do so
(see Eriksen 1999:149–151).
Key figures in the neoshamanic milieu are doing research to get closer
to the sources of a Nordic shamanic heritage in order to further turn the
diffused tradition of northern neoshamanism into a resource for con-
temporary practitioners of shamanism’s shared community and identity.
This research is distributed, popularized, commented upon, and embel-
lished on shamans’ home pages on the Internet and on Facebook, as well
as conveyed in books authored by established neoshamans (see Gaup
2005, 2007; Kvernmo 2011; Brunvoll and Brynn 2011).
Ebeltoft has chosen to embark on this work, and emphasizes that she
will especially focus on the traditions connected to the Volve, known
as a sorceress in Norse traditions. Her quest for the past concretely
 The Rise of Neoshamanism in Norway 47

illustrates the creativity that characterizes this type of historiography. As

Lone points out, there are very few literary sources that document these
traditions. To get closer to this tradition and to learn more, she seeks
inspiration from women in the larger neoshamanic milieu who have been
focusing on and marketing these types of traditions for years, includ-
ing Anette Høst in Denmark and Runa Gudrun Bergman in Iceland.
She hopes they can provide her with a deeper understanding, and help
her anchor traditional practices in the present. Additionally, Lone seeks
inspiration from popular culture, as well as from Celtic traditions, which
she sees as enigmatic and open to interpretation.
Also the old Sami siedi (Sami pre-Christian sacrificial sites) hold a
unique position within the neoshamanic milieu in Norway. Neoshamans
use these sites to legitimize the indigenous roots of their contemporary
pagan spirituality, and they are employed as symbols of an essentially
local Sami neoshamanism. A parallel can be drawn here to how Kathryn
Rountree describes Maltese pagans’ use of local temples: “These are
places of energy, prayer, communication with ancestors, and spontane-
ous insights about the ancient culture” (2010: 160).
In my interview with the Sami neoshaman Eirik Myrhaug, he describes
rituals at the Sami sieidi Storsteinen/Rikkagallo, close to his hometown
of Gratangen, Northern Norway. According to Myrhaug, the material
place, Storsteinen, makes the magical tangible and shows that magic is
located in a certain place, in a certain landscape. In a ritual realm of
sound, scents, movements, and touch, the presence of magic and mystery
is generated, bringing the ancestors back from oblivion and triggering a
sense of power. At Storsteinen, Myrhaug points out, the magical is some-
thing the individual participant can experience by touching the sieidi
and making a sacrifice. This ritual act recreates the past, and the past
becomes part of the shaping of the present.

Same Content, New Wrapping?

Developing the field of Nordic neoshamanism, practitioners draw on a
variety of different sources. As mentioned, practitioners look for inspi-
ration through literature on pre-Christian religions as well as through
popular culture, meditation, and various New Age courses. At his home
page on the Internet, Gaup writes about some of the things that have
inspired and shaped him as a Sami shaman:

I have found inspiration and knowledge from many quarters. My first experi-
ence with shamanism I received from a Sami noaidi. Later I learned healing
techniques that came from the Mapuche Indians of Chile. The first system-
atic training over time I got through Harner’s courses on “Core Shamanism”
in California. Later, I studied with Native Americans from North and South
48 Trude Fonneland

America and the Huna shamans from Hawaii. I know shamans from all con-
tinents. (Gaup)15

Gaup’s identity as a Sami shaman has developed through the exchange

of knowledge derived from different cultures and traditions. It is also
these different sources Gaup draws on when teaching his own courses.
Subsequent to his stay at Esalen and his participation in Harner’s
“Foundation for Shamanic Studies,” Gaup decided to develop his own
shaman school based upon his newly acquired knowledge. This school
is known as the Saivo Shaman school (Saivo being a Sami name for the
underworld). Saivo shaman school is organized as a series of courses con-
sisting of six gatherings that extend over three years. The courses are
organized throughout the country. It is these shaman courses that have
had the broadest resonance in Norway. All the established neoshamans
in Norway whom I interviewed for my doctoral thesis in 2010 had been
trained by Gaup and participated in one or more of his shaman gather-
ings. This also means that Gaup played a crucial role in designing the
neoshamanic milieu in Norway.
The leader of SA, Kyrre, has also been trained in neoshamanism by
teachers with different sources of inspiration. Like Gaup, he emphasizes
that influences from other cultures can, to some extent, help develop
Nordic shamanistic practices. Gaup and Kyrre here point to one of the
core pillars within neoshamanism, namely perennialism. In The Shamanic
Zone (2005), Gaup emphasizes this further:

Shamanism has not been constructed in the same way as Christianity, Islam
or Buddhism, created as they are by their own religious founders. The ancient
practice has been with us all the time as an inborn potential in all humans.
From ancient times a “shaman belt” meanders from Lapland and throughout
Siberia. Immigrants from Asia brought shamanism with them to North and
South America. From the beginning of time the phenomenon also existed in
Australia and in the large island cultures of the Pacific and of course in Africa,
the cradle of mankind. Set in historical context, shamanism is the first spiritual
practice and the first major cultural subject. (2005: 9 my translation)

In terms of this juggling of different sources and the openness toward

traditions from various cultures, how then does Nordic neoshaman-
ism differ from its US origins? In the article “Sami Neo Shamanism and
Indigenous Spirituality” (2013), Fonneland and Kraft claim that Gaup,
as well as his colleagues in the Norwegian neoshamanic milieu have fol-
lowed a route pointed out in Harner’s teachings. Having identified what
he considered to be the key ingredients of indigenous people’s religious
notions and practices, Harner urged indigenous people to trace their
roots, and thereby to contribute to the reservoir of shamanic resources.
This, one might claim, is precisely what Gaup and his colleagues have
 The Rise of Neoshamanism in Norway 49

set out to achieve (Fonneland and Kraft 2013: 136). We have, as Stephen
Prothero in a different empirical context has argued, a change of vocabu-
lary, but continuity in terms of basic ideas, a Nordic lexicon built upon a
neoshamanic grammar (1996).
The development of a neoshamanic movement concerned with the pres-
ervation and reconstruction of Norse and Sami traditions makes sense from
the perspective of the broader ethnopolitical search for a Sami identity as
well as the search for a Nordic heritage (see Kraft 2009). It also makes
sense in economic and marketing terms. Nordic versions of shamanism
are today presented and marketed as more authentic than the American
Indian version, partly, some actors claim, due to the commercialization of
the latter (Fonneland and Kraft 2013). The development of a local variant
of neoshamanic practices can also be seen as a response to the criticisms
leveled by Native American leaders against “plastic shamans” as appro-
priators of cultural traditions that do not belong to them (see Lewis, this
volume). Even though it can be argued that core shamanism and other
neoshamanic practices overlap in terms of basic ideas and practices, what
is interesting is how these traditions are perceived precisely as different,
and how the larger society responds to them—the media and the public
sector. This leads us to a final question, the question of reception.

Reception—Concluding Remarks
Currently there seems to be an embracing of neoshamanistic practitio-
ners by the general public in Norway, and this is in part due to positive
media coverage. Historians of religion Cora Alexa Døving and Siv Ellen
Kraft point out that the media is a central actor with regard to the devel-
opment of religion, both in terms of internal conditions such as power
and authority positions, and with regard to highlighting certain issues
and perspectives as particularly relevant (2013:19). Thus religion is not
only mediated through the media but also transformed and recreated
through these processes of communication.
In the media coverage connected with the establishment of SA, the
domestic media’s stories are characterized by a positive attitude toward
the newborn religious association. Both local and national media showed
great interest in the rise and approval of SA. During the course of the
Association’s first year, papers carried such headlines as “Now Shamanism
Is Officially Approved as a Religion in Norway” (Nordlys March 14,
2012), “Shamanism Finding Fertile Ground in Norway” (Dagen March
15, 2012), and “Shamans in from the Cold” (Bergens Tidende October
30, 2012). The Association’s key figures, Kyrre and Lone, have been inter-
viewed by local and national newspapers, radio, and television. TV2, one
of Norway’s largest national television channels, covered the initiation of
50 Trude Fonneland

a shamanistic association in Tromsø. In the program, it was emphasized

that Lone welcomed the governor’s decision and expressed her ambition
to preserve and continue the shamanistic traditions and practices of the
country. It was further highlighted that SA’s goal is about understand-
ing and respecting nature. Nor is Shamanism in any way mysterious.
Shamanism is a world religion, and in the North people are committed
to preserving the Sami and Norse (Arctic) traditions (TV2 March 14,
2012).
This positive attention stands in stark contrast to how the media in
general has covered New Age events and entrepreneurs. According to Siv
Ellen Kraft, the New Age movement does not hold a high position on
the media’s list of real religions and acceptable religiosity (Kraft 2011:
105). In the case of contemporary shamanism, however, we have media
contributions that show a genuine interest in the phenomenon of Nordic
neoshamanism. In the various reports, neoshamanism is not portrayed as
a countercultural movement, characterized by oppositional attitudes and
naïve as well as unreliable social actors, but rather as a positive contri-
bution and a necessary alternative, embodying important attitudes con-
cerning contemporary environmental issues and materialistic lifestyles.
In line with what Anne Kalvig argues in her chapter in this volume, neo-
shamans in Norway are portrayed as spiritually responsible, identify-
ing with collective needs and the urges of environmentalism, bent upon
reviving pre-Christian traditions (Kalvig 2014).
Additionally, “official” support of Sami and Norse shamanism has
been rather extensive. Since 2006, the Sami People’s organization (Samisk
folkeforbund) and Norgga Sáráhkka (a Sami women’s organization)
have served as co-organizers of the aforementioned New Age festival in
Tromsø, which has also been considered as the most crucial stage for the
dissemination of Sami neoshamanism. In 2005, the mayor of Tromsø, in
a speech at the opening of this same festival, praised it as “an alternative
alternative fair, due to its location in a northern Norwegian city and its
link to Sami traditions” (see Fonneland 2007, my translation). Also, the
Sami shaman festival Isogaisa is annually assigned about half a million
Norwegian kroner in financial support from the Sami Parliament, the
Barents Secretariat, the Troms County Council, and the Nordic Culture
Fund. The festival, in turn, hosts several co-arrangers, among which are
the Spansdalen Sami Association (Spansdalen Sameforening) and the
Costal Sami Association (Foreningen Kystsamene). Likewise, the State’s
approval of SA involves an acceptance of shamans in the present, their
activities, attitudes, and conceptions, and is thus also a means for SA to
reach out to potential members and gain attention.
The type of spirituality highlighted by the establishment of a reli-
gious practice claiming roots in Nordic cultures can be seen as a resource
 The Rise of Neoshamanism in Norway 51

that provides a shine and an aura to surrounding social milieus. In this

case, Nordic neoshamanism emerges as our common cultural heritage.
According to Anne Eriksen, the concept of cultural heritage encompasses
everything that is nice and (slightly) old and that generally has the sta-
tus of being important and valuable and which is not imposed from the
outside (2009: 478). Nordic neoshamanism is a religious community
that can claim to be taking care of our traditions, our common Nordic
religious roots. Even though Nordic neoshamanism first and foremost
constitutes a spiritual community and is a venue for people committed to
neoshamanistic practices, the milieu is not without social and economic
implications, and, as such, neoshamanism in Norway is a cultural force.

Notes
1. Neo shamanism is ranked as one of the fastest-growing religions in contem-
porary Western society (Patridge 2004: 47, Wallis 2003: 140).
2. I have been conducting research on contemporary shamanism in Norway
since 2004, and in 2010 I completed my doctoral thesis, “Samisk nysjaman-
isme: i dialog med (for)tid og stad” (Sami Neo Shamanism: In Dialog with the
Past, Time and Place), which focuses on the development of the field of Sami
neo shamanism in Norway.
3. This chapter draws on some of my previous work and articles (see Fonneland
2010, 2011, 2014a, 2014b).
4. Eriksson has published a variety of books that can be linked to the perfor-
mance of contemporary shamanism (see, for instance, Eriksson 1987; 1988;
1990; 2012).
5. The core of this project is a shamanic drum, made by the Sami neo shaman
Birger Mikkelsen. This drum has traveled and still travels to various destina-
tions all over the world, and is intended to be a “wakeup call to humanity.”
According the project’s home pages on the Internet, the intention behind the
world drum is to bind people together across race, religion, borders, culture,
ethnicity, color, and political conviction in a common struggle for human-
ity and Mother Earth. Internet site, http://www.theworlddrum.com/index
.html. Accessed February 6, 2013.
6. Kvernmo is the driving force behind the development and organization of
the neo-shaman festival Isogaisa. He has also published the semiautobio-
graphical Sjamanens hemmeligheter (2011) (The shaman’s secrets), which
focus on neo shamanism in Norway and his own developments as a Sami neo
shaman.
7. For the Shamanistic Association, with members and other devotees spread
throughout the country, the Internet has become a key component in the orga-
nization of the larger Association because it allows widely separated individu-
als to communicate with each other and information to be disseminated more
easily.
8. In Norwegian, the two terms are livsynsorganisasjon and trudomssamfunn.
52 Trude Fonneland

9. The text is taken from the letter to the County Governor; Internet site,
http://www.facebook.com /groups/291273094250547/files/#!/groups
/291273094250547/doc/302374349807088/. Accessed January 29, 2013
(my translation).
10. The first shamanic wedding ritual was held at the Ireland Tysnes, outside of
Bergen on July 27, 2012, with the shaman Arthur Sørenssen as ceremonial
leader. This wedding was, however, held before the official shamanic wed-
ding ceremony was approved by the County Governor. The local shamanic
association in Tromsø is now preparing confirmation ceremonies for a group
of youths that has expressed interest in a shamanic confirmation during the
spring of 2014.
11. I have also been invited to take part in this group as a researcher, and all
members have been informed of and accepted my participation.
12. The highlighting of shamanism as a universal phenomenon is inspired by
the English translation of Romanian historian of religion Mircea Eliade’s
Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (1961).
13. The wedding clothes were designed by Lone Ebeltoft, who runs the firm
Alvedesign, which produces handmade wool garments with Arctic symbols.
14. According to Roy Wallis, neo shamanistic practitioners highlight archeo-
logical sites as places where ritual practices “work best” (2003: 141).
15. Ailo Gaup died on September 24, 2014, at age 70.

References
Alver, B. G. 2011. Fortælling, fortolkning, fortryllelse. Et kulturanalytisk per-
spektiv på fortælletraditionen om den kloge.—Din, tidsskrift for religion og
kultur 1–2, pp. 132–154.
Alver, B. G., and T. Selberg. 1992. Det er mer mellom himmel og jord: Folks
forståelse av virkeligheten ut fra forestillinger om sykdom og behandling.
Sandvika: Vett & Viten AS.
Andreassen, B. O. and T. Fonneland. 2002/2003. “Mellom healing og blå energi.
Nyreligiøsitet i Tromsø.” Din. Tidsskrift for religion og kultur 4/2002 +
1/2003, 30–36.
Askeland, Ha. 2011: Hovedmodeller for relasjonen mellom stat og trossam-
funn: Finansiering av majoritetskirker i Europa. KA-notat April 27, 2011.
[Unpublished].
Beyer, P. 1998: “Globalization and the Religion of Nature,” in J. Pearson and
G. Samuel (eds.) Nature Religion Today: Paganism in the Modern World.
Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 11–21.
Blain, Jenny. 2005: “Heathenry, the Past, and Sacred Sites in Today’s Britain,”
in Michael Strmiska (ed.) Modern Paganism in World Cultures: Comparative
Perspectives. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 181–208.
Brunvoll, Bente, and Grace Brynn. 2011: Eirik Myrhaug: Sjaman for livet. Oslo:
Nova Forlag.
Christensen, C. 2005. “Urfolk på det nyreligiøse markedet—en analyse av
Alternativt Nettverk,” master’s thesis in religious studies, University of
Tromsø.
 The Rise of Neoshamanism in Norway 53

———. 2007. “Urfolksspiritualitet på det nyreligiøse markedet. En analyse av

tidsskriftet Visjon/Alternativt Nettverk”. Din. Tidsskrift for religion og kul-
tur 1, 63–78.
Døving, Cora Alexa, and Siv Ellen Kraft. 2013: Religion i pressen. Oslo:
Universitetsforlaget.
Eriksen, A. 1999. Historie, Minne og Myte. Oslo: Pax Forlag AS.
———. 2009. “Sideblikk. Kulturarv og kulturarvinger.” Nytt Norsk Tidsskrift
3–4, 474–480.
Eriksson, J. I. 1988. Sejd—en vägledning i nordlig shamanism. Stockholm:
Vattumannen Forlag.
———. 2012. Rune Magic & Shamanism: Original Nordic Knowledge from
Mother Earth. Upplands Väsby: Norrshaman.
Eriksson, J. I. and A. Grimsson. 1990. Runmagi och Shamanism 2.0. Upplands
Väsby: Norrshaman.
Eriksson, J. I. and L. Bäckman. 1987. Samisk Shamanism. Hägersten: Gimle.
Fjell, T. I. 1998. Fødselens gjenfødelse: Fra teknologi til natur på fødearenaen.
Kristiansand: Høyskoleforlaget.
Fonneland, T. (forthcoming). “Approval of the Shamanistic Association: A Local
Northern Norwegian Construct with Trans-Local Dynamics,” in Lewis, J.,
and I. T. Bårdsen (eds.) Nordic New Religions. Leiden, Boston: Brill.
———. ( 2013. «Isogaisa: Samisk sjamanisme i festivaldrakt» Aura vol 5,
102–131.
———. 2014. “Sjamanistisk Forbund: Ei ny religiøs rørsle tek form.” Din.
Tidsskrift for religion og kultur, 93–112.
———. 2012. “Spiritual Entrepreneurship in a Northern Landscape: Spirituality,
Tourism and Politics.” Temenos 48(2), 155–178.
———. 2010. Samisk nysjamanisme: i dialog med (for)tid og stad. Doctoral dis-
sertation, University of Bergen.
Fonneland, T., and S. E. Kraft. 2013. “Sami Shamanism and Indigenous
Spirituality,” in I. Gilhus and S. Sutcliffe (eds.) New Age Spirituality:
Rethinking Religion. Durham: Equinox Press, 132–145.
Frykman, J. 2002. “Place for Something Else: Analyzing a Cultural Imaginary,”
Ethnologia Europea. 32(2), 47–68.
Gaup, A. 2005. The Shamanic Zone. Oslo: Three Bear Company.
Gilhus, I. 2012. “Post- Secular Religion and the Therapeutic Turn: Three
Norwegian Examples,” in T. Ahlbäck (ed.) Post-secular Religious Practices.
Åbo: Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis, 62–75.
Gregorius, F. 2008. “Modern Asatro: Att konstruera etnisk och kulturell iden-
titet.” Doctoral dissertation, Centrum for Theology and Religious Studies,
Lund University.
Harner, M. 1980. The Way of the Shaman: A Guide to Power and Healing. San
Francisco: Harper & Row.
Heelas, P. 1996. The New Age Movement. Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers.
Kraft, S. E. 2011. Hva er nyreligiøsitet. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.
———. 2009. Sami Indigenous Spirituality: Religion and Nation Building
in Norwegian Sápmi. Temenos: Nordic Journal of Comparative Religion
45(2):179–206.
Kvernmo, R. 2011. Sjamanens hemmeligheter. Own Imprint.
54 Trude Fonneland

Lindquist, G. 1997. “Shamanic Performances on the Urban Scene: Neo-

Shamanism in Contemporary Sweden.” Doctoral dissertation, Studies in
Social Anthropologhy, 39. Gotab, Stockholm.
McCutcheon, R. T. 2000. “Myth,” in W. Braun and R. T. McCutcheon (eds.)
Guide to the Study of Religion, London, New York: Cassell, 190–208.
Myrhaug, M. L. 1997: I Modergudinnens fotspor. Samisk religion med vekt på
kvinnelige kultutøvere og gudinnekult. Oslo: Pax Forlag AS.
Partridge, C. 2004. The Re-Enchantment of the West. London and New York:
Continuum.
Prothero, S. 1996. The White Buddhist: The Asian Odyssey of Henry Steel
Olcott. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Rountree, K. 2010. Crafting Contemporary Pagan Identities in a Catholic
Society. London: Ashgate.
Selberg, T. 1999. “Magi og fortryllelse i populærkulturen,” in B. G. Alver, I.
Gilhus, L. Mikeaelsson, and T. Selberg (eds.) Myte, Magi og Mirakel: I møte
med det moderne. Oslo: Pax Forlag AS, 122–133.
Stuckrad, K. V. 2005. Western Esoterisicm. A Brief History of Secret Knowledge.
London: Equinox Publishers.
Svanberg, J. 1994. Den skandinaviska nyschamanismen: En revitaliserande
rörelse. Unpublished master’s thesis in Comparative Religion. Åbo, Akademi
University.
Taira, T. 2010: “Religion as a Discursive Technique: The Politics of Classifying
Wicca.” Journal of Contemporary Religion, 25(3), 279–394.
Wallis, R. J. 2003. Shamans/Neo-Shamans: Ecstasy, Alternative Archaeologies
and Contemporary Pagans. London: Routledge.

Newspapers
Bergens Tidende “Sjamaner inn fra kulden” (October 30, 2012)
Dagen “sjamanisme finner grobunn i Norge” (March 15/03, 2012)
Klassekampen “Sjamanen” (March 11–12, 2006)
Nordlys: “Sjamanisme offentlig godkjent som religion i Norge” (March 14,
2010)
Fremover “Narvikpar først i Nord-Norge. Nina og Per valgte sjamanistisk
vielse” (July 10, 2013)

Internet Sites
http://sjamanforbundet.no/
http://www.theworlddrum.com/index.html
h t t p : / / w w w. f a c e b o o k . c o m / g r o u p s / 2 9 1 2 7 3 0 9 4 2 5 0 5 4 7 / f i l e s / # ! /
groups/291273094250547/doc/302374349807088/
http://www.sjaman.com/
http://www.livstreet.com/
 3
The Way of the Teacher

Merete Demant Jakobsen

Shamanism is a term that has come to be used in contexts that often

have little to do with the word’s original meaning. This is a concern of
mine, as it was a concern of S. M. Shirokogoroff, who conducted a fine
study of shamanism in the early part of the last century in Siberia and
Manchuria, titled Psychomental Complex of the Tungus. In this work,
Shirokogoroff states that he hopes that it will be possible to preserve
the term “shaman” without wearing it out “by the use in reference to
very broad generalization, and at the same time clearing it from various
malignant tumors—theories which associate shamanism with sorcery,
witchcraft, the medicine man, etc.” (1935: 271).
In 1980, Michael Harner’s The Way of the Shaman was published and
became the classic manual on the way to practice shamanism in mod-
ern Western society. As an anthropologist, Harner had studied shaman-
ism among the Jívaro Indians in Ecuador and the Conibo Indians in the
Peruvian Amazon in the 1950s and ’60s. Inspired by his research, Harner
created core shamanism, a contemporary version of shamanism built on
his knowledge of traditional cultures. His aim was to make shamanism
available to participants in the context of a course in a few days instead
of the year-long training of shaman apprentices in traditional societies.
He states in the preface, “At the same time, the classic shamanic methods
work surprisingly quickly, with the result that most persons can achieve
in a few hours experiences that might otherwise take them years of silent
meditation, prayer, or chanting” (xii).
My interest in core- or neoshamanism was inspired in the spring of
1992 by an advertisement in the Oxford Times, in which such a course
was offered. I participated in the course and, with my background in
Greenlandic shamanism, decided to do a comparative study, undertaking
56 Merete Demant Jakobsen

fieldwork in core shamanic courses that was later published as Shamanism:

Traditional and Contemporary Approaches to the Mastery Spirits and
Healing. In this study, I raised several questions about the modern,
Westernized version of the old belief system, some of which query the
time scale of the training, the attitude toward evil spirits, and course
participants’ situation when, after four days of training, they return to
“normal” life and so forth.
The Greenlandic shamans, the angakkut, were first and foremost
dealing with the collective interests of society; they were, in the language
of Shirokogoroff, masters of spirits, and they possessed great insight into
the psycho-mental complex of their fellow human beings. Generally, they
would only use their skills when life-threatening issues were at stake,
as minor magic was available to everybody. They were, in other words,
specialists in spirits and in communication with the invisible world. My
conclusion when comparing these two attitudes regarding the role of the
shaman, was that

This very sense of the power of the specialist is what neoshamanism is attempt-
ing to eliminate. While trying to preserve the positive aspects of the interaction
with the spirit world, in which the spirits first and foremost are allies and for
the most part of good intention, the knowledge of the shaman is no longer of
an esoteric character but instead available to all. There is no sense of a life-
threatening tangible disaster instigated by Nature, which is instead perceived
as the victim of human greed. Human suffering originates from a fragmented
society whose value systems have collapsed into mere materialism and whose
spiritual values are starved out of existence. (Jakobsen 1999: 217)

It was not the sole aim of the courses, however, to produce “shamans,”
and the course participants were not taught to master spirits, but instead
just to use them as advisers and teachers in their own lives. The course
organizer did not present him/herself as a shaman, but some participants
did not make that distinction.
In Mircea Eliade’s major work, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of
Ecstasy, he discusses the origin of the term “shaman” and proposes
that it has come to the West through Russia from the Tungusic saman
(1989: 4). He considers whether the term was ultimately derived from the
Pali samana (Sanskrit sramana, referring to Shirokogoroff [1935:270]).
Among the Tungus, saman describes “one who is excited, moved or
raised” (Lewis 1971: 51), and Vilmos Diószegi refers to the root of saman,
sa-, to know. In other words, the shaman in an excited state knows more
than his fellow human beings about the world of the spirits, and therefore
has unique insight.
This sense of a “being set apart,” of having unique insight, is what
led one of the course participants to continue studying the shamanic way
 The Way of the Teacher 57

and to become a teacher. A special knowledge experienced through the

courses could be conveyed to new apprentices of core shamanism. In
2006, I therefore decided to interview him, and then followed this up in
the spring of 2013.
This course organizer who is representative of the third “generation”
lives in Jutland, Denmark. When I first interviewed him in 1995, he was
new to shamanism. He explained that he had decided to participate in
the course on Nordic Shamanism because he was inspired by North
American Indian philosophy, as it connected human beings with all of
the Earth and the Universe:

Shamanism is new to me. I have been interested in many spiritual matters.

In connection with the production of plant colours one is concerned with the
basic processes. This is a natural approach for me towards a part of our world
which we have forgotten to relate to: Nature. . . . We also have some roots. They
are more or less destroyed after the introduction of Christianity. I am not a
member of the church anymore. Are these roots here still? They must be part
of me. (Jakobsen 1999: 178)

This search for roots earlier in human history than Christianity was
important to several of the participants in the courses. Their relationship
to the Christian Church was either nonexistent or strained, as the Church
generally did not leave space for experiences of encounters with nature
spirits, which many of the participants mentioned as one of their reasons
for choosing shamanism. For these people, the core-shamanic method
and its inclusion of Nature opened a door to experiences of nonordinary
reality.
When I interviewed this man in 2006 and, later, one of his apprentices,
it became clear that he was moving away from the “pure” Harner core
shamanism, even though he had worked as the Foundations representa-
tive in Denmark since 2000. He had by 2006 started to incorporate other
traditions into his teaching and added new concepts and rituals. This
might be seen as a way of expressing a need to include a personal spiri-
tual framework, which would also have been true of shamans in tradi-
tional cultures, but, according to this teacher, the Harner Foundation for
Shamanic Studies did not approve of his deviation from the training they
had provided, and there would be a point at which the deviation would
transgress the boundaries for what could be termed core shamanism.
Through my own interviews, it was clear that most participants in
core-shamanic courses in the 1990s did not generally seek to combine
shamanism with other belief systems. But a decade later, this was hap-
pening frequently in non-core-shamanic courses, and a conglomerate of
different beliefs might be presented in a single course. This teacher called
himself a shaman even though it has been taught in the core-shamanic
58 Merete Demant Jakobsen

course of the ’90s that this should not be done. He explained that this
insight arose from an initiation into the spiritual world in which he had
been tried on his morality. It was his own assessment that he was now a
shaman. There had been no other persons involved in that decision.
In a course in London in the late ’90s, Harner explained that he had
made contact with shamans in Tuva, Siberia, and that his Foundation
provided training for these shamans, for which they were very grateful.
This teacher confirmed Harner’s view after having visited Tuva himself.
Not only had this third-generation teacher included aspects of
Buddhism in his teaching, he had also created his own four-module sys-
tem. One aim was that during the courses the participants would realize
whether or not they were meant to walk the shamanic way. He had also
created a new healing method that no longer made use of the drum, but
only the voice. Additionally, the concept of the tunnel as the route from
ordinary to nonordinary reality was no longer part of the journey, as he
believed that it could be frightening to travel through. Instead, he led the
client to another level and lowered the person into a deeper state of mind
of total darkness and peace.
These were major changes to core shamanism. The use of the drum
as a travel instigator and the transformative tunnel journey preparing
the traveler for the meeting with spirits at the end of the tunnel were no
longer part of the teaching. Instead, he explored the nonordinary land-
scape together with the client. And when present there, while providing
healing, he asked the client to put a hand on the areas of the body that
seemed to be the sources of problems.
In his view, a shaman was an artist who gave the formless a form,
color, and size. As a healer, he believed it was important to be led to the
right tool and that disease might be viewed as a way of teaching a person.
No evil or destructive spirits were mentioned. Instead, it was important
for the healer to understand that the healing might have been successful
even though the client died if it meant that the client had reached a higher
level of insight.
As is clear from this description of the work of the third-generation
teacher, he was inspired by Buddhism and combined this with some of
the core-shamanic tools. The exchange between Buddhism, or Bon, and
shamanism is not new. What is new, however, is the highly individualized
version, which deviates from the system of the Foundation for Shamanic
Studies.
There is generally among Danish healers a tendency to create their own
system, with a “pick-and-choose” attitude toward existing approaches.
This was also my conclusion when I looked at healing generally in the
’90s, when teachers of core shamanism seemed to have a fairly consistent
structure for their teaching.
 The Way of the Teacher 59

The present-day spiritual smorgasbord creates a plethora of possible

combinations of spiritual traditions in which the traditional starting
point is less prominent and the creation of unique methods predomi-
nant. There is not one unified light to be seen at the end of the tunnel,
but endless individual variations. Both the organizer and the client find
themselves choosing among the methods on offer. According to Friedrich
Nietzsche,

The most characteristic quality of modern man: the remarkable antithesis

between an interior which fails to correspond to any exterior and an exterior
which fails to correspond to any interior—an antithesis unknown to people
of other times. Knowledge . . . now no longer acts as an agent for transforming
the outside world but remains concealed within a chaotic world which modern
man describes with a curious pride as his uniquely characteristic “subjectiv-
ity” . . . for we moderns have nothing whatsoever of our own; only by replenish-
ing and cramming ourselves with the ages, customs, arts, philosophy, religions,
discoveries of others do we become anything worthy of notice. (1983: 78)

And it is no less important to become “worthy of notice” in a Western

culture that focuses on “the relational self” as the center for meaning
(Gergen 2009). Each individual creates his own spiritual universe, his
own mythology, and the sharing of a belief system rests generally speak-
ing on the teaching of “the other.”
On the basis of this insight, it became relevant for me to interview
someone from the fourth generation of teachers, an individual who had
recently been trained by the aforementioned teacher, also in 2006. He
showed me a pamphlet that he had put together and that offered sev-
eral methods of healing, not just a Buddhist-inspired shamanism: healing
therapy, Reiki healing, healing massage, Inka healing, and also drum-
ming journeys. The latter was of core-shamanic origin; otherwise, he
was taking a step yet further away from using only shamanic-inspired
methods. He was still trained by the Danish course organizer, and his
main focus was cooperation between the client and the healer. He did
not believe that the healer alone would find the way for the client. The
concept of mastery, of being the intermediary in charge of the commu-
nication with the spirit world, seemed to have been erased. He explained
that he had observed that many people had begun to leave the responsi-
bility for their lives in the hands of healers. Instead of being an authority
on spirit communication and thereby of presenting solutions extracted
from the spirit world, he would travel alongside the client. In his view,
most clients had psychological problems, and his role was to assist them
in giving these names.
A conglomerate of different approaches, and thereby an enlargement
of the scope for the inclusion of new spiritual approaches with each new
60 Merete Demant Jakobsen

teacher, had clearly replaced the original core-shamanic method from

which the teaching had sprung.
In the core-shamanic approach to the spirit world, the course partici-
pant was taught a method and then sent on his or her own journey to
encounter the spirit world and to ask for assistance there. With the new
teaching, the spirit world seemed to have retracted and been replaced by
a “union” of teacher and client together undertaking the client’s journey.
Contrary to what this fourth-generation teacher believed, the actual role
of the teacher seemed more intrusive and controlling. The traditional
shaman was seen as a master of spirits and an intermediary, while the
new “shaman” came across as a master of clients and their experiences.
Many questions therefore arise from the view expressed by these two
teachers. One essential question is why the core-shamanic method is so
readily watered down in the new millennium, thereby confirming the
original fear of Shirokogoroff, that the word “shaman” should cover
almost any spiritual approach.
One possible explanation is that it is not easy for one to uphold a
genuine belief in the existence of a spirit world inhabited by wise animal
spirits when one is outside the courses if there is no structure available
in the “after course” life. Modern Western human beings do not live in
such close relationship to nature as to feel the need to placate the wrath
of spirits whose retaliation might lead to hunger, disease, and thereby
death. Neither are the experiences of the course participants inspired by
a common mythology upholding the mutual understanding of individual
journeys and ultimately the universe.
Another explanation might be that core shamanism is taught in
courses, in which within the frame of the four days a course lasts, it is
natural so speak about these spirits, relating to them and communicat-
ing in a ritual language that is not easily transported into the outside
world and introduced actively into the everyday life of the participants.
In that respect it easier to talk about issues that are closer to the “myth”
of psychology than that of nonordinary reality encounters with power
animals.
Harner claims in The Way of the Shaman that core shamanism is a
quick route to shamanic enlightenment:

For this reason alone, shamanism is ideally suited to the contemporary life
of busy people just as it was suited, for example, to the Eskimo (Inuit) people
whose daily hours were filled with the task of the struggle of survival, but
whose evenings could be used for shamanism. (1990: xii)

Shamanism is presented as the evening’s “entertainment” in the cold and

dark nights of the North. The struggle for survival and shamanism were
 The Way of the Teacher 61

not separated, however, and belief and life were united in the shamanic
séance. In the shaman’s hands was the survival of the community. In the
hands of the facilitator of shamanic courses is the survival of the indi-
vidual in a complex urban environment (Jakobsen 1999: 138).
Asked to contribute to this anthology, I interviewed the third-genera-
tion teacher for a third time in the spring of 2013, almost 20 years after
our first encounter. I was interested in finding out how his method of
teaching shamanism had developed. After I had seen him in 2006, he
had, in 2007, founded a new Danish organization, The Shaman Society
in Denmark. His website was called The Meeting Point: The Way of the
Shaman, thereby preserving the term used originally by Harner. He had
by now left The Foundation for Shamanic Studies. The reason for his
choice was already in the making, when I met him in 2006.
In the description of a shaman on the website, he states that a shaman
is a person who has undertaken an often long and thorough training. The
teaching does not just take place in individual courses, but is a process
of personal training. The basic apprenticeship lasts a minimum of five
years, and thereafter requires a lifelong commitment to yearly training.
This presentation of the shaman is then followed by a long list stipulating
the content of the training, which includes the body and energy, psycho-
somatic insight to healing, and knowledge of the spirit world and of the
world of plants and animals and so on.
As is clear from this training program, the teacher has come full cir-
cle, and is now presenting an approach to shamanism that adheres to
that of traditional shamans, such as the angakkut in Greenland or those
whom he met in Tuva. He is, however, at the same time utilizing words
as “karma,” “morality” and “ethics,” “energy” and “matter”—words
that makes sense to a modern Western person in search of his or her own
spiritual approach, often in an urban environment.
The reason for this new development was his visits to Tuva, where
he had later traveled on his own and not with the Foundation. There he
befriended the leader of bear shamanism.

The words are the same but the concept different. . . . In the West we have
another approach to good and evil, in the East they are clearly more able to be
spiritual than we are.

There is no doubt that Christianity has had an impact on the version of

shamanism often presented in the West, and angels are now mixing with
the spirits of nature in some presentations of shamanism (Jakobsen 2006).
This teacher is, however, trying to bring shamanic training back to its
roots, but he is including Buddhism and his own “spiritual geography.”
He now sees core-shamanic training as an “unworthy” representation
62 Merete Demant Jakobsen

of shamanism and observes that in Western culture there is a lack of

capacity to make a real commitment to the training involved. “We are
not prepared to put in the effort that it takes to walk the spiritual way.”
On that basis, he sees the Harner method as “the pared down cheap
version.” He believes that the method has served its purpose in making
shamanism popular. His own reason for separating from the Foundation
was that core-shamanic courses were selling off shamanism “bit by bit”
and supporting the “me, me, me” attitude of the West. In his opinion, as
a consequence of his travels to Tuva, this approach differed profoundly
from that of the shamans he met there.
In his revised training of the apprentice, he has now introduced an
assessment period of half a year. In this a daily training is necessary, and
his experience is that most people “run away” when they realize that they
have to get rid of their own laziness. As a teacher, he daily spends hours
on his own personal training, exploring three main areas:

1. the flow of consciousness

2. the capacity of being present
3. the shaman’s route—shape shifting into either the wind, a crow, or a
wood spirit and observing the area that he walks mentally from the
specific angle that he has chosen

Buddhism is an active part of this approach and, combined with his

knowledge of shamanism, he mentions the Bon religion as the link. He
underlines that he has created his own system so as to adjust the method
to Danish culture. In this connection he uses Yggdrasil, the tree of life,
the immense tree that is central to Norse mythology.
Around this tree he has built his own spiritual geography, which has
much in common with other cultures as it consists of four corners and
four levels in which you can travel. West is the seat of substance, South of
emotions and images, North consists of mathematical thought processes,
and East of light and meaning. An area that he explains in detail is the
relationship between the present and the future. The present is the future
verbalized and thereby taking shape. In this context, he describes the
experience of death and how it is possible to travel to one’s own death
and to acknowledge the geography of it. It is, however, never the same
journey as time changes.
The image used for this emptiness of the future is another concept
from Norse mythology: Ginnungagap, the big empty space in the middle
of the Earth. The real self lies in the future, and the task is to travel into
the light, into absolute nothingness and meet the self. The tunnel travel
of core shamanism is criticized as this method takes the form of images
of already existing emotions. He sees himself as an explorer of reality
 The Way of the Teacher 63

through his system of spiritual geography. In his cosmology, he knows

what he is going to face and that differs from that of the core-shamanic
tunnel journey to nonordinary reality. He clarifies that he is not only a
teacher of methods for travel, he also participates in the journey of the
client and communicates en route.
There is mastery at play, that of the client’s journey. In core shaman-
ism the course participant left through the tunnel for his or her own
version of non ordinary reality. This teacher travels with the clients to
their world, including other lives, and has a continuous dialogue with the
clients so as to synchronize their journey. The client is typically one who
has problems with finding a way through this life and with understand-
ing the meaning of it. During this journey dialogue, the teacher creates
images that take the client from a source of water into a cave and then to
the inside of the body. In this way, they can detect cancer tumors: what
do they look like, what is the shape and size? The patient can start to
work on the tumors, but the shaman undertakes the extraction. If the
client, however, is capable of doing this alone, it will be more effective
and the tumors can be removed temporarily. But it is necessary to get to
the source of the problem. The images of water and the roots of plants
are used to illustrate this. It is important not to tear the roots. The core
of this treatment is to make images of the places of the disease and the
feelings connected to it. If the feeling is not transformed into a form, then
the disease will eat the client.
This is not a new technique in a shamanic sense. The creation of an
image that the person can relate too, to name the nameless, is partly what
the séance is all about. The mythology justifying the action of the sha-
man and that of the spirit world is an important tool.
Joseph Campbell describes the role of the myth:

1. To create and sustain a sense of awe in the individual in connection

with the secret dimension of the universe, not so that human beings will
live in fear of it, but so that they realise that they are a part of it. The
mystery of existence is as much the deep mystery of the individual.
2. To create a concept of the universe that agrees with the knowledge of the
present time and the areas of life that the mythology is addressing.
3. To support the norms of a given moral code, that which rules in the
society where the individual lives.
4. To support the individual step by step in connection with health,
strength and harmony of spirit through a profitable life. (1972: 184)

Together with the client, the teacher creates an insight into the secret
dimension of the universe and of the body through a narrative that is con-
nected to and arises from the life of the client, and thereby a personalized
64 Merete Demant Jakobsen

myth through which knowledge of self arises. Such knowledge is an

important tool in the healing process, and should lead to strength and
harmony of the body and mind. Naming and giving a disease a form
takes the threat away.
At the moment, the teacher is not teaching anybody as he has reserved
the present time to do something for his own development. He states
that “It is tough, it is really difficult, they (the clients) do not under-
stand. They want it all immediately.” To him it is possible to read a whole
library full of books on shamanism with only confusion as the outcome.
You can speak about shamanism without having experienced its essence.
It is the experience of the individual that is the interesting part, and there
is so much to be explored. He ends the interview by revealing his reasons
for finding shamanism interesting: it takes its starting point in your own
experiences and that is a fantastic and exciting world.
For this teacher, seen from the perspective of Christianity as the state
religion of Denmark, the gospel of Christ has been replaced by the gospel
of the individual, the holy spirit by the shaman as the mediator, and the
image of an eternal God by the image of an eternal future in which the
self rests and from which the present takes form.
Looking back over more than 30 years since Harner first published
The Way of the Shaman, it becomes clear that a considerable change has
taken place to the method of teaching shamanism to Westerners who
predominantly live in an urban environment, and thereby to the concept
of shamanism. The inclusion of Buddhism, of the concept of self, of the
focus on the individual and not the society of which the individual is
part, reflects a general development both in the concepts of the smorgas-
bord of spirituality and in the role of the individual in society.
The anthropologist Margaret Mead’s classification of three forms
of society springs to mind as a way of approaching this development
(1970):

1) The postfigurative society in which the individual is born into a clearly

defined social structure in which fitting into his or her preestablished
role is the main task. The former hunting society of Greenland would
serve as an example.
Here the apprentice is born into his or her role either as an orphan,
or chosen by the spirits or by a shaman, who is the master of the com-
munication with the spirit world.
2) The cofigurative society in which the individual identifies with peers.
To a certain degree it is possible to choose one’s role with the focus
on “who am I?” and “where am I going?” The choice of route is
important, and as the answers are found through interaction with
others, it might lead to identity crises, estrangement, and a sense of a
decentered self, which characterizes postmodern society.
 The Way of the Teacher 65

Core shamanism would be a fine example of a way of dealing

with this kind social challenge. The journey to nonordinary reality
is undertaken by the individual, but later shared with the group in
a circle and creating the sense of participating in a mutual spiritual
experience. The group’s support is crucial to the individual. The focus
is on participation. Here the course organizer is the master of the
group’s shamanic experiences.
3) The prefigurative society in which identification is now taking place
in a constantly fluctuating social structure with no fixed roles, as
relationships are changing quickly and the individual continuously
has to adapt to new rules of play.
In this kind of society, according to the methods mentioned by the
third generation teacher, shamanism will have to be internalized to
make sense to the individual. Sharing with others is not at center of
focus, and there is no common mythology and no common spiritual-
ity, as each person is left to his or her own version, which is shared
with the teacher as a master of methods.

Western urban dwellers might be deeply fascinated by the mysterious

spirit world of the shaman and find a sounding board for their own spiri-
tual search. There has, however, been a progressive change in the role
of the spirits. The mastery of communication with these often destruc-
tive entities that was crucial to traditional shamanism, has been watered
down through core shamanism to the point where the spirits are mostly
friendly advisers situated in nature, to the latest version in which the spir-
its are almost nonexistent and the focus is on the power of the individual
and is thereby internalized. The mastery of spirits seems to have become
the mastery of “my body and mind.”
So why this constant search for spirituality, when it is clear that
there is no common mythology or even no common language? To Émile
Durkheim the answer is clear: it is human nature.

A man does not recognise himself; he feels himself transformed and conse-
quently he transforms the environment which surrounds him. In order to
account for the very particular impression which he receives, he attributes to
the things with which he is most directly in contact properties which they have
not, exceptional powers and virtues which the objects of everyday life does not
possess. In a word, above the real world where his profane life passes he places
another which, in one sense, does not exist except in thought, but to which he
attributes a higher sort of dignity than to the first. Thus from a double point of
view it is an ideal world. (1976: 422)

In an ideal world the individual has control over the uncontrollable

forces of nature, of society, of disease, and of self. The latest twig on
the Yggdrassil of spirituality is mindfulness, which is focused on the
66 Merete Demant Jakobsen

internalized control of self in a prefigurative unpredictable urban envi-

ronment. Equally, the latest version of the teaching of shamanism is,
although adhering to the traditional shamanism, also internalizing what
in traditional culture was external: the mastery of spirits has become the
mastery of the mind. However, what has become clear from this research
is that the way neoshamanism is taught by this third-generation teacher
is equally true to the structure of the surrounding society and to that of
traditional shamanic traditions. The way of the teacher is governed by
the way of the spiritual expectations in a quickly changing environment.
If the teacher, however, in an attempt to reflect traditional culture, asks
too much commitment of the apprentices, “they run away.”

References
Campbell, Joseph. 1960. The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology. London:
Secker and Warburg.
Diózegi, Vilmos. 1968. Tracing Shamans in Siberia. Oosterhout, Holland:
Anthropological Publications.
Durkheim, Emile. 1976; 1915, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. London:
George Allen and Unwin.
Eliade, Mircea. 1989; 1951. Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. London:
Arkanar.
Gergen, Kenneth J. 2009. Relational Being: Beyond Self and Community.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Harner, Michael. 1973. Hallucinogens and Shamanism. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
———. 1990; 1980. The Way of the Shaman. San Francisco: Harper.
———. 1988. “What Is a Shaman?” on Shaman’s Path, Garry Doore (ed.).
London: Shamanbala.
Jakobsen, Merete Demant. 1999. Shamanism: Traditional and Contemporary
Approaches to the Mastery of Spirits and Healing. Oxford: Berghahn
Books.
———. 2003. “Researcher or Searcher: Studying Shamanic Behaviour in the
New Millenium,” Shaman, 11(2): 17–28.
———. 2006. “Power of Spirits: Spirituality in Denmark,” Shaman, 14(2):
9–17.
Lewis, I. M. 2004. Ecstatic Religion: A Study of Shamanism and Spirit Possession.
London and New York: Routledge.
Mead, Margaret. 1970. Culture and Commitment. London: Natural History
Press
Nietzsche, F. 1983. “On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life,”
Untimely Meditations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Shirokogoroff, S. M. 1982; 1935. Psychomental Complex of the Tungus. London:
Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co.
 4
Shared Facilities: The Fabric of Shamanism,
Spiritualism, and Therapy in a Nordic Setting

Anne Kalvig

In the fall of 2013, a spiritualist Medium Congress was held in Norway.

The aim was to assemble the business sector of mediums and clairvoy-
ants in order to achieve mutual understanding of the present situation
and discuss a vision for the future.1 In addition to numerous mediums,
both Norwegian and foreign, who attended as speakers, the chief physi-
cian of the Norwegian alternative spirituality scene, Audun Myskja, gave
a speech on the “Dying Process.” Additionally, the Swede Lars Magnar
Enoksen was invited to address the congress. A resident of Norway and a
master of the Old Norse fighting tradition of Glima, 2 as well as a chanter
of Old Norse runic songs known as galdr, he was introduced by the con-
gress chairperson in the following way: “Today a lot of people turn to
the Sami shaman tradition, acknowledging the Sami people’s spiritual
knowledge and guidance. They thus forget that we have our own Viking
tradition to explore and utilize.” Given this rather ethnocentric fram-
ing, Enoksen’s task in the congress was to teach the mediums the secret
lore of runic galdr, that is, the chanting of magical words following the
metrics of the Old Norse Edda. He did this in a leather Viking suit,
his long hair flowing and his voice resounding in the conference room,
with all the attendees trying to howl the galdrs in a manner similar to
Enoksen’s. Galdr-chanting mediums illustrate the “shared facilities” of
contemporary, Nordic spirituality. Here shamanism, spiritualism, and
therapy comprise a fermenting blend that appeals to far more people than
those attending a specialized business meeting.
Nordic shamanism is often delineated as the invention and/or
revival of Sami religious traditions, with the noaidi understood as a
68 Anne Kalvig

core representative of a form of shamanism conceived of as perennial.

However, shamanism as an element of Nordic paganism, understood as
the invention and/or revival of the non-Sami traditions of the Vikings,
can also be included in the concept “Nordic Shamanism.” The “tension”
between Sami and Viking shamanism constitutes a fertile ground for
contemporary religious creativity and production. Implicit in much writ-
ing on shamanism is the understanding that neoshamanisms may have
much or little reference to the practices of icons like Carlos Castaneda
and Michael Harner. Additionally, an interesting development we may
note is the intersection of spiritualism and neoshamanism, both in
Nordic settings and elsewhere. Practitioners who primarily identify as
alternative therapists also make use of neoshamanism in various ways,
adding to the multicolored fabric of contemporary spirituality with a
shamanistic twist. In this chapter I will analyze the “shared facilities”
represented by people employing and creating spiritual reservoirs marked
by neoshamanism(s), spiritualism, and mediumship-based activities, and
alternative therapies. I ask how the fabric of shamanism, spiritualism, and
therapy unfolds within the contemporary spirituality scene in Norway
(and Nordic countries more generally), with a primary focus on insights
into its production and consumption as a mediatized, religious/spiritual
practice. The notions of “facilities” and “fabric” are meant to highlight
contemporary spirituality as something taking place and evolving within
spaces and areas that can be perceived as both concrete and abstract/
virtual. When spirituality is likened to connotations and metaphorical
meanings of facility and fabric, both its dynamic and more static aspects
come to mind, while a constructionist, human creativity notion forms
the basis for my analysis and understanding. What tales and exegeses
are offered, and by whom, when the production and consumption of
neoshamanism is mediated and remediated to wider audiences? How are
ethnic issues pertaining to neoshamanism dealt with? This approach is
informed by writings on the discursive study of religion (especially von
Stuckrad 2013) and on medialization and mediatization theory in rela-
tion to religion (Lundby 2009, Hjarvard 2008, 2013). Following Stäheli
(2000: 73, cited in von Stuckrad 2013: 15), I define discourse analysis
as addressing the relationship among communication practices and the
(re)production of systems of meaning, or orders of knowledge, the social
agents that are involved, and the rules, resources, and material conditions
underlying these processes, as well as their impact on social collectives.
Mediatization theory, which presents religion and religious expressions
as not only mediated by various, modern channels of communication
but also transformed by these processes of communication/mediation,
means that part of the focus will be on how neoshamanisms and adjacent
practices are communicated in various media, and how this affects what
 Shared Facilities 69

is being thought, said, and done among the practitioners in this field of
“shared facilities.”
My material consists of field reports, meetings, and interviews with
various practitioners, and textual sources, both printed and online, gath-
ered from 2006 and onward. I have been conducting research in the fields
of contemporary spirituality and alternative therapy during this period
covering various thematic issues within the scope of Western culture,
whereas ethnographic field work has been carried out mainly in Norway,
but also Britain (Kalvig 2011). In what follows, I examine in more detail
the aspects that appear central and illuminative for the main hypothesis
of neoshamanism(s) that appear as warps in a sociocultural fabric woven
by people drawing their threads from various places, traditions, and situ-
ations, where spiritualism and therapy merit special mention, and where
the perceived ethnicities of neoshamanism surface and color the fabric in
various ways. 3

Studying and Categorizing Shamanism,

Spiritualism, and Therapy
The academic literature on neoshamanism is to a notable degree writ-
ten by people sympathetic toward it, and/or involved in it or in adja-
cent practices (see, for example, Blain 2002, Wallis 2003, Tedloch 2005,
Foltz 2006, Tramacchi 2006, Greenwood 2005, 2009, Sanson 2009. See
also Davidsen 2012). Although this situation is sometimes likened to
that of gender or queer studies, the message it gives is that neoshaman-
ism (and paganism) is something different from other religious or spiri-
tual practices, as a detached, “neutral” position is generally encouraged
within most academic traditions gathered under the umbrella of reli-
gious studies—as opposed to, for example, theology. The challenges of
participant fieldwork, of insider-outsider problematics, and of studying
religious-spiritual traditions with few or no sacred texts, are well known
within the study of contemporary spirituality, and give clues to under-
standing some of the professional drives of the neoshamanistic academic.
However, a different situation appears when considering ethnographic
work on contemporary spiritualism and mediumship, where less research
has been conducted, and with an imperceptible portion of academics
“going native.” The former practice obviously has a personal appeal to
several academics, but the latter not. The reasons for this point to the
subject matter of this chapter, namely, the discourse of neo spiritual-
ity, and thus the different positions of different spiritual practices within
a sociocultural hegemony, of which academia is also a part. Whereas
mediumship generally scores low, “plastic neoshamanism” (the so-called
70 Anne Kalvig

New Age-diluted variant) ranges perhaps a little higher. And indigenous,

tribal and/or “dedicated” neoshamanism clearly has a higher ascribed
status. Studies of the intersections of shamanism and mediumship thus
might be affected by the relatively low position of New Age bricoleurs
and entrepreneurs, who are viewed as shallow shoppers and merchants in
a market, as opposed to (the perception of) the more spiritually respon-
sible paganists identifying with collective needs and the urges of environ-
mentalists bent upon reviving pre-Christian traditions.
In Norway as in other Western countries, both neoshamanism4 and
spiritualism are in vogue as forms of contemporary spirituality. To begin
with, one might expect these two categories of spirituality to be fairly
distinct, even if one acknowledges that many people pick and mix con-
cepts and practices freely—for example, from both the above-mentioned
and various other traditions, in what has been labeled a “New Age buf-
fet” or “smorgasbord” kind of spirituality. However, more than neosha-
manism and spiritualism being possible preferences within one and the
same spiritual seeker, my claim is that we witness a certain conflating of
neoshamanism with spiritualism (and the other way round). This should
perhaps not be too surprising, as both forms or traditions, variegated
and categorically diffuse as they might be, center around a practitioner
communicating with spirits, with the aim of bringing therapeutic relief
and/or spiritual insight or enlightenment to the practitioner him/herself,
a client, or a community. Still, talking to the dead and spirits “on the
other side” and talking to the spirits of the ancestors, of power animals,
or spirits of the underworld, has traditionally been conducted with dif-
ferent conceptual, sociocultural and historical references in spiritist and
neoshamanistic settings. One tendency, from both academic and popular
perspectives, has been to relate neoshamanism to ancient, indigenous tra-
ditions, threatened or suppressed by colonial forces. Spiritualism, on the
other hand, has been related to nineteenth-century pioneers like Andrew
Jackson Davies, the Fox sisters, Robert Owen, Emma Hardinge Britten,
and Allan Kardec (spiritism), or perhaps the older Swedenborgianism,
Mesmerism, or likened to the very “foundation of religion” as being com-
munication with spirits, and thus the roots and history of spiritualism
as well. Both spiritualism and shamanism, then, are often understood
as “original” or “core elements” of religion or spirituality. More often,
however, popular spiritualism is not being legitimized by historical,
ethnical, or postcolonial claims, but simply by experience and belief. 5
In “classic” spiritualism as well as contemporary spiritualism, women
dominate, both as practitioners and as clients/sitters/audiences. But this
trait has not given rise to a particular “self-identity” of spiritualism as a
feminist or womanist movement, although to some extent it was thought
of in such terms in its heydays of the nineteenth and the early twentieth
 Shared Facilities 71

century (Braude 1989, Owen 1989, Mehren 2011, Kalvig 2012a). The
gender issue with respect to shamanism is even more complex, as tradi-
tional or historical shamanism is known to involve “gender bending,” a
“third” gender, and the like, whereas contemporary investigations into
the gendered notions and practices of both shamanism and neoshaman-
ism must deal with the highly variegated forms and impact areas of these
phenomena and practices where gender comes into play. Very generally
speaking, however, (neo) shamanism seems to involve male participants
to a larger degree than does spiritualism, and the less feminized percep-
tion of (neo) shamanism among the public, may explain some of the fluc-
tuations in the field of spiritualism and shamanism.6
Additionally, the therapeutic side of both shamanistic practices and
spiritist practices must be kept in mind when studying these phenom-
ena and the discourses (both emic and etic) of which they are part, as
this further blurs or complicates the categories of worthy/unworthy reli-
gion or spirituality in more traditional senses. The therapeutic side of
contemporary spirituality is a large field of study within the history of
religions, but it is often subsumed under other aspects of New Age or
alternative spirituality.7 Reasons for this may be seen in traditional defi-
nitions of our study object, religion, which is perceived as something less
immanent, material, bodily, and relational than is the case, resulting in a
perception of that what people do with their bodies and sense with and
in their bodies may be less religiously and scholarly relevant. However,
contributions have been made here concerning contemporary spiritual-
ity, and anthropological works have also traditionally had an interest in
the embodiment of religion, upon which ethnographic studies within the
history of religion heavily rely. In what follows, the therapeutic and/or
bodily aspects of contemporary spirituality are included by employing a
certain definition of religion that intends to cover also sensuous aspects,
and including material on religion/spirituality that may have as its start-
ing point healing practices without explicit, religious ambitions. Religion
is thus in this chapter defined as “experiences, concepts and practices, in
various combinations, referring to a spiritual dimension of relevance for
men and their relation to all other things existing.”

Traits of Nordic Spiritist-Shamanism

Norway’s primary celebrity medium, Gro-Helen Tørum, launched an
autobiography in 2012 entitled Shaman in High Heels, thus illustrating
the conflation of the fields of spiritualism and shamanism. Tørum has
gained her fame from appearing on the highly popular Norwegian televi-
sion series, The Power of the Spirits, a house cleansing/exorcist kind of
72 Anne Kalvig

reality show, in which she costars with three other mediums. This series
began in 2006, and as of 2014 it is still the producing television channel’s
(TVNorge) flagship program, with approximately half a million viewers
each week (in a country of five million inhabitants). The Power of the
Spirits sparked Tørum’s national fame, but she initially entered television
as cohost of an alternative spirituality talk show called The Other Side in
2009. Additionally, she had her own mediumship series called From Soul
to Soul (2010–2011), a tear-jerking show in which people were put into
contact with their beloved dead through Tørum, and filmed during the
séance. In her autobiography, she claims to be first and foremost a shaman,
in addition to being a medium, a light worker, and a “dancer between
the dimensions.” Her shamanic identity is related to North and South
American shamanism, though, not Sami shamanism: “(T)he Inca culture
is the closest shaman identity I know [sic.]. While my Atlantic conscious-
ness is water, my Inca-shamanic consciousness is earth” (Tørum 2012:
195). According to Tørum, she was trained by a female, Norway-based
neoshaman between 2005 and 2007. In addition to this earthly master,
she has a spiritual, non-earthly guide called Metatron. He is described
as Tørum herself, in another dimension, as her contact with her own
divinity (11). The North American Indian references to Tørum’s version
of shamanism come from dreams and signs urging her to take the name
“Black Eagle Medicine Woman,” which was partly channeled through a
dreamcatcher she received as a gift from her closest girlfriends.
The intersections between spiritualism, mediumship, neoshamanism,
and also Sami neoshamanism in a mediatized setting were initially obvi-
ous in an episode of The Other Side in 2009. In this program, Tørum
described her abilities to uncover and neutralize black magic as a sha-
man. The same skills were demonstrated by the Sami neoshaman/noaidi
Eirik Myrhaug, who appeared as a guest on the program. Using his drum,
he released one of the talk show hosts from an alleged gand from which
she claimed to be suffering—gand being a Sami word that is also used
in Norwegian to describe an evil spell or curse.8 However, what Tørum
and other participants on the program discussed as gand or black magic,
Myrhaug instead identified as a “darkness” stemming from the self-
proclaimed cursed host’s experiences as a little child while under house
arrest with her family in Teheran, Iran (that is, in real life, rather than
as a former life experience) (Kalvig 2009: 51–54). The skills of the Sami
noaidi (and healer, as he notably refers to himself) impressed the host
panel of the program so much that they were all crying by the end of the
show. Although Tørum loudly proclaims her shaman identity, her sha-
manistic performances are less well known than her mediumistic practice
and her work as a life coach and lecturer. Actually, when she describes
her shamanistic work in more detail in her autobiography, “chakra
 Shared Facilities 73

balancing” seems to be the central “rite.” We never hear of drums or

chanting, but one client story in the book is retold, of a more “typical”
guided journey of the soul, with a jaguar as the accompanying power
animal (Tørum 2012: 127–130).
Quite the opposite seems to be the case with another shaman medium,
Lilli Bendriss, who is more easily recognized as practicing what is thought
of as shamanism. Bendriss is one of Tørum’s most famous costars on
The Power of the Spirits. Unlike Tørum, she is more reluctant to pro-
mote herself as a shaman, preferring to talk about “employing shaman-
istic techniques.” She reveals in an interview that she was “opened” as
a medium by an old shaman called Wounded Eagle, who is with her all
the time. “When I teach [shamanic] courses, I stand on the floor with the
drum and feel the energy start flowing. And then the shaman enters my
system. I shiver, my heart beats, I feel my throat is squeezed, and then I
start singing. But it’s not Lilli singing. It’s a Native Indian song, and the
voice is fierce.” Beating the drum, she becomes an instrument for the
old shaman’s consciousness, Bendriss explains.9 Bendriss is accordingly
described in the following way in Tørum’s autobiography (Tørum 2012:
195): “When Lilli Bendriss . . . bangs her shaman drum and chants and
cries from the depth of her soul, I’m fiercely affected. Lilli, the elegant,
west-end lady, possesses a tremendous power. She breathes herself into a
trance and surrenders herself completely to the primitive force.” Bendriss
says: “It is as if the sound of the drum activates cellular memories of a
past life as a Native American” (Tørum 2012: 196). Bendriss laments
that Tørum does not dare to join her drum courses, called “The Primitive
Force” (ibid.). Comparing the two prominent shaman mediums, then,
we learn that the person who is most “apparently” a shaman, Bendriss,
legitimates her shamanism by referring to soul/spirit possession; it is the
old Native American, not herself, who “is” this tremendous force. In
contrast, Tørum, more vague in her performance as a shaman, is defi-
nitely the shaman herself in her self-representations—and has been so,
throughout distant past lives as well.

Discourses of the Culturally and Geographically

Imminent or Distant Spiritual Resources
Both “The Primitive Force” course and another one called “Dream
Journey” are promoted on Bendriss’ homepage with photos of herself
with a shaman’s drum.10 Following the presentation of “The Primitive
Force” course are seven YouTube video clips. Of these, five have North
American Indian content or references, one displays South American
Native Indian content, and one has mixed content, with “The Universal
74 Anne Kalvig

Mother” revealed as the “answer” toward the end of the clip. No Sami
shaman or Sami pagan identification or references are given in either
Tørum’s or Bendriss’ tales of their shamanic journeys as mediums.
The reason for the mediumistic “reluctance” toward a shamanism that
is geographically more imminent as a possible tradition of identification
and inspiration in Norway (the Sami tradition) is probably exactly this—
imminence. In Norway, Norwegians can meet Sami people in various
arenas, secular, Christian/pietistic, or New Age/pagan. Native Indian
people, on the other hand, can probably be met at spiritual conferences,
journeys, and meetings dealing with shamanism, paganism, or the New
Age, in Norway or abroad. This kind of meeting will then probably take
place within frames of mutual spiritual understanding and interest: if
a spiritual seeker and student of shamanism in Norway ever met a per-
son of Native Indian heritage, he or she would likely be someone who
had already entered a spiritual (New Age) discourse in which commu-
nal interests and values may be found.11 When, for example, Norwegian
spiritual tour operator John Gursli offers tours to Arizona, Bolivia, and
Peru through his bureau Total Helse AS, meetings with and initiations by
shamans are thus provided. Although meetings with “locals” might also
be included, they would not be promoted as “spiritual highlights” of the
journey.12 In striking contrast, when in 2011 Gursli arranged a spiritual
tour in Norway (The Great Journey through Norway) from Oslo, end-
ing in the North of Norway, no Sami encounters were included—only
“energy work” at specific places of Sami heritage and other traditional
significance.13 Notably, Gursli’s tours generally deal with the participants’
own “energy work” in specific, spiritually outstanding places worldwide,
but we note here what could be the same “reluctance” toward “utilizing”
the neighboring spirituality of different ethnicities, as demonstrated by
Tørum and Bendriss.
This apparent reluctance—which might also be called respect—
toward the Sami tradition by Norwegians on the alternative spiritual-
ity scene could further be explained as an anticipated attitude toward
what appears to be less exotic: exploring and utilizing what is thought
to be Native American shamanistic traditions and techniques does not
affect one’s daily obligations in a political or social way concerning issues
of indigenous people and indigenous rights. In the Sami case, the situ-
ation is obviously different: in Norway, one does not just don a Sami
suit and claim heritage to Sami spiritual ancestors unless one actually
has such a lineage. Some leather garment and feathers understood as
North American Native Indian cultural markers seem legitimate (refer
to Bendriss’ homepage, for instance), but South American Native Indian
references are far less commonly utilized by ethnic Norwegian spiritual
actors. This might be due to the fact that North American Native Indian
 Shared Facilities 75

culture is to a much larger extent part of our medialized “cultural reser-

voir,” or part of a “universal” ideational reservoir, with the United States
being a dominant producer of popular culture (including images of the
Native American). Also, quite a few Norwegians still have family bonds
with the States, due to the great emigration of the nineteenth century,
which provided a cultural imminence toward the North of America that
is not the case for the South of the continent. The “white” perception of
the United States in a Norwegian setting, as well as linguistic accessibil-
ity, is also not the case for the South American continent.

Nordic Paganism and Varieties of Shamanism

Wallis (2003: 33) notes the somewhat paradoxical situation in which
paganism has become the popular generic term for different traditions
like Wicca, Druidism, and Goddess spirituality—all are considered as
employing neoshamanic techniques—whereas paganism is originally
associated with classical antiquity. This unsettled conceptual situation
also accounts for research like Galina Lindquist’s (1997), which docu-
ments and analyzes what could well be labeled modern Àsatru (Nordic
heathenry/paganism) as neoshamanism, in accordance with notable (emic)
voices within the field in question, such as the Swede Jörgen I. Eriksson
(2012). Eriksson also categorizes the healers and wise people of Nordic
and other traditions as shamans, and states: “I do not adhere to the old
Aesir faith [Nordic heathenry, the religion of the Vikings] but I have
meticulously researched the shamanic elements inherent in the spiritual
views of that time” (2012: 12). Jenny Blain (2002), anthropologist and
neoshaman, also asserts that the shamanic element of the Norse tradition
was “at the heart of pagan religions of Northern Europe,” although she
holds that the “Norse culture of 1,000 years ago was not obviously ‘sha-
manic’ in the sense in which Tungus or Sámi or Déné culture is said to be
or have been shamanic” (2002: 47). Blain finds that the Norse material
on seid, the name of the shamanistic-like practice of the seeress, or volva,
and seidmenn (sorcerers), becomes particularly interesting because it is
not supported by the entire community (49). Rune magic (Eriksson) and
the practice of seid or spá (divination) (Blain) are central in the construc-
tion of Norse-identified neoshamanism, in addition to relating to the
mythological universe of the Viking sagas.
The utilizations and understandings of the shamanic elements of the
Norse tradition (and other pagan traditions) are highly variegated and
expressed through diverse media. Anette Høst, a leading urban shaman
in Copenhagen, Denmark, focuses particularly on the Norse tradition,
with seidr, galdr, and runic song as her specialty, but her intention is not
76 Anne Kalvig

to revive Viking tradition, as she states on her website that “Tradition is

about keeping the fire alive, not worshiping the ashes.”14 At the core of
Høst’s shamanic understanding lies the knowledge that “Without spirits,
no shaman.” This saying points to what has been shown as the close
connections between the mediumship of spiritualism and shamanism.
The Sami Ailo Gaup provides, like Høst and Eriksson, courses in and
texts on (neo-) shamanism.15 All of these Scandinavian representatives
of neoshamanism, have been students of Harner—author of The Way
of the Shaman (1980), several other books and texts on shamanism, and
founder of the Foundation for Shamanic Studies in California. This center
focuses not on academic studies, but on training programs for promot-
ing neoshamanism to the late-modern citizen, understood as a perennial
“core shamanism.”16 In 2013, in his 84th year, Harner published a book
called Cave and Cosmos. In this book, he approaches the spirit world
in great detail and gives numerous accounts of who the spirits are and
how they communicate, providing ample cases from his own fieldwork
between 1952 and 2009. He describes spirit possession in which various
people, including himself, are able to speak in foreign languages of which
they have no previous knowledge (2013: 23–30). Harner also refers to
the natural scientist Alfred Russell Wallace and his 1874 book, Miracles
and Modern Spiritualism, as providing a historical context for the ongo-
ing gulf between science and spirit (198). Harner laments that Wallace’s
book had a hostile reception, and holds that Wallace, through the scien-
tific principle of parsimony, offers an explanation for parapsychological
phenomena like Near Death Experiences (NDE) and spirit possession
that otherwise remain unexplained (199). Harner finds that the hypoth-
esis of the spirit world is supported by shamans worldwide, throughout
the millennia.
Jörgen I. Eriksson considers the Harner turn toward a more person-
alized spirit conception and focus somewhat disturbing, stating that it
reminds him of Rudolf Steiner spiritualism. Core shamanism is to him
disappointingly smug and with insufficient regard and reverence for
Mother Earth, the living creatures, and the richness of various indig-
enous traditions. Eriksson dismisses his critical review as some kind of
a patricide, but he clearly illuminates a development within the field of
neoshamanism that corresponds with a theme addressed in this chap-
ter, namely, the conflating of and attention to the fields of neoshaman-
ism and spiritualism, both within the empirical field and academia. Lars
Magnar Enoksen, the galdr-howling “Viking” of the Medium Congress
mentioned in the beginning of this chapter, holds that the maintenance
and the mastering of the combat sport glima is a bodily practice with a
deep, spiritual meaning, although a revival of Viking religion per se is
futile.17 Enoksen was taught the glima in Iceland in the 1980s by men
then in their eighties and nineties. For them, the glima was a spiritual,
 Shared Facilities 77

pagan practice, but since 1916, Icelandic authorities have held that
glima should be considered a modern marital art. Icelanders born after
the 1920s were less inclined to regard glima as spiritual practice, but
Enoksen has reintroduced this aspect of the sport (2004, 2012). Being
of both Sami and Nordic descent, Enoksen is certain that shamanism
is not a part of the Norse tradition. He says that “it is not found in the
textual sources,” which he knows as an expert on Old Norse and runic
writing (1998, 2000, 2003, 2004), in addition to being a writer on Norse
religion. A former punk musician, he now participates in galdr howling
on tours with the Viking pagan music group Wardruna, who use music as
a way of “spiritual travelling,” as Enoksen explains. Generally, he holds
that many pagans employ and teach rituals too soon, resulting in people
actually conducting inconvenient rituals. He further dismisses core sha-
manism as a “cozy,” undemanding variant of spirituality.

Individual and Organizational Maneuvering between

Sami and Native American Shamanism
Jorunn, a practitioner in the Western Norwegian alternative therapy
scene, illustrates the apparent imminence of the Native American sha-
man and the distance of the Sami shaman for some ethnic Norwegians,
without referring either to Harnerian core shamanism or to the Viking/
Norse tradition. A coach, healer, and shaman, in addition to being a
medium, she is married to a Sami man who is also an alternative spir-
itual therapist. In most public appearances he dresses in Sami clothes
that clearly signal his Sami identity. From the married couple’s web page,
we learn that he gained his skills in “energy balancing” from his Sami
shaman heritage, as well as his innate Sami “connection with nature.”
Jorunn, on the other hand, is an ethnic Norwegian raised in a west coast
village with clear home mission dominance. Delving into Christianity for
some time, she gradually turned to shamanistically oriented alternative
spiritualities after significant experiences in nature and with communi-
cations with the dead:

I used to be so much alone in nature, communicating with the plants and ani-
mals, these experiences were very strong. Once, sleeping outside in a snow
storm, a raven came and sat down at my head, this trigged a lot of things. I’ve
always been drawn towards the graveyards, sleeping in the graveyards always
caused things to happen. (Kalvig 2012b: 55)

This narrative can be compared with Jorunn’s story from childhood,

when as a clairvoyant she “saw” the location of her drowned uncle
in the sea, a memory awakened in a later past life regression in India
(54). These narratives may be said to have both a mediumistic and a
78 Anne Kalvig

shamanistic character, but the shamanic identity became clearest when

she started exploring this “way” as an adult: She was then “possessed”
by a Native Indian spirit, causing her to speak a language unknown to
her, but which was said to be a Native Indian idiom by people who heard
her. It was a demanding task to learn how to control this spiritual force,
but Jorunn eventually managed to let herself go into shamanistic trance
journeying without becoming uncontrollably possessed or exhausted. In
a passing remark Jorunn says she had been practicing as a shaman for
ten years, before ever reading about it and learning the term “shaman-
ism.” Employing a whole range of spiritual and therapeutic techniques
today, Jorunn calls her shamanistic work “shamanistic healing.” She and
her husband offer courses in “Soul Fetching” as well as “Shamanistic
Education”—both of which are further described as “alchemistic prac-
tices” (neither Sami nor Native American). In Jorunn’s own reflections
on shamanism, she clearly relates her practice to Native Indian shaman-
ism, not Sami shamanism, although she obviously is familiar with the
latter through her Sami husband. He, on the other hand, stresses on their
web pages his mastery of various Eastern therapeutic techniques, such as
reiki, just as much as his Sami shamanist heritage. The couple’s activi-
ties succinctly represent the multicolored fabric of contemporary neosha-
manism, informed by a broad range of impulses, identities, experiences,
and education.
Another therapist, healer, and clairvoyant representing the folk heal-
ing tradition of Norway, Bergit Loen Hatlenes, shows a more atypical
ethnic Norwegian embracing of Sami shamanic and healing traditions.
In her biography, Bergit: Healing Hands (Strøm 2013), Bergit, now in her
eighties, describes her meeting with the Sami shaman and healer Mikkel
Gaup in 1975 as a turning point in her life:

I remember when shaking his hands, I felt a tremendous power. He had an

extraordinary energy field surrounding him. I had no doubt that he was a sha-
man, psychic and healer. When we had met, he embraced my shoulders and
said: “Use your forces carefully!” (Strøm 2013: 99)

After this meeting, the “Selje-woman,” as she is called, and “Miracle-

Mikkel,” which was his nickname (“Healing Fox” was his international
nickname),18 collaborated for the rest of his life: he and his wife Brita
visited Bergit and her husband, Anders, in the small village of Selje on the
west coast, and they frequently visited the Sami couple in Finnmark. He
taught her the tradition of Sami shamanism and healing, and gave Loen
Hatlenes the confidence to develop her own natural healing abilities. In
Bergit’s account of her relationship with Miracle-Mikkel, their mutual
 Shared Facilities 79

understanding of the kinship between Sami and Native American culture

is a recurring theme:

We sat around the open fire at night, and Mikkel recounted the stories of his
ancestors, of shamanism, of holy stones and of how nature teams up with us
humans. He held that the Sami culture had a strong kinship with the North
American Native culture. . . . He in a way pursued everything that had been
important to me as a child. . . . Especially, we shared the sympathy for and fasci-
nation of the Native Americans. I had known this fascination ever since I was a
little child, when we at home spoke of my uncles who had migrated to America.
(Strøm 2013: 100–102)

Loen Hatlenes represents non-Sami folk healing in Norway, but unlike

many such healers (especially in geographic areas where Sami culture is
not traditionally found), she openly embraces and identifies with the Sami
tradition. Such an embracing is more common in neoshamanic environ-
ments where Harnerian core shamanism is central, although there is still a
notable reluctance toward “illegitimate” Sami posing in which one cannot
display Sami descent, as previously discussed.19 Among people advanced
in age, operating on the fringes of the neospiritual and alternative trends
of culture and following a folk healing tradition that is older than the
contemporary resacralization of culture, ethnicity has also been a divisive
issue. 20 The most famous Norwegian folk healer, Joralf Gjerstad, now
nearly 90 years old, lives in what is one of the southernmost Sami com-
munities of Norway, Snåsa/Snåase, and is known as the “Snåsa-man.”
In numerous publications about him and his healing practice, including
several biographies and autobiographies, he alludes very little to Sami
shamanistic and healing traditions in accordance with Christian tradition
both within Sami and Norwegian culture. In the most popular biogra-
phy on him (Kolloen 2008), he refers to a meeting with an old German
fortune-teller as a turning point (when serving his conscription in 1947 in
the German Brigade), and also his memories as a young man on a journey
in the mountains with the old Norwegian folk healer “Great Sofie.” He
was told of his future good fortune as a famous healer by both of these
women. The only—and probably unintended—reference to Sami tradi-
tion, imminent though it was and is in Snåsa, is in the following passage:

This late summer night in 1948 Great Sofie told me what my life would be
like . . . she described it as it has become, now sixty years later. She said the
same as did the woman in Germany the year before, and more. But there was
one crucial difference: There, by the Finnkjerringfjellet [“The Mountain of
the Sami Crone”] I couldn’t escape, as I did in the German market. (Kolloen
2008: 58)
80 Anne Kalvig

The narratives of Loen Hatlenes and Gjerstad are thus quite different
when it comes to Sami shamanism and healing practices, and also when
it comes to the wider field of alternativity in culture. Loen Hatlenes dem-
onstrates a sympathetic attitude, and in recent years confirmed to the
medium Bendriss that she has channeled messages from Miracle-Mikkel
to her. The Christian and religiously active Gjerstad, on the other hand,
is bent on proving his healing abilities to be both God-sent and scien-
tifically explicable, and states on the cover of his blockbuster biogra-
phy: “Call me whatever you like, but not a [New Age] healer. A fellow
man is what I try to be.”21 Loen Hatlenes, on the other hand, discred-
ited Gjerstad’s account in her biography. As an underlying theme, she
compares Gjerstad to Miracle-Mikkel (and her own tradition), and the
Christian, ethnic Norwegian male healer is clearly overshadowed and
surpassed by the memory and tradition of the Sami shaman’s aligning
himself (and Loen Hatlenes) with Native Americans.
Yet another warp in the fabric of Nordic neoshamanism is pro-
vided by the Norwegian Shamanistic Association (SA), in which the
effort to synthesize various traditions held to be shamanistic has been
explicit. Here the claim is to represent a spiritual practice that goes back
30,000 years, and that “what binds all the different faces of shaman-
ism is the belief that everything is animated and that all creatures of
Mother Earth are kindred creatures.”22 SA was approved by Norwegian
authorities in 2012 as a belief community with the right to offer rites
of passage. Board member of SA Lone Ebeltoft stresses both the Sami
and the Norse tradition as the group’s heritage: “Shamanism is a world
religion where we here up north are bent on preserving the Sami and
Norse (artic) tradition,” she tells the northern Norwegian newspaper
Nordlys (Tårnesvik 2012). 23 Actually, on their web pages, one sees that
Norse elements are absent, whereas Native (North) American references
and resources are abundant, in addition to Sami ones. In the interview
in Nordlys, Ebeltoft also says the shamanistic practitioner is mostly con-
cerned with conserving and continuing a tradition almost forgotten by
modern man. The reporter describes her in a “pagan” context as serv-
ing homemade chaga (bracket fungus) tea and crafting her own woolen
clothing collection, adorned with “Arctic” symbols. In the Norwegian
alternative magazine Magic Magazine (Halling 2013), Ebeltoft is por-
trayed once again in several photos displaying natural, Northern sur-
roundings, including one in which she hugs a wolf in the “Polarzoo.”
The main photo shows Ebeltoft holding a drum and dressed in her color-
ful, handcrafted clothes, with a caption talking about shared facilities:
“Lone is a great representative of Norse and Sami tradition, here dressed
in her self-made elf-dress with shaman motifs.” Ebeltoft says nature is
holy and that she feels a strong affinity with animals. Even though she
 Shared Facilities 81

has a leading position the congregation, she does not refer to herself
as a shaman. Being a shaman is more like a profession—to be likened
to the difference between a Christian and a Christian priest. “If you
tread the natural religious, shamanistic path, you’re not automatically
a shaman,” Ebeltoft holds (Halling 2013: 17). At present, what it means
to be a shaman, and what it means to build a shamanic organization,
is debated on the SA’s open Facebook page. The Norse preferences of
some of the members are more clearly displayed here, and Sami identi-
fication by non-Sami people is criticized by a few. The use of magic and
spells, like gand, is commented and frowned upon. The lively debate
reflected in the Facebook version of SA is probably more representative
of the organization as such, as compared with the rather sparse infor-
mation on their web pages. The board even suggests taking down the
regular SA web pages, since “no one uses them,” as Ebeltoft comments
(there is a member forum at this site that has obviously been ousted
from Facebook’s facilities—a situation common in many groups and
organizations). 24
In the same magazine that presented Ebeltoft, a subsequent interview
portrays Sami Anneli Guttorm (Halling 2013b), known from her partici-
pation in the television series and competition The 6th Sense, on the same
channel that broadcasts The Power of the Spirits. Both these interviews
are presented under the heading “Shamanism in the North.” Guttorm
is also shown in natural surroundings in northern Norway, dressed in
Sami traditional festive clothes. “With her Sami, colorful outfit she looks
like a true shaman, but she doesn’t address herself so,” Halling writes
(2013b: 19), making a not-so-subtle equation between any traditionally
adorned Sami person and a shaman. Guttorm says she holds the ances-
tors and old traditions in too high esteem to call herself a shaman, pre-
ferring to talk about drum healing, clairvoyance, mediumship, and Bach
flower therapy. She employs the Sami song tradition of joik, though, and
says, “The power of the joik, the Sami culture, the use and understand-
ing of nature, is natural and important to me. It has its own ‘rhythm’
that makes me whole and enables me to pass this on to others and to help
them” (Halling 2013b: 19).
Whereas Guttorm, radiant in her Sami attire, refrains from being
called a shaman, another Sami woman, Astrid Ingebjørg Johnsen, calls
herself a shaman and is pictured in “ordinary” clothes when perform-
ing what she sees as a Sami shamanistic house cleansing, in an article
in the alternative magazine Medium. 25 However, when promoting her
Sami beauty salon, Sarahkkas Beauty, 26 she is beautifully seated in the
snow, with a drum and Sami festive clothes, actually offering “shamanic
healing” as a skin beauty product. With or without Sami descent, people
who adhere to neoshamanism and/or (folk) healing in Norway thus seem
82 Anne Kalvig

to employ a whole range of strategies concerning how to make their own

position(s) meaningful.

Conclusion: The Width of the

Neoshamanistic Fabric
The practices and strategies pertaining to neoshamanism are mediated
through various channels such as books, both emic and academic, manu-
als, and do-it-yourself literature, and biographies and autobiographies,
through interviews and reports in magazines, through television and
visual media, through various communications in online resources, such
as organizational websites, personal websites, and social media such as
Facebook. Additionally, there are “real-life” communications in rituals,
at gatherings, in therapeutic relations, and in alternative and pagan fairs.
I will conclude this chapter by pointing to what might be, for now, the
limits of this kind of communication, namely when neoshamanism is
mediated to children in a secular context, as in the Disney children’s
comic Donald Duck.
The character Donald Duck is well known as a global product of the
Disney Corporation. In recent years, Nordic cartoonists and scriptwrit-
ers have been allowed to put a regional stamp on the Donald stories, in
order to give readers more culturally relevant or familiar stories with
which to relate. 27 The present story, “A Coin for Two” (“Tiøring for
to”), is written and drawn by the Finn Kari Korhonen 28 and translated
into Norwegian. The issue is number 51/52 of 2013, that is, the popu-
lar Christmas issue of Donald Duck. The plot takes place in Finnish
Lapland, with Uncle Scrooge, Donald, and his nephews arriving by
plane, asserting that “everybody knows Santa Claus has moved from the
North Pole to Finnish Lapland.” The Duck family’s mission is to find out
why Scrooge’s enterprise Nisseland (“Santa-land”) is not making money.
It turns out that tourists are leaving in anger because the attractions of
Nisseland are outdated and overpriced. When Scrooge pulls out his lucky
charm coin to remind his family of his capitalist ethos, the reindeer in
the area react strongly. This is where the Sami shaman enters the story:
the Sami herders (depicted in Sami clothes) of the animals note that they
have seen this behavior from the reindeers only once before, and that
was when a shaman came to town to cast a spell. The story continues by
shifting to a cabin in the countryside, where the drum of the Sami sha-
man Elmeri comes to life, with a bone stick drumming, by itself, on the
Sami symbols of its drumhead. The reason is that, in the past, Elmeri has
placed a spell on the lucky charm. The shaman is thus awakened, and
shown lying in his bed fully dressed in Sami clothes, as well as with a
 Shared Facilities 83

wand. He is black bearded, but otherwise drawn like a duck, like Donald
and the rest. Summarizing the story, it turns out that Elmeri is a black
magician like the witch Magica de Spell, with whom he has a fight—the
story’s main dramatic event—over Scrooge’s lucky coin. Both Elmeri and
Magica are defeated by Santa Claus, who at the end of the story lectures
Elmeri: “Don’t you realize what happens to witches and wizards who
become obsessed with material goods? Remember that you have lived a
peaceful life until now; you don’t want to end up like Magica, do you?”
to which the remorseful Elmeri responds, “Absolutely not.”
Before judging this story as a mediation of a racist, Nordic majority
perception of Sami cultural and spiritual key figures, redeemed by a god-
like Santa Claus (“go, and sin no more”), we could ask if this story reflects
a new, cultural acknowledgment of diverse practices and traditions in the
Nordic countries. In the Donald Duck universe there is a reluctance to
deal with overt religious themes, but there is a wholehearted embracing
of magical and certain folk religious themes (predating the mediatiza-
tion thesis’ claim of the contemporary media’s love for banal religion—as
in the popular 1952 Disney movie and print version Trick or Treat, as
one example). Young readers in Nordic countries are given a dramatic
story about two figures with extraordinary powers, of which Elmeri is a
novelty, controlling animals (weasel and owl) and the weather with his
drum. One sympathizes with him, because it is actually his weakness for
ice cream that repeatedly gets him into trouble. Thus children will prob-
ably identify more with him, than with Scrooge’s blatant materialism or
Magica’s “continental” sorcery (she is a resident of Vesuvio, Napoli). A
theme integrated into this story is modern media as a way of achieving
magical results, possibly resonating with children’s reality: both Magica
and Elmeri use the Internet in their endeavors, and Donald manages to
alert Santa Claus by phoning him on his cellular phone.
As an unexpected and unprecedented mediation of Sami shamanism
in the Donald universe, this story is clearly part of the cultural reser-
voir of spiritual ideas and practices, and could well be many children’s
first encounter with Sami shamanism. As such, the story, under the wide
umbrella of Disney’s political and moral correctness, is somewhat grat-
ing, depending on how one judges the figure of Elmeri: he is a bad Sami
shaman, but perhaps that is better than no Sami shaman? If the figure
of the shaman or noaidi in the public gains a role as a prominent reli-
gious figure, it is unlikely that Donald Duck will include a story like this
again—just as priests, imams, or traditional believers are hardly repre-
sented in this comic. However, such a shaman role is unlikely, and a result
of the present weaving of Donald Duck into the fabric of neoshamanism
is that children are presented with a caricature of Sami spiritual practices
that will add to their knowledge of aspects of Nordic neoshamanism.
84 Anne Kalvig

This is similar to other examples of enchanted children and youth culture

in which something actually “takes place,” although not in circles we
traditionally think of as religiously or spiritually relevant. Gilhus (2013:
47) categorizes this kind of “mediatized New Age . . . as religion every-
where” (emphasis in original). Since Western culture is more prone to
identify and cherish “religion there” (following Smith’s spatial model of
religion, which refers to traditional, institutional religion [2003: 27–30]),
what is actually thought, said, and done by people in other places often
goes under the radar, as when Sami shamanism enters Donald Duck.
For the student and the consumer-producer of contemporary spirituality,
however, Elmeri is one of many figures residing at the fringes of the fabric
of Nordic neoshamanism. The fictional figure of Elmeri at one end and
the historical figure of Miracle-Mikkel at the other, in a succinct way
sum up the complex and ever-shifting relationship between the secular
and the sacred: religion everywhere does not wipe out the nonreligious
everywhere, but claims attention and space in ways rather new to late
modernity.

Notes
1. The annual congress was held for the second time in 2013, and is an initiative
from the Norwegian Spiritualist Union. On the congress (in Norwegian), see:
http://mediumkongressen.no/om-kongressen/. The author attended on the
September 13, 2013.
2. The Viking Glima Federation: http://www.viking-glima.com/.
3. When referring to textual sources and to people who are famous or on other
aspects impossible to anonymize, real names are used. Otherwise, interviews
with practitioners follow standards of anonymizing according to Norwegian,
public academic ethical standards: http://www.etikkom.no/Forskningsetikk/
Etiske-retningslinjer/Samfunnsvitenskap-jus-og-humaniora/. All translations
from Norwegian to English are mine.
4. In what follows, I do not distinguish between different types of shaman-
isms with regard to the followers’ alleged level of involvement, dedication,
or sociopolitical evaluation of the role of shamanistic practice, as opposed
to the aforementioned, possible hierarchical (both emic and etic) evalua-
tion. Variants of shamanistic engagement will be commented upon when rel-
evant, but not within an essentialist understanding of religion and religious
commitment.
5. This holds for the popular version of spiritualism that is the focus of this
chapter. For the more organized versions of (Norwegian) spiritualism, it is
more correct to refer to this as spiritualism (for example, The Norwegian
Spiritualist Union), and here the historical roots and predecessors are given
ample attention. However, French/Brazilian Kardecism is often denoted as
spiritualism as opposed to (British/American) spiritualism, pointing to the
 Shared Facilities 85

former’s focus on the reincarnation and evolution of the soul. As ideas

of reincarnation and spiritual evolvement have a common-sense status in
today’s occulture/resacralized culture, I prefer the notion of (popular) spiri-
tualism, but the conceptual situation of the study of this field is unsettled.
6. This is explored in more detail in Kalvig 2013.
7. Note, for example, that within a standard publication of close to 500 pages
like Brill’s Handbook of New Age from 2007, only one chapter of 20 pages
is dedicated to issues of holistic health and therapeutic practices (Tighe and
Butler 2007).
8. See Kalvig 2009 for a more detailed analysis of this show, the role of the
television channel as promoter of alternative spirituality, and a consideration
of the handling of the problem of evil in this program.
9. From an interview in the alternative magazine Magic Magasin, available
here: http://magic.no/magic-magasin/reportasjer/narkontakt-med-andever
denen?tlf=79000450.
10. http://www.lillibendriss.com/urkraft.html and http://www.lillibendriss.com
/dream-journey.html.
11. A few Latin American Native Indian Norwegian residents provide spiritual
products that could be put in the “Native Indian Spirituality/Paganism/
Shamanism” category (like the spiritual shop “Pachamama” in Oslo, run by
a Peruvian Indian), but I know of no North American equivalents.
12. See http://www.totalhelse.no/?page=26.
13. See http://www.totalhelse.no/?menu=67&page=81.
14. http://www.shamanism.dk/whoah.htm.
15. http://www.sjaman.com/.
16. Harner’s “core shamanism” promotes the idea that the central features of
shamanism from tribal people all over the world were and are the same, and
can be learned and practiced by following Harner’s courses and methods.
17. Personal communication, December 2013.
18. Confer also the memory of Miracle-Mikkel/Healing Fox on this site by
Sami (neo) shaman Ailo Gaup : http://www.sjaman.com/om-sjamanisme
/utfordringen-mainmenu-57/127-sjamansonen-ett-pett.html.
19. Bente Brunvoll, the Norwegian wife of Sami shaman Eirik Myrhaug, wears
a costume of semi-Sami traits in this photo from their web page—without
the traditional colors, it is not mistaken for a proper, Sami costume: http://
www.livstreet.com/default.asp?pageid=3695.
20. An example of a notable Norwegian-Sami bridge-builder from the past in
this field is the South Norwegian Ole Olsen Sangesand (1779–1858), who
established the present stock of reindeer in the mountains of Ryfylke, by
bringing the animals from Finnmark to this southern county, together with
Sami shepherds. He also stayed in Finnmark for periods of time. He was
taught Sami traditions, and was said to be able to shape shift into a bear and
snake, and to cast spells (gand). See Kalvig 2012b.
21. “Healer” is in Norwegian synonymous with New Age healer, whereas a
healer of folk tradition has been known by other names, like kloke, hand-
spåleggar, helbredar—meaning “wise people,” “layer of hands,” “healer.”
22. http://sjamanforbundet.no/blog/archives/53.
86 Anne Kalvig

23. http://www.nordlys.no/nyheter/article5970091.ece.
24. https://www.facebook.com/groups/291273094250547/?fref=ts.
The Nordic Pagan Union (Nordisk Paganistforbund) was disbanded in the
summer of 2013, 20 years after it was founded, due to lack of activity/adher-
ence (information from Geir Uldal, one of the central participants, personal
communication January 2014). With the loss of this eclectic/universal pagan
organization, shamanistic association will perhaps by some be understood
as an umbrella organization filling the void after The Nordic Pagan Union.
25. http://mediumforlag.no/article/2011/6/23/astrid-ingebjrg-johnsen-er
-sjaman-og-renser-hus-hrer-stemmer-som-hvisker/.
26. http://www.sarahkkasbeauty.com/v2/?project=test.
27. Local/national formulations of Donald Duck have been handled differently
in various regions. In 2008, the Nordic distributor of Disney cartoons, the
Danish media corporation Egmont, launched a Norwegian staff of new
cartoonists and scriptwriters, and the story starting it all off was a Viking
adventure called “The Raven of Odin” http://www.aftenposten.no/kultur
/article2759738.ece#.UvNdUfl5P7M. See also http://www.dn.no/d2/article
2529463.ece.
28. http://www.perunamaa.net/ankistit/korhonen.htm. The Finnish Donald
Duck—Aku Ankka—has the largest edition per capita in the world for a
Donald Duck magazine, with 320,000 copies weekly. http://en.wikipedia
.org/wiki/Aku_Ankka.

References
Blain, Jenny. 2002. Nine Worlds of Seid-Magic: Ecstasy and Neo-Shamanism in
North European Paganism. London: Routledge.
Braude, Ann. 1989. Radical Spirits: Spiritualism and Women’s Rights in
Nineteenth-Century America.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Davidsen, Markus Altena. 2012. “Review Essay: What Is Wrong with Pagan
Studies?” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 24: 183–199.
Enoksen, Lars Magnar. 1998. Runor. Historia, tydning, tolkning. Lund:
Historiska media.
———. 2000. Fornnordisk mytologi enligt Eddans lärdomsdikter. Lund:
Historiska media.
———. 2003. Vikingarnas egna ord. Lund: Historiska media.
———. 2004. Vikingarnas stridskonst. Lund: Historiska media.
———. 2012. The Secret Art of Glima: An Introduction to Viking Martial Arts.
Malmö:Scandinavian Heritage Publications.
Eriksson, Jörgen I. 2012. Rune Magic & Shamanism: Original Nordic Knowledge
from Mother Earth. Umeå: Norrshaman.
Fedele, Anna and Kim E. Knibbe. 2013. Gender and Power in Contemporary
Spirituality: Ethnographic Approaches. New York: Routledge.
 Shared Facilities 87

Gilhus, Ingvild S. 2013. “‘All over the place’: The Contribution of New Age to
a Spatial Model of Religion,” in Steven Sutcliffe and Ingvild S. Gilhus (eds.)
New Age Spirituality: Rethinking Religion. Durham: Acumen, 35–49.
Greenwood, Susan 2005. The Nature of Magic. An Anthropology of
Consciousness. Oxford: Berg.
———. 2009. The Anthropology of Magic. Oxford: Berg.
Halling, Kari Flaata. 2013a. “Sjamanisme har alltid ligget mitt hjerte nær.”
Magic Magasin no. 1: 16–18.
———. 2013b. “Jeg har stor respekt for mine forfedre og de gamle tradisjoner.”
Magic Magasin no. 1: 19–21.
Harner, Michael. 1980. The Way of the Shaman. San Francisco: Harper &
Row.
———. 2013. Cave and Cosmos. Shamanic Encounters with Another Reality.
Berkeley: North Atlantic Books.
Hjarvard, Stig. 2008. En verden af medier: medialiseringen af politik, sprog,
religion og leg. Fredriksberg: Samfundslitteratur.
———. 2013. The Mediatization of Culture and Society. Abingdon: Routledge.
Kalvig, Anne 2009. “TV Norge og Kanal FEM—den nye tids bodbringarar.”
Dïn—tidsskrift for religion og kultur 4: 45–63.
———. 2011. “Kornsirkler og spirituell turisme: Fra åker til internett.” Aura:
Tidskrift för akademiska studier av nyreligiositet 3: 33–70.
———. 2012a. “Seansar og minnet om dei døde.” Kirke og kultur 2: 128–141.
———. 2012b. “Alternativ folkemedisin? Om røter og nye skot på det søvest-
laqndske, holistiske helsefeltet.” Tidsskrift for kulturforskning 2: 45–62.
———. 2013. “Shamans on High Heels.” Alternative Spirituality and Religion
Review 2: 201–217.
Kolloen, Ingar Sletten. 2008. Snåsamannen. Kraften som helbreder. Oslo:
Gyldendal.
Lewis, James R. and Daren Kemp (eds.). 2007. Handbook of New Age: Brill
Handbooks on Contemporary Religion, Volume 1. Leiden: Brill.
Lindquist, Galina. 1997. Shamanic Performances on the Urban Scene: Neo-
shamanism in Contemporary Sweden. Stockholm Department of Social
Anthropology, Stockholm University.
Lundby, Knut (ed.). 2009. Mediatization: Concept, Changes, Consequences.
New York: Peter Lang.
Mehren, Tonje. 2011. “Engler mer enn en rapport fra jenterommet? Kvinner og
spiritisme i Norge.” Kirke og kultur 2: 114–130.
Noegel, Scott B., Joel T. Walker, and Brannon Wheeler (eds.). Prayer, Magic
and the Stars in the Ancient and Late Antique World. University Park:
Pennsylvania State University Press.
Owen, Alex. 1989. The Darkened Room: Women, Power, and Spiritualism in
Late Victorian England. London: Virago Press.
Pizza, Murphy and James R. Lewis (eds.). 2009. Handbook of Contemporary
Paganism. Leiden: Brill.
88 Anne Kalvig

Sanson, Dawne. 2009. “New/Old Spiritualities in the West: Neo-Shamans and

Neo-Shamanism,” in Murphy Pizza and James R. Lewis (eds.). Handbook of
Contemporary Paganism. Leiden: Brill, 433–462.
Smith, Jonathan Z. 2003. “Here, There, and Anywhere,” in Scott B. Noegel,
Joel T. Walker, and Brannon Wheeler (eds.). Prayer, Magic and the Stars in
the Ancient and Late Antique World. University Park: Pennsylvania State
University Press, 21–36.
Sointu, Eeva and Linda Woodhead. 2008. «Spirituality, Gender, and Expressive
Selfhood». Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 47 (2): 259–276.
Strøm, Anne-Karine. 2013. Bergit: Helbredende hender. Oslo: Orfeus
Publishing.
Stuckrad, Kocku von. 2013. “Discursive Study of Religion: Approaches,
Definitions, Implications.” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 25:
5–25.
Sutcliffe, Steven and Ingvild S. Gilhus (eds.). 2013. New Age Spirituality:
Rethinking Religion. Durham: Acumen.
Tårnesvik, Geir. 2012. “Nå er sjamanisme offentlig godkjent religion,” in
Nordlys, http://www.nordlys.no/nyheter/article5970091.ece.
Tedlock, Barbara. 2005. The Woman in the Shaman’s Body: Reclaiming the
Feminine in Religion and Medicine. New York: Bantam Books.
Tighe, Maria and Jenny Butler. 2007. “Holistic Health and New Age in Britain
and the Republic of Ireland,” in Lewis, James R. and Daren Kemp (eds.)
Handbook of New Age: Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion, Volume
1. Leiden: Brill, 415–434.
Tørum, Gro-Helen. 2012. Sjaman på høye hæler: Min reise i ukjent landskap.
Oslo: Cappelen Damm.
Tramacchi, Des. 2006. “Entheogens, Elves and Other Entities: Encountering the
Spirits of Shamanic Plants and Substances,” in Lynne Hume and Kathleen
McPhillips (eds.) Popular Spiritualities: The Politics of Contemporary
Enchantment. Aldershot: Ashgate, 91–104.
Wallis, Roy. 2003. Shamans/Neo-Shamans: Ecstasy, Alternative Archeologies,
and Contemporary Pagans. London: Routledge.
 5
Shamanism—A Spiritual Heritage?: The
Significance of the Past in Shamanic Discourses

Torunn Selberg

In Yakutia Today, under the headline “Shamanism—the Heritage of the

Past,” we are told,

Shamanism is one of the most ancient systems of philosophy. The history of

its existence extends back over many thousands years. Traditions, practices,
customs and laws of this oldest form of religion are different in every region.
The situation in Yakutia is unique: the latest technologies go side by side with
ancient ideas about the world. Here pagan traditions are respected even by
those who have lived all their life in a city.1

Yakutia is a region in Siberia, also known as Sahka, a region well known

for shamanistic culture. Despite widespread persecution during the
period of Soviet state atheism, shamanism is today undergoing a revival
in this region. 2
The above passage contains core notions connected to ideas and
discourses about shamanism in late modern society. Concepts like
“ancient,” “tradition,” “oldest form of religion” and so on are empha-
sized as qualities essential to “modern” shamanism. On the other hand,
it is said that shamanism lives side by side with the most modern tech-
nology. Although shamanism is described as something descended from
ancient times, it has something to offer humans who “have lived all
their life in a city.” An oft-repeated idea is that modernity and tech-
nology will wipe out traditional phenomena; tradition and modernity
have been considered opposites. In the above passage, shamanism is
described as something premodern that also has a place in late modern
society. Modern technology is not wiping out tradition; there are many
90 Torunn Selberg

examples of modern technology supporting traditional communications

and ways of life. 3
In this chapter, I will discuss narratives that relate shamanism to tra-
ditions from an ancient past, ideas tied to Mircea Eliade’s 1951 study of
shamanism.4 He described shamanism as humanity’s oldest religion. And
although his work has been criticized, it has also been a source of inspi-
ration for new religiosities.5 In today’s society, it is a common idea that
the past and history hold great value and significance for the present. It
is also said that history contributes to our identity, both on an individual
and at the social level.6 History can be used to legitimize certain rights,
and also as the basis for arguments in various other arenas. It is even
said that people have a right to history, and thus that it is a problem for
people to be without history.7 In my opinion, discourses about the rela-
tion between shamanism and the ancient past can be seen as variations of
late modern discourses about the value and meaning of history.
Additionally, modern shamanism is part of the increasing religious
diversity expressed outside traditional religious institutions, delimited
groups, doctrines, and canonical scriptures.8 Paganism (and shaman-
ism) is “fast developing as the new religion of the twenty-first century,
a religion based on Nature worship and ancient indigenous traditions,”
as Charlotte Hardman writes in the introduction to Paganism Today.9
The borderline between emergent religious diversity and other currents
and discourses in culture in general is vague. In Paul Heelas’ words, “the
religious has become less obviously religious, the secular less obviously
secular.”10 There has been much talk about the reenchantment of culture
because religious images and meanings have acquired increasing signifi-
cance in society.11 But we may also talk about the ways in which nonreli-
gious discourses and trends have continuities with modern religiosity and
how they are interpreted and understood in such a context.
In his book, The New Age Movement, Heelas writes,

More generally, the new Age is a spirituality of modernity in the sense that
it (variously) provides a sacralized rendering of widely-held values (freedom,
authenticity, self-responsibility, self-reliance, self-determination, equality, dig-
nity, tranquility, harmony, love, peace, creative expressivity, being positive
and, above all, ‘the self’ as a value in and of itself).12

Heelas is interested in New Age as a religion of the self. This is not my

concern here, but I am inspired by his idea that modern religions and spir-
itualities can be understood as interpretations—yes, sacralizations—of
values and trends in modern society. Expressed in several connections
and in many ways, the past is perceived as a resource and used as an
argument. The positive evaluation of the past is often articulated in the
 Shamanism—A Spiritual Heritage? 91

popular concepts and processes to which we refer as cultural heritage

and tradition. I will analyze how this relationship is being discussed and
interpreted. The examples I use are from the late 1990s up to the pres-
ent, representing a period of 15 years. Shamanism—as well as contem-
porary religious diversity more generally—has become increasingly more
visible. It is no longer limited to indigenous peoples in inaccessible areas
untouched by modernity, although such pasts and places do continue to
play a role in some stories. Currently the concept is also applied to urban
shamans: practitioners within various therapeutic, spiritual, and cultural
movements in the West.13 The shamans discussed in this chapter are (by
chance) all female. The narratives discussed are both personal experi-
ences and general statements about shamanism, but they have in com-
mon the utilization of the past as a resource for their stories.

The Past as Resource and Mythology

One of the most renowned shamans in contemporary Norway is Gro-
Helen Tørum, well known from successful television productions like
Åndenes hus (The House of the Spirits). She is clairvoyant and can speak
to the dead. She also gives talks about spirituality and the good life. Some
years ago she probably would have been referred to as a wise woman or
a healer, but today she is one of an increasing number of urban shamans
involved in therapeutic and spiritual circles. Her 2012 autobiography
is entitled Sjaman på høye hæler (Shaman in high heels), an appar-
ently paradoxical title that highlights shamanism as a modern, urban
phenomenon.
The book relates Tørum’s inward and outward journey toward the
realization that she is a shaman. She talks about several past lives. She
claims that she lived among the Cathars and was burned at the stake.
She lived another lifetime as one of Genghis Khan’s horsemen14 (91–92).
Through contact with a shaman who had received messages that she
should become Tørum’s teacher, she finally learned through several soul
journeys that she had been shaman in earlier lives among the Incas, “sev-
eral hundreds of years ago.” She says that this experience “was as real as
life here and now.”15
“Comprehending that I was shaman made me humble, because being
a shaman is not something you can learn, it is something you are,” she
says. “And I knew that I was a shaman. . . . Finally I had a name for the
powers I had inside me, a name for the feeling of being different that I
had felt my whole life, a name for the longing I had always felt inside me.
I understood that what I had tried to hide could be my strength.” Further,
she says, “I had spent seven years of my life travelling inwards. I had now
92 Torunn Selberg

found my identity and would dare to show who I am! I was once ‘Black
Eagle Medicine Woman.’ The time was now ripe to turn the journey out-
wards.” 16 Her present task is “to collect old knowledge and wisdom and
translate this information into valuable insights in the present life.”17
Gro-Helen Tørum’s story has much in common with “Inger”’s per-
sonal narrative about being a shaman. I interviewed Inger around the end
of the 1990s. She lives in one of the larger cities in Norway, and when I
met her she had begun “the long, hard way of the shaman.” And why was
she—a journalist and mother to a five-year-old son —on “the way of the
shaman”? She recounts,

I attended a course in shamanism, and during this course I experienced that I

already knew the things that were being taught in the course. And I could not
understand where I had learned these things. Then it turned out that I also
knew how to go further and do things we had not yet talked about. I became
steadily more aware that I knew and remembered things, but that I had no idea
from where this knowledge had come.

After a while, Inger understood that she already had advanced under-
standing about shamanism because she had been a shaman in several
earlier lives among the Hopi Indians. She also remembers being a shaman
in Siberia. She states that her duty here and now is to collect information
from earlier lives, especially knowledge about our relation to nature, and
to share and communicate such knowledge to people here and now. To be
able to do this, one has to live one’s present life according to knowledge
gained in earlier lives. Inger felt a strong relation to the Hopi, and she has
also visited them. She is of the opinion that the Hopi are the last authentic
Indians because they have preserved their old religion. She feels she has
actually visited and experienced the past to which she feels tied.
The notion of reincarnation forms the foundation for a personal rela-
tionship with the past, both for Gro-Helen Tørum and Inger. They claim
that their knowledge of shamanism and their identity as shamans are
from former lives. Tørum links her wisdom to the Incas—“several hun-
dred years ago”—and Inger to the American Hopi Indians without any
specification of time. As Tørum states, the experience of former lives
as a shaman is a proof that she is a shaman, because that is something
you cannot learn to be. The idea of reincarnation can be understood
as a key symbol within the alternative spiritual subculture.18 Modern
conceptions of reincarnation are a strong expression of how history and
the past are evaluated in our own time.19 Certain pasts have distinctive
value within this discourse, for instance, ancient civilizations like Egypt,
Rome, Greece, and India. In later times, however, the increasing interest
in and knowledge about indigenous people have extended this universe, 20
as both Inger’s and Tørum’s narratives demonstrate.
 Shamanism—A Spiritual Heritage? 93

The two narratives also indicate that being a shaman is not something
they have chosen; rather, it is something they are. They have brought this
vocation with them from earlier lives. They have been chosen indepen-
dently of their own volition. These past lives are seen as evidence that it
is their destiny to be shamans and their duty to bring the wisdom from
earlier lifetimes into the present.
In January 1997, the book Entering the Circle: Ancient Secrets of
Siberian Wisdom discovered by a Russian Psychiatrist, by Olga Kharitidi,
was “book of the month” in the book club Energica, aimed at people
interested in alternative spirituality. In the club’s magazine, the book was
introduced in the following way:

Have you ever dreamed about a journey with the Trans-Siberian railway? The
book of the month will give you the chance to undertake a trans-Siberian jour-
ney of transformation. We shall travel to the legendary Altaj Mountains. You
can expect an unusual meeting—with age old, mystical traditions and forceful
shamanistic rituals, with the origin of religion itself—the spiritual civilization
(high culture) of the holy land Belovodja. 21

In this short description we find many concepts indicating the antiquity

of shamanism: age old, tradition, origin, and also legendary. The book
contains Olga’s personal narrative. Together with a patient, Nikolaj,
she travels to the Altaj Mountains in Siberia, a fateful journey for Olga.
The Altaj Mountains have a prominent place within the neoshamanis-
tic universe, and are a destination for neoshamans seeking gurus and
Shambala. 22 Olga meets the female shaman Umai, a meeting that changes
her personal and professional life forever. Umai wants to transmit her
powers to Olga, and she is introduced to a world that is simultaneously
threatening and miraculous. After Olga’s return to the hospital and her
practice as a psychiatrist, Umai is spiritually present—speaking to her
and giving her advice—the result of which is that Olga is able to heal a
patient whom she had earlier tried to help without success. In this way
we are told that ancient shamanistic wisdom has much to contribute to
modern psychiatry, and that there is no opposition between ancient sha-
manism and modern science. At the same time as we follow Olga into a
shamanistic world, we also follow her on a spiritual journey that reveals
the holy land Belovodja to us. Belovodja is “the Siberian homeland of a
long forgotten, advanced, esoteric civilization,” we are told. 23 The maga-
zine asks, “Has it ever existed? Was this the spiritual cradle of our cul-
ture?” And it provides the answer: “Many things indicate that the world
religions as we know them today are just dim shadows of a spiritual
greatness the world once knew.”24
The kingdom of Belovodja is part of narratives about mythical king-
doms. In this context, however, Belovodja is conceived of as a real place
94 Torunn Selberg

in the Siberian mountains. Olga’s story is a version of a narrative tradi-

tion about lost civilizations, a “stock in trade of Western occultism.”25
Olga’s story indicates that ancient wisdom has been hidden in the inac-
cessible Siberian mountains. We are told that in a community untouched
by modern times, so to speak, ageless wisdom and knowledge have been
preserved. This wisdom exceeds modern knowledge in such areas as, for
instance, the nature of the human psyche. The story indicates that in
remote places of the world, age-old traditions have been preserved in
unchanged forms. The past takes on a mythological dimension when it
is recounted that ancient wisdom is superior to our own knowledge and
that it will provide a new dimension to modern life and understanding. In
this story and in the review of the book, it is asserted that modern people
need ancient wisdom to be able to manage life in the here and now more
successfully. In these narratives, time is also place; they illustrate the
saying, “The past is a foreign country.” They indicate that ancient times
have been preserved in certain places where the past can be found, for
instance, among the Hopi Indians or in inaccessible places in the Siberian
Mountains. We are told that various pasts still exist in distant and far-off
places.

The Past as Authority and Authenticity

The following story was published in the newspaper Dagbladet in August
1998. The story’s headline was “Drum Fight in a Sami Village,” and
it related the experience of a female Sami shaman in a small village in
Finnmarksvidda, on the Finnmark plateau. The drama in the story is a
conflict between the shaman and the village’s Christian inhabitants, but
implicitly the story concerns the place of shamanism—and alternative
religion—in modern culture. The story includes a picture of the shaman
in traditional Sami costume with a decorated drum—a runebomme—
with a fire in the background. The lead-in to the article states,

She believes in the power of drums and is accused of being the Devil’s
representative.—“But it was the Christians who brought God and the Devil to
the Sami, not I,” the female shaman Biret Maret Kallio chuckles.

The story further relates that the people in Tana call Biret Maret noaidi,
the Sami name for shaman, and that the drum constituted a central part
of the Sami pre-Christian religion. We are told that Christian mission-
aries burned the pagan drums, and that most people then believed that
Christianity had triumphed over paganism once and for all. So it is highly
controversial that Biret Maret assembles her group—which is called
Noaidi—and sacrifices to and worships the old gods. The newspaper
 Shamanism—A Spiritual Heritage? 95

further states that the villagers are fighting over the soul of the Sami vil-
lage, and that Biret Maret is surprised that she encounters so much fear
and antagonism from Christians. She believes that the drum is a healing
instrument. The newspaper story also relates that she demonstrates some
of the old rituals for them.
The story ends with a statement from the shaman:

Biret herself knows that she is carrying on a highly controversial tradition.

“Had I lived a few generations ago, I would have been burnt at the stake,” she
states. “My work has nothing to do with New Age—this is Old Age. The drum
is a vehicle for contact with one’s inner self, with nature, with the forefathers,
and the spirits.”

The newspaper story is formulated as a news story about a conflict in

a local community, which has materialized in the form of something as
exotic as a shaman’s drum. But the ramifications of the article are more
than just one local conflict. What makes the narrative thought provoking
is the implied larger conflict between deviant religiosity and traditional
Christianity. Additionally, it is a minority group that practices a religion
said to have its roots in pagan times. Ideas about the past, about tradition
and continuity, are prominent in the story, in which terms are used such
as “pre-Christian religion,” the “times of our forefathers” and, not least,
“old age.” The image of Biret Marit is quite different from Gro-Helen
Tørum’s urban shaman in high heels. The article in Dagbladet presents a
traditional shaman in a traditional context, part of a group practicing the
old religion and depicted with a traditional drum in a traditional Sami
costume. The two stories—and the two female shamans—together pres-
ent a wide-ranging image of contemporary shamanism.
Similar to Olga’s story, the narrative about Biret provokes ideas about
old traditions preserved in isolated areas and kept alive in the shadow
of a dominant ideology. In older folkloristic theory, this was referred to
as relict areas, places where old traditions were preserved, unaffected
by modernization. The stories about Olga and Biret Maret incorporate
this theme. Those ideas are still alive. Both the newspaper story and
the Khartidis book embody ideas about the preservation of cultural
practices—almost unchanged—through time. When Biret distances her-
self from the New Age by stating that her beliefs and practices are Old
Age, and claims that her beliefs are older than Christianity, she describes
her religion as ancient, although preserved through generations. When
she connects her own activity to a past that, to her way of thinking, is also
more congruent with Sami culture than with Christianity, shamanism
is positioned within tradition and continuity. She is traditionalizing her
activities and ideas, which makes them meaningful and authoritative. 26
96 Torunn Selberg

She is authenticating a religion that is looked down upon, both in the

local community and in the outside world.
However, age and tradition can also be used in arguments against the
authenticity of modern shamanism. In 1995, a Norwegian writer and
journalist, Bjørg Vindsetmo, published a book entitled Sjelen som tur-
ist (Spiritual tourism). From a Catholic standpoint, she throws a critical
light on the innumerable forms and mixtures of religions and therapies
found within the New Age. She writes, “Typical of the new religiosity of
our times is its therapeutic essence. Therapy has become religion, and
even worse, religion has become therapy.”27
One of the chapters focuses on neoshamanism—in the writer’s view,
one of the four most important modern “alternative therapies.” The title
of the chapter poses the question “Are Shamanistic Journeys Therapy?”
The chapter begins with a description of a female Swedish shaman,
whom the writer nicknames “Little Hiawatha.” By using a name from
the Disney universe, the writer invokes ideas of a superficial, trivial, com-
mercial, and thus an inauthentic world.
The shaman is described as “super elegant” as a “wandering fashion
show for indigenous people,” as Vindsetmo ironically puts it. And we
are told that Little Hiawatha teaches modern businessmen creativity and
self-development as part of her practice. 28
After describing Little Hiawatha, Vindsetmo describes “real” or genu-
ine shamanism. She refers to it as the world’s oldest religion and asks,
“How can our earliest forefathers’ religious life become something that,
in a modern woman’s world view, is a new form of therapy she may
perhaps be trying? And what makes Little Hiawatha believe that she is
a shaman?”29
By arguing that shamanism is our earliest ancestors’ religion,
Vindsetmo intends to create a distance between current shamans and
ancient shamans. She is of the opinion that significant elements of the
traditional shaman’s universe have been lost in modern versions. To her,
neoshamanism is not authentic: she describes it as a break with tradition,
a remnant or a shadow of the true version. She characterizes the new ver-
sion as a bleak forgery, lacking continuity with the original forms.
The foregoing narratives are about personal experiences. In most of
the stories, the teller is also personally involved in various pasts and has
opinions about the significance of the past. In more general descriptions
of modern shamanism, such as the one that introduces this chapter, the
connection of shamanism with ancient times is even more explicitly
expressed.
In an article from the Scandinavian Centre for Shamanic Studies,
we are told that “Shamanism is an ancient spiritual tradition and magi-
cal craft, used the world over for healing, for solving problems and for
 Shamanism—A Spiritual Heritage? 97

maintaining the balance between man and nature.”30 In an interview in

Sjamansonen (The Shaman zone), 31 Ailo Gaup32 claims that “if we go
back to the time before the great religions, we will see that the highest
spiritual tradition was what we now call shamanism.” He claims that
shamanism is found throughout the entire world, and “that shamanism
is really our [universal] spiritual heritage.”33
Here shamanism is described as a form of spirituality so old that it
belongs to humanity’s common past, before the time of the founders
of the great religions. “Shamanism has been there the whole time as a
possibility within us,” says Gaup. 34 He claims that it is a heritage from
“Neolithic” times, “when humans lived in tribes without private rights
of ownership, without social classes and the social structures that are
characteristic of later periods. From the dawn of time the shaman has
wandered through history . . . ”35

The Rhetoric of Tradition and Old Age

The stories, narratives, and statements recounted here are drawn from
different levels of communication and contexts, but the different speak-
ers are part of a larger dialogue in which the meaning and significance
of ancient times are discussed. Their utterances can also be understood
as answers to critical comments or disagreements about modern sha-
manism, and as arguments over the authenticity of current shamanis-
tic ideas and practices. There is an intertextual quality produced by the
juxtaposition of these various utterances. In Richard Bauman’s words,
“speakers . . . align their words to the words of others.” The production of
intertextuality can be understood as a web extending over time, 36 in this
case using various interpretations of and expressions for “pastness.”
In Vindsetmo’s story, neoshamanism represents a break with the sha-
manism of the past, and is described as a weak echo of a genuine tra-
dition. She sees shamanism as humanity’s oldest religion, and, in her
eyes, modern shamanism represents spiritual decline. The story about
the shaman in the Sami village in northern Norway, and the story about
a Russian psychiatrist’s encounter with Siberian shamanism share the
theme of continuity with old traditions. The stories say that this tradi-
tion and wisdom from the past can help modern people achieve better
lives for themselves. Inger and Gro Helen Tørum relate how former lives
as shamans give them the opportunity and also the duty to bring their
knowledge from earlier times into the present.
Vindsetmo describes contemporary ideas about shamanism in terms
of spiritual decline, while the other stories describe ways of using ideas
from the past to improve the present. The stories contain shared ideas
about the past, representing more consistent traditions and greater
98 Torunn Selberg

wisdom. Also common to these stories is the theme that the past is not
merely a context for the narrative but is also both a certain quality as well
as an authenticating argument for the practices in the stories. The past
and tradition are arguments for the value of various beliefs and ideas,
and traditionalizing these beliefs creates meaning in the present. Ancient
times are sacralized in discourses about shamanism, which is perceived
as containing wisdom and spirituality beyond the scope of contemporary
society. When—in the various stories—the symbolic power of the past is
transferred into the present, it creates an atmosphere of enchantment.
In modern popular religiosity—and especially within modern pagan-
ism—the value of the past is expressed in ideas about superior wisdom
and spiritualities. In that sense, we can talk about a mythologization and
sacralization of the past within modern religiosity, both on an individual
and a collective level. The past is lost, but narratively reproduced in sto-
ries about earlier wisdom and spirituality that exceed modern knowledge
and represent wisdoms that modern man needs.
Within contemporary paganism, Peter Beyer claims, ancient myths,
rituals, and symbols in pre-Christian religion and pretechnical civiliza-
tions are interpreted as the source for a growing spiritual knowledge, and
also as countercurrents against the ills of modern civilization. The idea
is that the wisdom of the ancient religions is as valuable as modern tech-
nology, and as stated in the introductory citation from Yakutia Today,
Paganism and modern technology can live side by side; they are not com-
petitors. Pagans see themselves as representatives of forgotten or sup-
pressed religions of the marginal, the weak, and the suppressed, as Beyer
says. But, he further states, there are also intricate connections between
paganism and the values of the dominating structures of global society. 37
On the one side, shamanism and paganism are seen as countercultural to
modernity; on the other side, as parallel to modernity—simultaneously
antimodern and very modern. Thomas Ziehe has asserted that to opt for
premodernity is an act of late modernity,38 and that shamanism is a kind
of spirituality said to stem from premodern times that appeals to modern
people.

Cultural Heritage and Heritagization

A point of departure in this chapter was that trends and discourses in
society can develop into constructions within modern religious diversity
and there take on a sacred dimension. My assertion is that in late mod-
ern society the past is of special significance, and that there is a con-
nection between valuations of history in general and the discourses that
have developed about shamanism in contemporary society. Today, we
find a popular, diverse, and steadily increasing production of “history”
 Shamanism—A Spiritual Heritage? 99

expressed in, for instance, numerous festivals, pageants, and jubilees

that refer to historical happenings of both local and national interest.
Scholarly research into history is just part of the current production of
history; we also find popular books—widely read—describing the past
in attractive terms. People engage in writing local histories and in genea-
logical studies. Celebrations and uses of the past are increasingly pres-
ent in various ways. The value of the past is currently expressed in an
increasing use and interest in cultural heritage. A popular understanding
of heritage is that it ensures continuity between those who have produced
it and ourselves, who become heirs as we receive it.39
In contemporary society we can talk about heritagization, a concept
referring to processes of cultural production by which cultural or natural
elements are selected and reworked for new social uses; it is reinterpre-
tations of the past based on contemporary issues.40 The concept also
refers to how increasing numbers and types of material—and immate-
rial—structures and phenomena are continuously being incorporated
and turned into heritage objects. Although heritage indicates history and
old things, it is, as American folklorist Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett
has noted, “a new mode of cultural production in the present that has
recourse to the past.”41 She claims that “heritage adds value to existing
assets that have either ceased to be viable (subsistence, lifestyles, obsolete
technologies, abandoned mines etc.), or that never were economically
productive. . . . Heritage . . . ensure[s] that (such assets) will survive.”42
Although it is a new cultural production, the age of heritage is central
and adds value to selected phenomena designated as heritage. Thus, cul-
tural heritage is not about things or expressions, but more about our rela-
tion to things and expressions, and not least to their “pastness” and age.
Heritage and interpretations of the past are as much about our present
needs as about the past itself. History and the past give meaning to the
present, and heritage is about reclamation and cultivation of the past. In
discourses about shamanism, heritage is about worship of the past.
Heritage is not lost or found; rather, it is produced in contemporary
society. It gives new life to old things. It is old in a modern way. Our
approach to heritage indicates that it had a prior existence before it was
identified, valuated, and “celebrated” as such. Heritage produces some-
thing new that has recourse to the past and to the process of protection,
of “adding value.” It speaks in and to the present even if it does so in
terms of the past.43
Shamanism is also discussed as heritage. If we look back at the inter-
view with Gaup,44 he claims that “if we go back to the time before
the large religions, we will see that our greatest spiritual heritage was
what we now call shamanism.” He asserts that shamanism is found in
the whole world and “that shamanism is really a spiritual heritage.”
100 Torunn Selberg

In www.sjaman.com, it is stated that “Shamanism is really a spiri-

tual world heritage.” But as with heritage, shamanism—in its present
form—is a new cultural production with recourse to the past, a past
that is creating identity, authenticity, and meaning.
Peter Beyer says that religion is like a mirror that makes possible a crit-
ical reflection of normal reality by creating a virtual, reverse, and thus
spiritual image of that reality, but this generation of a spiritual image is
only possible in terms of the normal world that is being reflected. I agree
with Beyer in his portrayal of the relation between the “normal” world
and paganism. But I would rather say that paganism is an interpretation
of ideas about the past circulating in current society than a reflection of
the ideas of the past in contemporary society. Whereas within the larger
society the past is being cultivated, within shamanistic circles it is being
worshipped and has taken on sacred and mythological dimensions.

Notes
1. www.Yatoday.ru/culture/92 (Yakutia today. Lest 19122013)
2. Harvey and Wallis 2007: 186.
3. See, for example, Blank 2009.
4. Mircea Eliade, 1998: Sjamanisme. Henrykkelsens og ekstasens eldgamle
kunst (orig. 1951). Oslo, Pax forlag.
5. Fonneland 2009: 11.
6. Eriksen 1999, Lowenthal 1985, 1998, Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 1998,
Fonneland 2009.
7. Eriksen 1999: 9.
8. Christensen 2013: 36.
9. Hardman 1996.
10. Heelas 1998: 3.
11. Gilhus and Mikaelsson 1998: 5.
12. Heelas 1996: 169.
13. Harvey 2003: 1.
14. Tørum 2012: 91–92.
15. Ibid.: 108.
16. Ibid.: 110.
17. Ibid.: 109.
18. Gilhus 1999.
19. Ibid., Kraft 2011.
20. Ibid., 1999.
21. Energica januar 1997.
22. Harvey and Wallis 2007: 17.
23. Harvey and Wallis 2007: 121.
24. Energica januar 1997.
25. Haanegraaff 1998: 309.
26. Bauman 2004.
 Shamanism—A Spiritual Heritage? 101

27. Vindsetmo 1995: 15.

28. Ibid.: 18.
29. Ibid.: 22.
30. www.shamanism.dk Scandinavian Center for Shamanic Studies. Lastet ned
19122013.
31. www.sjaman.com visited19.12.2013.
32. The name is not mentioned in the article
33. Ibid.
34. Ibid.
35. Ibid.
36. Bauman 2004: 128.
37. Beyer 1998: 18–19.
38. Ziehe 1986.
39. Roigé and Frigolé 2010: 11.
40. Ibid.: 12.
41. Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 1998: 149.
42. Ibid.: 150.
43. Ibid.: 149–150.
44. The name is not mentioned in the article.

References
Bauman, Richard. 2004. A World of Others’ Words: Cross-Cultural Perspectives
on Intertextuality. Oxford: Blackwell.
Beyer, Peter. 1998. “Globalisation and the Religion of Nature,” in Joanne
Pearson, Richard H. Roberts and Geoffrey Samuel (eds.) Nature Religion
Today. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 11–21.
Blank, Trevor (ed.). 2009. Folklore and the Internet: Vernacular Expression in a
Digital World. Logan, Utah: Utah University Press.
Christensen, Cato. 2013. Religion som samisk identitetsmarkør. Fire studier av
film. Akad.avh, Universitetet i Tromsø Eriksen, Anne 1999: Historie, minne
og myte. Oslo: Pax.
Fonneland, Trude. 2009. Samisk nysjamanisme: i dialog med (for)tid og stad.
Ein kulturanalytisk studie av nysjamaner sine erfaringsforteljingar—identi-
etsforhandlingar og verdiskaping. Akad.avh: Bergen.
Gilhus, Ingvild. 1999. “Sjelevandring—et nytt nøkkelsymbol,” in Alver. Bente
Gullveig e.a. (eds.) Myte, magi og mirakel i møte med det moderne. Oslo: Pax
forlag, 31–42.
Gilhus, Ingvild and Lisbeth Mikaelsson. 1998. Kulturens refortrylling. Oslo:
Universitetsforlaget.
Hanegraaff, Wouter J. 1998. New Age Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism
in the Mirror of Secular Thought. Albany: State University of New York
Press.
Hardman, Charlotte. 1996. Introduction, in Graham Harvey and Charlotte
Hardman (eds.) Paganism Today: Wiccans, Druids, the Goddess and Ancient
Earth Tradition for the Twenty-First Century. London, Thorsons, ix–xix.
102 Torunn Selberg

Harvey, Graham. 2003. General introduction, in Graham Harvey (ed.)

Shamanism: A Reader. London: Routledge, 1–24.
Harvey, Graham and Robert J. Wallis. 2007. Historical Dictionary of Shamanism.
Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press.
Heelas, Paul. 1996. The New Age Movement: The Celebration of the Self and the
Sacralization of Modernity. Oxford, Blackwell.
———. 1998. Introduction: “On Differentiation and Dedifferentiation,” in Paul
Hellas (ed.) Religion, Modernity and Postmodernity. Oxford: Blackwell
Publishers, 1–18.
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara. 1998. Destination Culture: Tourism, Museums,
and Heritage. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Kraft, Siv Ellen. 2011. Hva er nyreligiøsitet? Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.
Lowenthal, David. 1985. The Past Is a Foreign Country. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
———. 1998. The Heritage Crusade and the Spills of History. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Roigé, Xavier, and Joan Frigolé. 2010. Introduction, in Xavier Roigé and Joan
Frigolé (eds.) Constructing Cultural and Natural Heritage: Parks, Museums
and Rural Heritage. Girona: ICRPC (Institut Catalá de Receres en Patrimonial
Cultural, 9–27.
Tørum, Gro-Helen (samarbeid med Tove Skagestad). 2012. Sjaman på høye
hæler: Min reise i ukjent landskap. Oslo: Cappelen Damm.
Vindsetmo, Bjørg. 1995. Sjelen som turist: Om religion, terapi og magi. Oslo:
Gyldendal.
Ziehe, Thomas. 1986. “Inför avmystifieringen av världen: Ungdom och kulturell
modernisering,” in Mikael Löfgren and Anders Molander (ed.) Postmoderne
tider. Stockholm: Norstedt, 345–361.
 6
Metroshamanism: A Search for Shamanic
Identity in Modern Estonia

Henno Erikson Parks

In a survey conducted in 2011, only 20 percent of Estonians responded

that religion played an important role in their life, suggesting that, sta-
tistically, it is the least religious country in the world. A combination
of Estonian religious history, linguistic barriers, and 60 years of Soviet
occupation has undoubtedly contributed to such statistics, however, it
belies the real spiritual landscape of the country. Despite such surveys,
it would seem that Estonians do believe in something, with over half the
population claiming that they believe in an unspecified spirit or life force,
often taking a pagan form of one kind or another, whether it be through
nature worship, ancient runic calendars, or shamanism (Esslemont
2011). It is this final category of shamanism on which this chapter will
focus, while at the same time attempting to tackle the complex and prob-
lematic issue of how to define that term within an Estonian, or even
Northern European, context. Because the term “shaman” has become an
all-encompassing category in contemporary ethnological and religious
research—and has come to represent so much more than its original
native Siberian meaning, which describes a specialized type of wise per-
son—it does not take into account the various forms of existing shamanic
practices and beliefs, nor how specific cultures interpret them.1 In order
to better define what Estonian shamanism is, we will look at the central
works of Michael Harner, Andrei Znamenski, Annette Høst, and Jøn
Asbjørn, who discuss shamanisms in a wider sense; we will examine vid-
eographic evidence from Harry Johansen and Torill Olsen, and Lennart
Meri; and, finally, we will review some of the personal interviews made
with key figures in Estonia today, among them Sven-Erik Soosaar, Thule
Lee, Mikk Sarv, and Mare Kõiva.
104 Henno Erikson Parks

Finding a Solution
We should begin by asking whether it is possible to apply only one spe-
cific label, shamanism, to a plethora of practices and beliefs found in
different countries and regions, which have experienced such different
histories, environments, and cultural influences,
There are, of course, some basic core elements that can be found in
the shamanisms practiced worldwide; however, this does not take into
account how the above-mentioned considerations impact those practices.
Indeed, attempts have been made to do so since Harner2 introduced his
concept of Core Shamanism some 30 years ago, or Mircea Eliade3 before
him. Ultimately, the term shaman became an academic and social con-
struct used to try and fit various specialized roles and types of practices
from different cultures under the umbrella of shamanism so that they
could be compared with apparently similar roles and practices in other
cultures. Amazonian cultures have many different categories of shaman,
and are typically named after the plants in which they specialize. The
same differentiation holds true for Estonian shamanism, which tradi-
tionally has used the term nõid to describe those engaged in this type of
work. This is similar to the Finnish noita and the Sami noaidi, although
the latter term more closely represents the actual practice of shamanism
in a Siberian sense. With the advent of Christianity in Estonia—which
was quite late in the European context, extending well into the fifteenth
century—these terms acquired a more negative connotation. Practitioners
were generally categorized as witches or sorcerers, although nowadays
Estonians continue to use the term nõid to label anyone practicing heal-
ing or magic, including shamans. The Sami author and historian Aage
Solbakk presents a very clear picture of how shamanism fit into the
worldview of the Sami people, and how the introduction of Christianity
changed the roles and even the titles of shamans in order to accommodate
the new order of religious life in the north. He states that

The Sámi people had our world as we all see it with our own eyes. Then there
was the other world that only the Noaidi, or Sámi shaman could comprehend—
the unseen. There were two worlds. In the old days, this knowledge, the power
to heal, belonged to the shamans; but when Christianity came to our land, they
started to call the shaman the devil’s disciple. What did they do then? Well,
they started to use other terms, terms like helpers and so on. And by changing
the terms, this tradition survived until today.4

I assume that this same process of integration and adaptation went on, to
a lesser or greater degree, among many indigenous populations, Estonia
included. For the most part, the word shaman is a relatively new term
in Estonia, even though the practice is considered to be endemic. The
 Metroshamanism 105

actual practice of shamanism in Estonia can be traced throughout its

history, under the commonly used term nõid, who was a person who
basically performed similar tasks to shamans in rural communities. It
was only during the Soviet period (1940–1991) that the word shaman
came into the Estonian vocabulary, along with the compulsory learning
of the Russian language and the corpus of literature that came with it.
However, at that time, it was never used to describe local practitioners,
but rather those of cultures outside of the country, and Siberian shaman-
ism in particular. Currently, the term shaman has become interchange-
able with the word nõid in Estonia. We can see from the etymological
map in Figure 6.1 that the word nõid occurs in all of the various dialects
throughout Estonia5 (see Figure 6.1).
There are, however, many titles used to reflect the different types of
shamanism practiced in Estonia. As mentioned above, the term nõid,
which could be broadly defined in Estonia as a person who is able to
affect the world and control power through their knowledge, abilities,
and various skills, and receive their power and its characteristics from
different sources, shares commonalities with other labels given to practi-
tioners of similar arts. Some of the other common terms used are Šamaan
(described more as a primitive witch or priest[ess]), Manatark (an exor-
cist or conjuror), Lausuja (spellbinder, speaker of words of power or
loitsud—incantations or spells), Võlur (sorcerer[ess], or enchanter[ess]),
Posija (charmer—again having to do with speaking words of power
or charms), Tark (wise man [woman]), Teadmamees (also wise man),
Ravitseja (healer), Ennustaja (fortuneteller), and Meedium (medium).
As one can see, all these different categories that represent the paranor-
mal abilities and skills of the practitioner no longer precisely fit under the
universal label of shamanism. “Neoshamanism” is another commonly
used term, which is defined as signaling a “new” form or a revival of an
old form of shamanism. Annette Høst discusses the dilemma this term
creates in modern shamanic circles, because she feels that the label has
a critical and pejorative undertone that separates present-day shamanic
practices from the so-called “real” shamanism practiced in traditional
settings (2014). Furthermore, she dismisses the term “urban shamanism”
outright, as promoting a complete break with the vital core of shamanism
as a nature-based practice. Nevertheless, for many practicing shamans,
urban life is a reality with which they must deal, as well as discover new
ways to relate to and work with the natural world and their spirit helpers,
which are so essential to the worldview of classical shamanism. These
terms struggle to address the multiplicity of the word shamanism within
a modern context.
The question then becomes, what term(s) would appropriately reflect
the landscape of shamanic practices culturally, geographically, and con-
ceptually in modern society today, and is it even feasible to accurately
 Rannikumurre Kuu
Saarte murre ´´
Joe
Läänemurre VNg
Keskmurre
Jür HJn ´´ Vai
Idamurre Lüg Joh
HMd
Ris VJg
Kos
JMd
Juu JJn Iis
Ann Sim
Ph1
Rei Rap Koe
Ku1 Trm
Rid Mär
Mar Lai
Emm Vig
Plt
Vän Pal
Han PJg Pil Kod
Muh
Jaa Kse Mih Ksi MMg
Krj
Mus Aks
KJn
Pöi Var Tor
V11 TMr
Kaa ´´
Kop
Khk Kär Pha ´´
Tos Puh
Noo
´´
Ran
Trv Kam
HIs
Ans Saa Ron
´´
Krk Ote
Jäm Kan Räp
Hää Plv
Hel
San
Urv
Vas
Mulgi murre Se
Kr1 ´´
Rou
Tartu murre
Voru
´´ murre ´´
noid Har

Figure 6.1 Map of Estonia.

 Metroshamanism 107

portray them? This also creates a certain dilemma as to whether we are

using the term shaman in an etic sense, emphasizing the way scholars
might interpret and understand the practice, or whether we are approach-
ing it from an emic point of view regarding how shamans themselves
perceive and interpret their own practices and beliefs. In many cases, the
two approaches merge, especially when the scholar and the practitioner
are one and the same. A good example of this would be Høst, cofounder
of the Scandinavian Center for Shamanic Studies and a key contributor
to the development of Norse neoshamanism, who argues for terms such
as “modern Western shamanism” or even “modern European shaman-
ism.” She defines it as “modern and it is Western/European shamanism
meaning that its form, its practice, is rooted in and shaped by our own
(modern) time and our North European culture, with its spiritual, mate-
rial, political conditions and traits” (2014). These terms are undoubtedly
an improvement in the sense of clarifying this aspect of regional phe-
nomena, and certainly might suffice when trying to characterize local
practices within a larger complex whole. However, because it is intrinsi-
cally influenced by cultural variables and exists on a continuum of mul-
tiple titles and roles, it still does not fully justify the label shamanism.
Furthermore, the term “Western” would exclude Estonian shamanism,
since it could be considered as Eastern European, even though the society
is very much western, and most certainly culturally northern. Krippner
posits that indigenous terms should be used where possible when discuss-
ing specific types of shamanism or practitioners, and to only use the
broader label of shaman or shamanism in a general sense (Webb 2013).
However, I feel that even these broader and more generalized terms are
not sufficiently accurate and do not include the historical, cultural, envi-
ronmental, and spiritual elements from which the label shamanism is
invariably composed.
It is not merely a question of defining the region in which shamanism
is practiced, but also fully qualifying the meaning and connotations that
the word itself embodies, while at the same time allowing for variation
and specification. Perhaps there is no one label or definition that clearly
works for this overused word, and we could look at it more as a method-
ological description or specific point of view from which to classify the
various shamanisms that exist. I would suggest that a methodological
term such as “metroshamansim” could be used, loosely based on the lin-
guistic concept, and which perhaps would better reflect a modern inter-
pretation of the practice. It can be defined as encompassing inherently
creative shamanic practices that extend across the borders of culture,
history, time, and politics.6 The new shamanisms that are being con-
structed and reconstructed are a product of modern interaction, describ-
ing the ways in which people from different backgrounds use, experiment
108 Henno Erikson Parks

with, and negotiate identities, titles, and concepts through a variety of

shamanic practices and beliefs. Furthermore, the term also incorporates
the characterization that many neoshamanic movements have arisen in
a primarily urban setting, a drastic departure from past practices that
were more rural and often solitary, and certainly a phenomenon seen in
Northern Europe. To a degree, then, the focus shifts from the complexity
of shamanic belief systems in natural environments to shamanism emerg-
ing from urban interaction and modern interpretations and implementa-
tions of practice. The notion of metroshamanism would give us ways
of moving beyond the common frameworks of shamanism, providing
insights into contemporary practices and beliefs as emerging from these
contexts of interaction and, at the same time, accommodating the mul-
tifarious nature the term shamanism has acquired. Certainly, there has
been movement in the opposite direction in recent years, in attempts to
reconnect with the natural forces central to shamanic belief and practices;
however, the reality is that the great majority of practitioners cannot live
solely on shamanism as a profession in modern society. Likewise, a term
such as contemporary shamanism might serve the same purpose, since
we are speaking of the shamanisms practiced today and not attempting
to tackle the complexities of past descriptions of the practice.
So, how can we describe the different phases of metroshamanism in
modern Estonia? Beyond the labels described earlier regarding the vari-
ous roles into which practitioners fall, metroshamanism in Estonia can be
divided into four general categories that are by no means static, and that
tend to overlap frequently. They are homegrown, experiential, extraneous
appropriations, and fusional. They can be defined as follows: (1) home-
grown—practitioners and practices that rely on archeological, historical,
and traditional records, ethnographic literature and data, and popular
culture. This form of practice would address the issue of how shaman-
ism can be defined as a religious movement—whether through the use of
indigenous ethnographic literature and data, history, archeology, popular
culture, its underlying philosophical premises, or the practices and beliefs
of the communities that are constituted or drawn together by shamanic
activities in the context of modern Estonian society. This category can be
further divided into an aspect labeled traditional—which are the local
circumstances and background from which shamanic practice develops.
Within the traditional part there are also three other possible subdivi-
sions: familial, meaning that the abilities and skills are passed down from
one generation to another; positional, in which the practitioner undergoes
an apprenticeship or the passing of knowledge by a senior member; and
archival, in which the practitioner learns from archival material relating
to previous historical figures, or from cultural memory. (2) experiential—
having to do with individuals and their personal experiences, for example,
 Metroshamanism 109

through inspiration, revelations within the practice of shamanic trance

and ritual dance, hallucinogens, prophetic dreams, and premonitions.
This category also contains an aspect that can be described as transcen-
dental—which relates to the unlimited experiences of nonreality with or
without the aid of hallucinogens. (3) extraneous appropriations—a con-
cept related to the various foreign practices and systems of belief bor-
rowed and incorporated into the practitioners’ own modus operandi. In
many cases, this begs the question of how appropriate the appropriation
is, or, in other words, how much borrowing from other indigenous belief
systems and practices is acceptable or even necessary? This category like-
wise contains two separate parts: elemental influences—in which prac-
titioners choose specific elements from a foreign shamanic practice that
best fit their own purpose and aims, and incorporate them into their prac-
tice and/or belief system; and comprehensive influences—in which entire
belief systems, rituals, and ceremonies are appropriated and incorporated,
with little alteration from the original. And finally (4) fusional—which
can be almost synonymous with the methodological term for metrosha-
mansim, and most likely reflects the current situation of most shamanic
practices in the world due to globalization and modern social media,
in which a practitioner uses the resources he or she has and combines
them with other internal or external sources. This category also exam-
ines regional influences on local shamanism, such as Eastern, Western,
Northern, Native American, and South American.

Fusion and Its Influence on Shamanism in Estonia

For the purpose of this chapter, I will examine only the last category
of fusional influences on metroshamanic practices in Estonia. Perhaps
a good indication of early external influences on Estonian shamanism
can be found in the cosmological constructions of its mythology and epic
poetry that have clear connections and parallels to its immediate neigh-
bors in Northern and Eastern Europe. Some of these associations can be
traced to the pantheon of deities found in Scandinavian and Finno-Baltic
cultures, demonstrating early contact between them through trade and
colonial expansion. Asbjørn states that

Wide ranging lexical exchange between Finno-Baltic and Northern Teutonic

peoples during the main composition period of Finno-Baltic magic and sha-
manic epic poetry (ca 200 B.C.-550 A.D.) is now largely accepted by scholars,
and has in most cases been attributed to such early contacts. Therefore, it is
also highly possible that some theological conceptions were also exchanged
between the Teutonic and Finno-Baltic peoples during such early meetings.
(1999: para. 2)
110 Henno Erikson Parks

The idea that certain divine characters from Northern Teutonic peoples
have had a strong influence in defining the role and worldview of the
Finno-Baltic pagan traditions in general, and shamanism in particular,
is an interesting one. Certainly, we can see clear connections between
Finnish and Estonian cosmological constructs, especially through their
epic poetry, folk tales, and songs, and so, perhaps, it is also possible that
Scandinavian religious concepts and practices might have had a great
deal of influence on the pre-Christian communities of these areas.
During the period of awakening national identity in the nineteenth
century, the creation of such epic poems as the Finnish Kalevala and the
Estonian Kalevipoeg became synonymous with the creation of a nation.
Indeed, both were direct products of this period in history, and have been
vital in providing a wealth of ethnographic and folkloric data that has
since been used by emerging pagan movements in both countries. How
much of the material was authentic and provided an accurate picture of
pre-Christian Estonia is debatable, although certainly a good portion
of what was collected and used in their creation was based on genuine
cultural memory.7 Nevertheless, the epic poems serve as a broad template
and as a source of inspiration and information for many practicing sha-
mans and other contemporary pagans.
There are numerous other clear analogies that point to a Scandinavian
or Finnish influence on Estonian practices and beliefs. The island of
Saaremaa, off the coast of mainland Estonia was recently in the news in
June 2013, when two intact Viking ships and their slain crews were dis-
covered during routine power line excavations. This archeological find
has shaken previous notions of when the Viking age began and how their
culture evolved.

The archaeologists believe the men died in a battle some time between 700
and 750, perhaps almost as much as a century before the Viking Age officially
began. This was an era scholars call the Vendel period, a transitional time not
previously known for far-reaching voyages—or even for sails. The two boats
themselves bear witness to the tremendous technological transformations in
the eighth-century Baltic. (Curry, 2013)

Saaremaa developed its own homegrown Viking culture, and it can be

assumed that they were influenced and impacted by trade, warfare, and
the exchange of human hostages as part of the spoils of battle. Physical
evidence of these interactions still exists to this day in the form of inscrip-
tions on Scandinavian runic stones, the sagas (notably the Icelandic Njáls
saga and the Olav Tryggvasons saga), and various chronicles.8 There is
also a clear link with the known magical and medicinal use of runes in
ancient Scandinavian rituals and the common use of runes in Estonia,
 Metroshamanism 111

either in the form of runic or staff calendars, or as symbols of protection

on homes and for divination.9 Such connections are, of course, under-
standable due to the close proximity of the various cultures, and the
extensive trade routes that crisscrossed the territories involved. Along
with the movement of trade goods, ideas, religious concepts, and cultural
and spiritual practices could have traveled the same pathways and thus
had an indelible impact on the populations with which they came in con-
tact. Indeed, shamanism in all of its various manifestations could have
just as easily followed identical paths laid down by this same movement
of peoples and goods, whether in lexical, ideological, or cultural form.
Asbjørn sums this up in noteworthy fashion when he states that the

observation, in conjunction with the pre-existent knowledge of early contact

and lexical borrowings between the Finno-Baltic and Teutonic peoples, would
suggest that deep analysis of the development of both Finno-Baltic shamanic
deities and Óðinn may reveal instances in which tales that were traditionally
associated with the exploits of one of these figures were transferred to the
other. Such a discovery would certainly support the study of Estonian shaman-
ism, as it would speed the process of recognizing purely Estonian elements of
shamanic practice and belief. (1999: para 15)

The Role of History

History itself has played an important role in contributing to a heavy
Scandinavian influence on Estonian culture, language, and traditions.
During much of the Middle Ages, parts of Estonian territory were under
Danish rule, and in the thirteenth century there were extensive settlements
of Coastal Swedes on the islands and the western coast of the country,
which they inhabited up to the beginning of the Second World War. The
early modern history of Estonia was also characterized by both Swedish
and Danish domination right up to the Great Northern War (1700–1721),
leading to Sweden’s defeat by the Russians (Estonia.eu 2014). One can
expect that this constant influx of peoples, ideas, cultures, and customs
had an impact on the native population, and ultimately helped mold the
country as it is today. It is unclear whether this would have directly influ-
enced shamanism in Estonia, but certainly the new invaders and settlers
would have brought their own beliefs and customs, despite the fact that
Christianity was the predominant religion of the time.
The interwar period of the twentieth century (between 1918 and
1940) can be characterized as one of intense cultural activity that served
to establish the foundations for various movements and endeavors, as
well as setting up a coping mechanism for what was to follow in what
might be considered the darkest period in modern Estonian history. Here
112 Henno Erikson Parks

we can specifically look at the ways in which Estonians attempted to

construct and define beliefs and practices linked to the ancient past, what
internal and external influences affected them, and how the new esoteric
movements, including neoshamanism, developed within a larger cultural
context. The Estonian Institute (Eesti Instituut) posits a very interesting
theory regarding the impact of World War II and the Soviet occupation
on Estonian cultural life, going so far as to say that it split Estonian cul-
ture into two parts: cultural lives in exile and at home. The article goes
on to state that “Estonian culture in Soviet Estonia had to resist forced
Russification and restrictions to creative freedom; its ultimate success
guaranteed the continuation of Estonian culture” (Eesti Instituut 2010).
At the same time, religious life was equally under heavy pressure, with
authorities insuring that the church and all other aspects of spiritual life
were under control. Again, the Estonian Institute says, “The political
and economic separation of Soviet Estonia from the rest of the world,
accompanied by an extensive (but still incomplete) information blackout
from Western spiritual developments and directions had negative results”
(ibid.). What some of these “negative results” are will become clearer as
we proceed through this chapter.
It is also vital to consider the types of information and materials pro-
duced, and the methods of dispersion to interested parties. Perhaps we can
categorize the types of materials as follows: original archival materials
(both local and international [Soviet]); original materials smuggled into
the country through various channels, which are then translated, tran-
scribed, and distributed; information and materials collected and com-
piled during expeditions—both internal and external; information and
materials acquired through visiting lecturers, seminars, and conferences
(mainly in the late Soviet and post-Soviet period); information (mostly
oral) provided by returning Estonian populations and their families; and,
finally, information and materials provided by other populations living
within the territory of Estonia (for example, Russians and Roma people).
Examining how and by whom these different source materials were used
will provide a better picture of how belief systems survived and thrived
in Soviet Estonia.
Some of the groups or circles from the Soviet Estonian intellectual
sphere who found themselves under tremendous ideological pressure to
prevent the spread of free thinking in society were able to find specific
ways to circumvent it. As I see it, three main groups can be examined:
artists, writers, and academics. It would seem that information on eso-
teric topics, or even those that mildly hinted at some form of spirituality,
usually could only be accessed by certain people in particular circles.
These circles were generally the ones made up of people who had access
to materials, information, and contacts throughout the former Soviet
 Metroshamanism 113

Union and its satellite countries, and perhaps even in the West. By far
the largest of these groups were those that had an interest in certain signs
and symbols, or the combination of patterns and colors, and that were
at the same time interested in the deeper spiritual meaning behind these
constructs—namely artists (including musicians, who were searching for
the roots of the past within the context of contemporary Estonian music).
Secondly, there were those who might be called writers and poets, and
who wanted to consider the written word and how it was used in the past,
and perhaps how it developed from its original meaning. And finally, the
third kind of people were the academics, especially those working in the
fields of anthropology, folklore, and linguistics. The last two categories
overlap in many instances, as writers are in many cases also scholars.

Painting a Picture
Artists and musicians, many of whom had a strong interest in the eso-
teric, were also able to discuss a wide range of related topics within
several different contexts, and in many cases they were students of art
history at the University of Art (Kunstiülikool), in Tallinn. In Soviet
Estonia, the cultivation of a national handicraft movement developed as
a reaction to the severe Stalinist repression of the late 1940s to the early
1950s.10 This was to some degree a veiled protest against the communist
ideology of the time that was advocating an interpretation of the arts
and literature from the perspective of “social realism” in the social sci-
ences. In 1966, the Association of Handicraft Masters, called UKU, was
founded to produce affordable household items and souvenirs depicting a
traditional Estonian national style. It employed over 1,500 artisans who
“crafted artifacts either modeled on the originals deposited in various
Estonian museums, or produced according to designs by modern artists
in the style of folk art” (Reeman 2004). Looking at the first and largest
category of people, the artists were mainly responsible for conducting
extensive research into certain signs and symbols for inspiration. One
well-known artist in Estonia was Kaljo Põllu (1934–2010), who exam-
ined Sami symbols as well as the cultural and artistic background of the
northern peoples. During the late Soviet period, one was permitted to
investigate other peoples and cultures, and, through this research, a few
felt that indeed there might have existed a native form of shamanism
in Estonia. However, it was not possible to openly speak about it, but
rather one had to transform the information somehow within the con-
text of other cultures. Põllu created numerous pieces of graphic art based
on Northern European shamanism and Northern Siberian shamanism,
which was tied indirectly to Estonian shamanism. He was one of the few
114 Henno Erikson Parks

artists who developed this new theme of shamanism and the ideas and
concepts behind it. During this era, the only way that one could learn
about the symbols, customs, and traditions related to shamanism was
through expeditions to Northern Siberia and other parts of the Soviet
Union, and Põllu was responsible for organizing many of these excur-
sions. Generally, those who participated in these expeditions were art
history students who, during the course of their travels, were responsible
for researching the meanings of various symbols and runes, and were
required to meticulously draw them in great detail. These were later sent
to the Art Museum archives. In addition to the symbols and runes, cloth-
ing and costumes, designs and colors, patterns, and other crafts, were
also drawn and submitted to the collection. Because of the way this mate-
rial was collected, recorded, and stored, it became a vivid portrait of the
artistic and cultural traditions of the people it was meant to represent.
Another key figure in this method of collecting authentic data and
finding ways to position it within an Estonian context from broader cul-
tural and ethnological perspectives was Lennart Meri (1929–2006). He
was the former president of Estonia for two terms between 1992–2000.
However, before the start of his political career, Meri spent many years
organizing expeditions to remote regions of the Soviet Union to study the
cultures of small ethnic populations. He also had a strong interest in the
discovery and colonization of Siberia, and through these travels generated
extensive materials, both written and videographic, which even managed
to penetrate the Iron Curtain at the time. In fact, one of his films, The
Winds of the Milky Way, a coproduction with Finland and Hungary,
was banned in the Soviet Union.11 During the filming of this documen-
tary, Meri produced another film that would have a profound influence
on the understanding and study of shamanism in Estonia, entitled The
Shaman (1977). It was filmed in the northernmost corner of Eurasia, on
the Taymyr Peninsula. This material depicts a Nganasan shaman per-
forming an incantation. On the heels of this film, Meri produced another
documentary, The Sons of Torum (Toorumi Pojad, 1988–89), depicting
an ancient Khanty bear feast ritual estimated to be about 3,000 years
old. Together with these documentaries on other Finno-Ugric cultures,
practices, and traditions, and the increasing number of expeditions by
Estonian artists and scholars, the groundwork was laid for discovering
how Estonia fit into the constellation of peoples making up its ancestral
past. As the former cinematographer for Meri put it, “Lennart’s passion-
ate searches for roots, which had a more universally human and broader
significance than the historical and cultural connections between Finno-
Ugric peoples . . . formed . . . a mosaic-like magic mirror that was capable
of showing what was transcendent of time and distance, and what was
transient” (Maran 2009: 2).
 Metroshamanism 115

Concurrently, there were also the musicians and composers, who were
able to pursue ethnic contexts through the folk and runic songs, and
music styles that were found in archives. Perhaps the most well-known
Estonian composer is Veljo Tormis (1930–), who

is famous for his imaginative use of authentic archaic folk material—first of

all Estonian and Finnish runic songs (regilaul), but also old traditional songs
of other peoples. He is not attracted by the exotic sound of a distant tradition,
but interested in the meaning of singing, and often working together with eth-
nologists he always goes deeply into the background of the songs he is using.
(Tormis 2013)

It was only in the 1960s, following the death of Joseph Stalin when there
emerged a certain degree of intellectual liberation in the Soviet Union,
that Tormis was able to develop an Estonian national style based on the
use of folk music. His composing matured into creating music based on
ancient folk tunes, branching out into compositions based on other cul-
tures, such as, for example, the Livonians (Liivlaste pärandus [Livonian
Heritage], 1970), and perhaps his most important work, Forgotten peo-
ples (Unustatud rahvad, 1970–1989), a series of song cycles based on
the ancient folk songs of Balto-Finnic peoples. In fact, Tormis worked
with Lennart Meri on the film The Sounds of Kaleva (Kaleva Hääled),
a three-act film-essay about memory and the historical-cultural ties of
the Finno-Ugric peoples. In this film, an ancient smelting and blacksmith
ritual is set to Tormis’ cantata “Curse upon Iron.”12

Examining the Written Word

When we speak about examining the information and materials found
in archives and those acquired in expeditions, several key figures stand
out. As a reaction to the Soviet attempt to eradicate cultural differ-
ences by creating a uniform society based on the principles of a socialist
culture, there were some older professors who furthered this cause by
providing mostly covert information on these forbidden topics through
personal research and expeditions. Having to work within a restrictive
system meant that research on topics that were not a part of the party line
required finding a means to explore this information under the pretext of
one’s own field of study. One such man was Heino Liimets (1928–1989),
a literary scholar who actually examined the etymology and movement
of language through literature, and found a path to, and interest in, the
esoteric world. Another was Lembit Andresen (1929–), a pedagogical
scholar and writer, who used his research into the historical roots of
Estonian folk schools to examine Livonian13 history and culture. Certain
116 Henno Erikson Parks

rituals and customs that no longer exist today were preserved by the
Livonians. In the fields of literature and linguistics, they were some of the
most influential figures during this period.
Both Liimets and Andresen worked in the Tallinn Pedagogical Institute
in the Department of Pedagogy and Psychology, which intermittently had
close ties with Tartu University during the late Soviet period. Therefore,
it was in these institutions that it was possible to learn something more
about an otherwise hidden and quite forbidden world. However, it was
still an extremely limited group of people who knew anything. To a lesser
degree, handwritten and copiously copied materials on esoteric concepts
and ideas also circulated in the world of psychology, as well as sporadi-
cally into the hands of certain other individuals.
Channels of information flowed from different directions into Estonia
during the Soviet period. For example, Andresen had both German and
Russian roots, and the majority of his source materials came from those
two places—in addition to Livonia—since he researched that area exten-
sively. In 2002, Andresen published an article comparing Estonian and
Livonian folk schools. In contrast, Liimets was more interested in the
linguistic side of Estonian culture and the old traditions and customs
that might have survived. Most of his material came from a more local
cultural context, in which it was common practice to do fieldwork in the
countryside, collecting old songs and traditional sayings and interpreting
them from a linguistics point of view.
Perhaps both scholars and others in the field received their inspira-
tion from the work of renowned linguist and folklorist Oskar Loorits
(1900–1961). In 1920, Loorits began making expeditions into Livonia,
where he set about learning the language and writing a monograph on
the belief system of the Livonian people (Krikmann 2000). He visited
the area many times, actively promoting the rights of Livonians, until
1937 when the Latvian government revoked his right to enter the coun-
try any longer. Loorits immigrated to Sweden in 1944, where he contin-
ued his scholarly work at Uppsala University in the Dialect and Folklore
Archives. His ethnographic work and methodology have been pivotal in
all research related to Estonian folklore and linguistic studies.

Siberian Express
Another phenomenon may have occurred during the Soviet period that
had a lasting influence on folk beliefs and the introduction of shaman-
ism back into the Estonian mainstream. As Tuisk states, “Estonia is a
nation with a sizable Diaspora. In the early twentieth century about a
sixth of Estonians lived outside their ethnic homeland. In the context of
Figure 6.2 Map of Siberian Estonian Villages (Siberi Eesti Külade Kaart).14
118 Henno Erikson Parks

expatriation, Siberia has been a significant destination at various peri-

ods in history” (2005). Throughout history, the reasons why Estonians
moved to Siberia were varied: some were deportees, others went for reli-
gious reasons, such as to build Lutheran settlements, and many went to
colonize new territories (see Figure 6.2).
By the postwar period, there was an exodus of Estonians from the
settlements due to assimilation, urbanization, and dissatisfaction with
the repressions carried out by the Soviet government. Many Estonians
returned home, bringing with them a rich cultural admixture of folklore
and beliefs from the local native population. Over time, many of these
traditions merged with local ones, including Siberian shamanism. In
Estonia, there is an old tradition of also calling village healers, or “doc-
tors,” Maatark, literally meaning a person who is wise about the land.
Generally, this person had a good deal of herbal knowledge and was
experienced with working with the natural world (in Estonian, maar-
ohtudega, land medicine). One such wise woman whom I was able to
interview, let us call her Linda, explained the above situation as follows:

These beliefs are very important, especially as more Russians came in [to
Estonia], bringing with them their own beliefs and legends, mixing them
with both the Russian-speaking and Estonian peoples. They use a lot of black
magic over there, and often we say that many of these magical practices and
rituals have come from Russia. And some of them were brought over by the
returning Estonians who were exiled, as they interacted with the people in the
villages.15

Interestingly, she adds a third category of people to the list of Russians

and returning Estonians who were considered as sources of information
and carriers of cultural traditions and beliefs:

Well, they [beliefs] also came with the Roma people. It is known, after all, that
they have witches, and people believe in what they do. This probably already
began before World War II, when they were even more feared and people
believed in what they did. During the Soviet times, they put them to work and
tried to make them melt into the local population.16

Those deportees who returned to Estonia were still fearful of reprisal,

and did not develop or explore their understanding of these cultural tra-
ditions and practices further. However, the background and influence
were there, and would later help establish foundations for the new move-
ments that found momentum following independence. It is from the time
period following Stalin’s death that the term shaman was introduced into
the Estonian vocabulary, where it had hitherto been coined as nõid, as
was discussed earlier in this chapter.
 Metroshamanism 119

As previously mentioned, the Soviet era was marked by the active

implementation of Marxism-Leninism doctrine, which consistently
advocated the control, suppression, and total elimination of religion
from society. Under these circumstances, where people could not attend
church without consequences or even celebrate Christmas, it would also
have been unimaginable to walk into a forest and sing to a stone, or tie a
ribbon on a tree and say a prayer, without fear of being sent to a mental
institution. In fact, one of the greatest fears people struggled with was
being perceived as different in some way, as that meant they might be
diagnosed as mentally ill, placed in an insane asylum, and given powerful
medications to counter their supposed delirium. In many cases, people
who were completely normal were made mentally ill by undergoing such
experiences. As a result, these institutions were full of people who had
the abilities and calling to be healers and shamans, but through the abuse
of medication were reduced to shells of their former selves.17
According to Shaman Mikk Sarv, materials could be found during the
Soviet period if one knew where to look for them. He says,

A very memorable experience happened in 1973 when I attended a lecture giv-

ing an in-depth overview of both Western and Russian literature. In fact, these
materials are the same, after all, and the Russian archives, ethnographic col-
lections, and proceedings were not secret at all. I myself have been to Siberia
and researched the archives while doing fieldwork in 1977 and 1978. It was
considered more as relating to the development of regional culture. (2011)

Wise Woman Linda corroborates this, although she indicated that many
materials were passed around in secrecy:

In Tallinn, toward the end of the 1960s and during the 1970s, there was a
pastor in Holy Ghost Church (Pühavaimu kirik) who translated the works of
Castaneda18 and distributed hand-written copies around to certain people. I
received a copy in the 1970s. They were sometimes typed, copied, and passed
from hand to hand. Those who really wanted to get their hands on them did
get them. (2011)

What Happens Next

The tradition of collecting data outside of Estonian borders in order to
define the cultural inheritance of a nation continued into the post-Soviet
period. One person to undertake this was the artist Kadri Viires, who is
currently working at the University of Art. Viires herself states that

knowledge of the existing wealth of folk traditions and the preserved heritage
of folk art is very important. In my textiles I have not interpreted specific,
120 Henno Erikson Parks

recognizable traditional symbols, but have been inspired by nature, colors, and
the world view and folklore familiar to Estonians and our distant linguistic
relatives—the people who speak Finno-Ugric languages. In my work this tends
to be expressed in the form of an abstract connection with the heritage of the
culture of the natural world, as well as with the spirituality of folk traditions.
(2006–7)

It has been said that Viires follows a shamanic tradition herself, draw-
ing upon those elements of design and tradition that make it uniquely
Estonian.
Furthermore, following the Soviet period, many people felt a vacuum
in their spiritual lives. As a result, many undertook a search for a spe-
cifically native Estonian belief system, and they began to experiment
with new faiths and forms of spiritual practice. However, author and
researcher Mare Kõiva believes that this phenomenon happened much
earlier, as early as the 1980s. She says,

I believe that our neo-shamanic movement had its roots in Scandinavia. Many
teachers were invited here from Denmark and Sweden. This was a very impor-
tant period. Already Leonid Brezhnev himself when he was ill used a lot of
alternative healers, as well as the whole cabinet of older men surrounding him,
also very happily used these healers and alternative methods to get a little
boost. (2011)

Kõiva claims that the birth of neoshamanism in Scandinavia had a great

influence on Estonia, and that the first teachers of shamanism who entered
the country introduced the methods and works of Harner. Kõiva states,
“He [Harner] himself came here a couple of times, I believe!” (2011).
Furthermore, she feels that both the Sami and the Native American
cultures were highly regarded in most circles. American Indians were
invited over as soon as it was possible to do so, and contacts with Sami
representatives were developed. But the activities that became very popu-
lar at the time were the influx of shamanic practitioners who came over
from Finland, Sweden, and Norway, performing various songs and rit-
uals. Harner had created an organization named the Soviet-American
Shamanism (SAS) Program, which

included sponsoring, and financially supporting, grassroots shamanic train-

ing workshops in Kiev and Moscow, as well as in such countries in Eastern
Europe as Hungary, Latvia, Estonia, Poland and, even before the Berlin wall
came down, East Germany. The Foundation also had a contract with the Soviet
Ministry of Health to introduce shamanic healing methods (there known as
“Psychorhythmo-therapy [Harner Method]”) for the drug-free treatment of
alcoholism and addiction problems. Michael Harner and the Foundation coop-
erated with anthropologists of the Soviet Academy of Sciences with regard to
 Metroshamanism 121

the study of shamanism and introduced the experiential study of shamanism to

the anthropological academic community there.19

Despite the fact that Kõiva feels there is evidence that the neoshamanic
movement, which was sweeping Scandinavia at the time, had some influ-
ence in Estonia during the late Soviet era, evidence has shown that this
was not the case. In a telephone interview with Jonathan Horowitz, a
student of Harner and a teacher and field researcher from 1984–1993 in
the Foundation for Shamanic Studies, he confirmed that Harner himself
had never visited Estonia. However, Horowitz did visit Estonia twice
to give workshops, which he described as being experiential journey-
style events. He worked closely with Shaman Mikk Sarv, who organized
the events in a nonacademic setting (Parks 2013). Sarv confirms that
Horowitz visited Estonia two times between the years 1990 and 1991,
and then came along on two joint expeditions to the Russian Sápmi terri-
tories, once in 1992 and again in 2002. Clearly, these visits occurred post
factum, following the collapse of the Soviet empire. When asked whether
he could recall if there ever were any workshops or lectures on shaman-
ism given by foreign visitors during the Soviet period, Sarv said that there
were none to his recollection, with perhaps the exception of researcher
Mihály Hoppál, who visited during the very last years of the Soviet era
in Estonia (Parks 2013). Furthermore, none of my interviews with cur-
rent practitioners of shamanism and healers indicated any evidence that
someone had attended a lecture or workshop given by a foreign practitio-
ner of shamanism during this period.
This chapter hopefully provides a clearer picture of the methods
Estonians have used in attempts to construct and define shamanic beliefs
and practices in their country, by linking them to the internal aspects of
homegrown shamanism and fusing them with other external factors that
have influenced and affected its development. Fusional shamanism pro-
vides a methodological framework from which to build on other aspects
of metroshamanism in contemporary Estonian society.

Conclusion
The path of shamanism in Estonia has been a complex one, fraught with
controversy, insecurity and a myriad of obstacles. But it has, in a sense,
made a full circle in its journey. We know from our ties with other Finno-
Ugric tribes that shamanism must have been practiced by Estonians in
one form or another at some point in history. There are tantalizing bits
of that past in the ancient chronicles and buried in the archives. In this
chapter, we discussed the connections that exist within the context of
the local traditions of witches, healers, and shamans that fall under the
122 Henno Erikson Parks

Estonian label of nõid. We have also analyzed the term shamanism itself
and the dilemma its definition presents within contemporary ethnological
and religious research by proposing an alternate term or methodological
description that might more accurately portray the religioscape of mod-
ern shamanic practices—namely metroshamanism. We can find clues in
music and art, and in the epic poems that emerged during the process of
national awakening. We examined history and Estonia’s close links with
its Scandinavian and Eastern neighbors, and how they impacted religious
and cultural life in this small nation. It was ultimately the ravages of
war, occupation, and repression within the last hundred years or so that
contributed to the Estonians’ losing touch with their shamanic past. But
when they had the freedom once again to search for the soul of their
ancestors, they looked to their neighbors and kin, and in that moment
were able to find a path for shamanism to return to Estonia, where it
found its roots and began to flourish once again. The shamanisms of the
north are intimately entwined with each other, held together by the binds
of history, culture, traditions, language, and religion.

Notes
1. Znamenski explains in great detail how the word shaman came into use in
other languages and cultures: “Since Russians were the first to use the word
shaman to generalize about Siberian spiritual practitioners, some writers
mistakenly assume that Russian authors introduced this expression into
Western literature and scholarship. In reality, the people who brought the
word shaman into Western usage and intellectual culture were the eigh-
teenth-century Germanic explorers and scientists who visited Siberia. They
used the word schaman to familiarize educated European and American
audiences with ecstatic séances performed by native Siberian spiritual ‘doc-
tors.’” Andrei Znamenski, The Beauty of the Primitive: Shamanism and
Western Imagination (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press,
2007), p. 5.
2. Michael Harner, The Way of the Shaman (New York: HarperOne,
1990 [1980]).
3. Mircea Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University, 2004 [1951]).
4. From the film, The Secret Helpers (Original title: De gode hjelperan), directed
by Harry Johansen and Torill Olsen, 2012, Norway, Aage Solbakk speaks
about the Sami worldview of the time.
5. According to Sven-Erik Soosaar of the Institute of the Estonian Language,
the roots of the word nõid are to be found in the etymology of the Finno-
Baltic Sámi, as well as in the more distantly related Ugrian language of the
Mansi, who live within the Tyumen Oblast of Russia. In that language, it
means “shaman” or “witch.” What is noteworthy is the fact that this root
 Metroshamanism 123

word has only survived among the Mansi, whereas it does not exist in the
Khanty language, a people who reside in the same region. Soosaar believes
that the root word is derived from the original proto Finno-Ugric language,
and that possibly with the demise of shamanic practices among those peo-
ples, it can be postulated that the root word also similarly vanished from
other Ugrian languages of the Uralic family (IF mgt 2011/124:1–2. Interview
with Sven-Erik Soosaar in Tallinn, Estonia. May 9, 2011).
6. The concept of metrolingualism is discussed in detail by Emi Otsuji and
Alastair Pennycook in their paper on “Metrolingualism: Fixity, Fluidity and
Language in Flux.” A methodological adaptation of this concept to shaman-
ism creates a good framework from which to build an understanding of the
practice, and is the basis for the term metroshamanism.
7. Jüri Kurman, translator. Afterword of FR. R. Kreutzwald. Kalevipoeg: An
Ancient Estonian Tale (Moorestown, NJ: Symposia Press, 1982). Kurman
adds that “As for the folkloristic authenticity of Kalevipoeg, it can be said
that at least three fourths of the epic is directly based on Estonian oral tra-
dition, with folk tales furnishing the bulk of the material, fairy tales con-
tributing substantially (about one third), and folk songs accounting for
approximately one eighth of the verses of the epic. The portion of the poem
not based on Estonian folklore is either Kreutzwald’s own creation, or, in
the case of about five percent of the verses, is based on Finnish materials”
(p. 287).
8. For a comprehensive history of the island of Saaremaa, see http://www.saa-
remaa.ee/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=277&Itemid=
306.
9. An eminent Estonian shaman, Thule Lee, continues to practice the art of
divination by throwing and reading runes. This is a common phenomenon
among many of the Estonian practitioners. In his book, Estide (tšuudide)
hingestatud Ilm: Teadaandmise Raamat (Männisalu 2001), Aleksander
Heintalu, better known as Vigala Sass, describes in great detail runes that
he feels are innately Estonian in nature, and provides an interpretation and
use for them.
10. “A part of the Soviet cultural politics was the selective destruction of cultural
heritage created by the preceding generations. During the post-war years,
libraries were emptied of the ‘heritage of bourgeois society’; in the course of
this activity, a considerable number of periodicals and books of fiction, pub-
lished during the period of independent Estonia, were destroyed and most
of the remaining copies were kept under restricted access. In addition to
all this, the whole society was drowned in propaganda that was meant to
subject the spiritual sphere of life to the control of the ruling regime” (Eesti
Instituut, 2012).
11. Lennart Meri’s film The Winds of the Milky Way (original title: Linnutee
Tuuled), produced: 1976–1977, was the winner of the Silver Medal at the
22nd New York International Film and TV Festival in 1979.
12. The Sounds of Kaleva (original title: Kaleva Hääled) is replete with sha-
manic symbols, including drums and other paraphanalia as a part of the
ritual that is portrayed in the video.
124 Henno Erikson Parks

13. Livonia (Est. Liivimaa) was the historic region of the Finnic Livonians, who
lived along the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea, and encompassing parts of
present-day Latvia and Estonia.
14. Astrid Tuisk. Estonian Folklore Archive, 2005, 2013. http://www.folklore
.ee/estonka/files/index.php?id=157&keel=eng. Accessed: January 28, 2014.
15. The Wise Woman wished to remain completely anonymous and would only
allow me to take notes on what she said; therefore, there is no official source.
Interview: Kuressaare, Estonia. July 16, 2011.
16. Ibid.
17. A compilation of comments made by the Wise Woman, Linda. Interview:
Kuressaare, Estonia. July 16, 2011.
18. Carlos Castaneda wrote several books during the stated period, among
them: The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge, 1968; A
Separate Reality: Further Conversations with Don Juan, 1971; Journey to
Ixtlan: The Lessons of Don Juan, 1972; Tales of Power, 1974; and The
Second Ring of Power, 1977.
19. Michael Harner, “The History and Work of the Foundation for Shamanic
Studies,” Shamanism, 25th Anniversary Issue 2005, 18(1&2). Note: I have
not been able to verify the exact dates of their visits to Estonia.

References
Andresen, Lembit. 2002. “Pestalozzi ja Eesti. J. H. Pestalozzi kaudmõjud Eesti-
ja Liivimaa rahvakoolide arengule 19. sajandi kahel esimesel aastakümnel.”
(Pestalozi and Estonia. J. H. Pestalozzi’s Indirect Effects on the Development
of Estonian and Livonian Folk Schools). Haridus. Eesti pedagoogilise üldsuse
ajakiri, 1: 59–61.
Asbjørn, Jøn. 1999. Shamanism and the Image of the Teutonic Deity, Óðinn.
Folklore (Tartu) January 1999; Source: DOAJ. http://www.folklore.ee/folk-
lore/vol10/teuton.htm. Accessed: January 21, 2014.
Curry, Andrew. 2013. “Two Remarkable Ships May Show that the Viking Storm
Was Brewing Long before Their Assault on England and the Continent.”
Archaeology, June 10. http://www.archaeology.org/issues/95-1307/features
/941-vikings-saaremaa-estonia-salme-vendel-oseberg. Accessed: January 21,
2014.
Eesti Instituut (Estonian Institute). 2010. “Control over Cultural Life. Estonica:
Encyclopedia about Estonia. Created: February 25, Last Modified: October
10, 2012. http://www.estonica.org/en/History/1945-1985_The_Soviet_Period
/Control_over_cultural_life/. Accessed: April 9, 2013.
Eliade, Mircea. 2004 [1951]. Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Esslemont, Tom. 2011. “Spirituality in Estonia—The World’s ‘Least Religious’
Country.” BBC News: Europe. August 26. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news
/world-europe-14635021. Accessed: September 21, 2011.
Estonia.eu. “Estonia’s History: Chronology.” http://estonia.eu/about-estonia
/history/estonias-history.html. Accessed: January 23, 2014.
 Metroshamanism 125

Harner, Michael. 2005. “The History and Work of the Foundation for Shamanic
Studies,” Shamanism, 25th Anniversary Issue, 18(1&2).
———.1990; 1980. The Way of the Shaman. New York: HarperOne.
Høst, Annette. 2001. “Thoughts on ‘Neo shamanism,’ ‘Core Shamanism,’
‘Urban Shamanism’ and Other labels: Modern Shamanic Practice.” First
written for the shamanic newsletter “Spirit Talk,” issue 14, with the
title “What’s in a Name?” Scandinavian Center for Shamanic Studies.
21.01.2014. http://www.shamanism.dk/modernshamanism.htm. Accessed:
January 20, 2014.
IF mgt 2011/120. Interview with Mare Kõiva in Tartu, Estonia. May 3, 2011.
IF mgt 2011/121. Interview with Mikk Sarv: Tartu, Estonia. August 4, 2011.
IF mgt 2011/124:1–2. Interview with Sven-Erik Soosaar in Tallinn, Estonia. May
9, 2011.
Johansen, Harry, and Torill Olsen, Directors. 2012. The Secret Helpers (Original
title: De gode hjelperan), Norway. Film, 59 minutes.
Krikmann, Luule (ed.) 2000. Liivi rahva usund. I: mit einem Referat: Der
Volksglaube der Liven (Livonian Beliefs. I: with a paper: The Folk Beliefs of
the Livonians), Tartu Ülikool 1926, 270 lk; II 1927, 280 lk; III 1928, 284 lk;
I-III köite kordustrükk: Eesti Keele Instituut, Tartu 1998, 870 lk; IV-V köide
(käsikirja järgi avaldatud esmatrükk): jt; tõlked saksa keelest (translated
from German): Reet Hiiemäe; tõlked liivi keelest ja eessõna (translated from
Livonian and Forword): Kristi Salve, EKM, Tartu 2000, 394 + 180 pages.
Kurman, Jüri. (trans.). 1982. Afterword of FR. R. Kreutzwald. Kalevipoeg: An
Ancient Estonian Tale. Moorestown, NJ: Symposia Press, p. 287.
Maran, Rein. 2009. “He Knew How to Be . . . ” Lennart Meri Soome-Ugri
Rahvaste Filmientsüklopeedia 1970–1997. Encyclopaedia Cinematographica
Gentium Fenno-Ugricarum (Soome-Ugri Rahvaste Filmientsüklopeedia: Viis
Dokumentaalfilmi 1970–1997) DVD booklet.
Meri, Lennart (dir.) 1977/1007. The Shaman (original title: Šamaan), digi-
tally remastered: Tallinnfilm. Encyclopaedia Cinematographica Gentium
Fenno-Ugricarum (Soome-Ugri Rahvaste Filmientsüklopeedia: Viis
Dokumentaalfilmi 1970–1997) DVD.
———. 1988–1989. The Sons of Torum (original title: Toorumi Pojad), digi-
tally remastered: Tallinnfilm. Encyclopaedia Cinematographica Gentium
Fenno-Ugricarum (Soome-Ugri Rahvaste Filmientsüklopeedia: Viis
Dokumentaalfilmi 1970–1997) DVD.
———. 1985. The Sounds of Kaleva (original title: Kaleva Hääled), digitally
remastered: Tallinnfilm. 2009. Encyclopaedia Cinematographica Gentium
Fenno-Ugricarum (Soome-Ugri Rahvaste Filmientsüklopeedia: Viis
Dokumentaalfilmi 1970–1997) DVD.
———. 1976–1977. The Winds of the Milky Way (original title: Linnutee
Tuuled), produced: 1976–1977, digitally remastered: Tallinnfilm. 2009.
Encyclopaedia Cinematographica Gentium Fenno-Ugricarum (Soome-Ugri
Rahvaste Filmientsüklopeedia: Viis Dokumentaalfilmi 1970–1997) DVD.
Otsuji, Emi, and Alastair Pennycook. 2010. “Metrolingualism: Fixity, Fluidity
and Language in Flux,” International Journal of Multilingualism 7(3):
240–254.
126 Henno Erikson Parks

Pall, Valdek (ed.). Dialectological Dictionary of Estonia (Väike murde sõnaraa-

mat). The Institute of the Estonian Language (Eesti Keele Instituut). Tallinn:
Estonia. 1982–1989. Online word search for nõid. http://www.eki.ee/cgi-bin
/murdekaart.cgi?num=34214&sona=n%F5id. Accessed: January 21, 2014.
Parks, Henno. 2013. Telephone Interview with Jonathan Horowitz. “Visits to
Soviet Estonia.” 18:50, April 10.
———. 2013. Telephone Interview with Mikk Sarv. “Visits to Soviet Estonia.”
20:45, April 10.
Reeman, Vaike, and Piret Õunapuu. 2004. Crafts and Arts in Estonia: Past and
Present. Eesti Instituut: Estonian Institute Publications.
Tormis, Veljo. 2007–2011. Veljo Tormis Databank. http://www.tormis.ee
/VTindex.html. Accessed: April 9, 2013.
Tuisk, Astrid. 2005. “Estonians in Siberia.” Estonian Folklore Archive. 2005.
http://www.folklore.ee/estonka/files/index.php?id=32&keel=eng. Accessed:
09.04.2013.
Viires, Kadri. 2006–07. “My Textile—My Text Style,” Cloth and Culture Now.
University College for the Creative Arts. Lesley Millar. http://www.clothand-
culturenow.com/Kadri_Viires.html Accessed: April 6, 2013.
Webb, H. S. 2013. “Expanding Western Definitions of Shamanism: A
Conversation with Stephan Beyer, Stanley Krippner, and Hillary S. Webb,”
Anthropology of Consciousness, 24: 57–75. doi: 10.1111/anoc.12000.
Znamenski, Andrei. 2007. The Beauty of the Primitive: Shamanism and Western
Imagination. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. (p. 5).
 7
New Age Medicine Men versus New Age
Noaidi: Same Neoshamanism, Different
Sociopolitical Situation

James R. Lewis

As a movement, neoshamanism has propagated the idea of a universal

shamanism as being the traditional religion of all indigenous people. And
whether this portrayal is accurate or not, neoshamanism has become a
global phenomenon. However, some academic observers have articulated
certain themes about the politics of essentialized indigenous identity and
spirituality that paint the production of neoshamanism as artificial and
inauthentic. This has particularly been the case with certain forms of
North American neoshamanism in which Euroamericans have adopted/
adapted Native American spiritual traditions, a pattern that has been
harshly criticized as cultural colonialism.
However, although core practices and ideas might be similar, one finds
that neoshamanism has taken root in contrasting sociopolitical situations.
In the Sami case, we know comparatively little about traditional Sami
spirituality. “Sami shamanism,” or whatever one wishes to call “tradi-
tional” Sami spirituality, has been largely created by contemporary Sami
individuals who were, at least initially, informed by Michael Harner’s
core shamanism and a New Age view of universal indigenous spiritual-
ity. Subsequently, in sharp contrast to commercialized Native American
spirituality, many Sami have adopted this contemporary spiritual form.
And because so many of the “natives” have become participants, both
academic and nonacademic observers have been reluctant to characterize
“traditional Sami shamanism” as inauthentic. This chapter will analyze
the contrast between the contexts of New Age Sami shamanism and New
128 James R. Lewis

Age Native American shamanism, and how they are differently regarded
by the respective indigenous peoples.

Background
The phenomenon as well as the current popularity of neoshamanism arises
from more than one source. To begin with the movement’s intellectual
background, it has regularly been noted that a lineage of three academi-
cians—Mircea Eliade, Carlos Castaneda, and Harner—articulated and
popularized the notion of shamanism. Additionally, Joseph Campbell’s
romantic neo-Jungian approach to mythology exerted a major influ-
ence on many neoshamans (Dubois 2009: 266–267). In Eliade’s origi-
nal conceptualization, shamanism was a complex of particular ideas and
practices that were widespread but not universal. Thus, for example, in
sections of the book in which he covers shamanism’s presence in differ-
ent world cultures, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, Eliade
does not even attempt to discuss parallel phenomena in Semitic or in
traditional African societies—which he viewed as cultures without sha-
manic traditions. However, by the time we get to Harner, shamanism
has become a generic label for a certain kind of religious specialist found
within small-scale traditional societies all over the world. Castaneda left
academia to promulgate his fictionalized shamanism (Hardman 2007) in
a way that “established key elements of later neoshamanistic explora-
tions, as well as the broader New Age ideology” (Dubois 2009: 267).
Harner went a step further by leaving the ivory tower to actively teach
shamanic techniques in workshops on what he called core shamanism at
his Foundation for Shamanic Studies (Jakobsen 1999: 159–165).
Another way of viewing contemporary neoshamanism is in terms of
its appeal to romantic primitivism. The image of the Noble Savage dates
back to the early modern period, when cultural critics used the puta-
tive nobility of people in a “state of nature” to criticize various aspects
of contemporaneous “civilized” society. By the nineteenth century (von
Stuckrad 2002), admiration for so-called “primitives” had filtered down
to the level of romantic fiction. Such peoples were viewed as being free
from the various constraints imposed by bourgeois culture, and this sup-
position made them attractive to Westerners oppressed by their socio-
economic environment and repressed by internalized cultural norms.
The ambivalence toward the constraints of Western culture worked itself
out in tragic narratives that portrayed the inevitable demise of savages
(noble as well as ignoble) after being confronted with “civilization.” Thus
the reader of such tales could imaginatively participate in the imputed
freedom and lifestyle of people in a state of nature and simultaneously
feel that the culture to which he or she was otherwise committed was
 New Age Medicine Men 129

ultimately superior and would, in the long run, completely supplant “sav-
agery” (Barnett 1975; Dippie 1982).
By the time the sixties counterculture arrived, this mixed attitude
had given way to all-out admiration for peoples outside of Western cul-
ture and idealization of “tribal” lifestyles (e.g., “Why Tribe?”, in Snyder
1969, 114–115). But some participants in the counterculture were eager
to directly experience the spirituality and lifestyle of traditional peoples,
which gave rise to such phenomena as the Bear Tribe (currently, the
Panther Lodge Medicine Society), a “tribe” comprised of non-Indians,
although founded by an individual of Ojibwa descent, Sun Bear (Vincent
LaDuke). In the postcounterculture period, romantic primitivists were
still attracted to selectively experiencing aspects of indigenous spirituality,
but, unlike the Bear Tribe counterculturists, they wanted to do so with-
out actually abandoning the comforts of their middle-class lifestyles.
The alternative spiritual subculture that became visible after the
demise of the sixties counterculture—referred to variously as the cultic
milieu, occulture or, most commonly, the New Age—is where neosha-
manism has taken root. As discussed elsewhere (e.g., Lewis 1992: 10),
one of the confusing aspects of this milieu is the extent to which it is
characterized by fads. For example, if we understand the New Age as
a movement that came into being in the 1970s, then the early New Age
was dominated by an interest in imported Asian religions. Subsequently,
by the time this alternative spiritual subculture became the focus of news
media attention in the latter half of the eighties, items like crystals and
activities like channeling were popular. When interest in these specific
phenomena waned, observers began pronouncing the “death” of the
New Age. But what was actually taking place was that people in alterna-
tive spirituality circles were simply changing the focus of their collective
interest to other topics, such as angels, Native American spirituality and,
eventually, neoshamanism. The difference, however, is that neoshaman-
ism has had an influence beyond the alternative milieu, which has given
it staying power.
In significant ways, the attractiveness of neoshamanism is based on the
attractiveness of a highly romanticized image of traditional indigenous
societies for whom shamanism is the natural religion. “Values relating to
nature and to the landscape mark a distinction between a place-oriented,
peaceful, holistic, traditional, and eco-friendly indigenous culture and a
modern western capitalist society” (Fonneland 2012: 165). Furthermore,
by virtue of the logic of this oppositional structure, the West is implicitly
or explicitly portrayed as place-less, violent, disconnected, exploitative
and so on (Kraft 2010: 57).
This idealized vision of indigenous cultures has become a global ide-
ology (Kraft 2009). Certain themes in this discourse about indigenous
130 James R. Lewis

peoples have particularly been articulated in United Nations documents

and regulations—documents that go so far as to assert that indigenous
peoples have a special spiritual relationship with—and therefore certain
special rights over—landscapes regarded as part of their spiritual tradi-
tions (Fonneland and Kraft 2013: 139–140). Thus, for example, Article
25 of the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous
Peoples (UNDRIP) asserts that indigenous peoples have “the right to
maintain and strengthen their distinctive spiritual relationship with their
traditionally owned or otherwise occupied and used lands, territories,
waters and coastal seas and other resources.”
The notion that indigenous peoples universally regard themselves as
having “a special spiritual relationship” with the natural landscape per-
fectly reflects the older romantic idea of the Noble Savage. This picture
has been brought up to date and propagated primarily by participants
in the New Age milieu. As discussed by Trude Fonneland and Siv Ellen
Kraft, “Regular references to indigenous peoples as children of Mother
Earth are similarly common in UN fora, along with references to a holis-
tic worldview” (2013: 140).1
Beyond the articulation of a vague spiritual relationship between the
natural world and indigenous people, in Article 34 the UNDRIP also
explicitly asserts that aboriginal peoples have the “right to promote,
develop and maintain” their distinctive customs, including their spiritual
traditions. Additionally, Article 24 recognizes that indigenous peoples
“have the right to their traditional medicines and to maintain their health
practices,” such as, presumably, the medical practices of such traditional
healers as “shamans.”
It took over a quarter of a century for UNDRIP to be formulated.
When it was finally put up for a vote in the UN General Assembly, it
passed overwhelmingly. Only Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the
United States voted against it—countries containing remnants of indige-
nous populations that had achieved a measure of legal recognition. These
four nations eventually endorsed the declaration as well.

New Age Appropriations of Native

American Spirituality
Although the ideology postulating a universal indigenous spirituality—a
key component of contemporary neoshamanism—seems to have been
generally accepted, neoshamanism has not. Native American spokes-
people in particular have taken offense whenever nonnative peoples
adopt and practice select parts of indigenous spiritual systems, and espe-
cially when Native entrepreneurs teach traditional practices to nonna-
tives. A key accusation found in Native discourses about opposition to
 New Age Medicine Men 131

White adoptions of their traditions is cultural imperialism: for centuries,

Euroamericans stole the lands of American Indians; now they want to
steal Native religions.
This accusation is fundamental, and has been stated in multiple ways
in numerous places. Thus, for example, Janet McCloud, Tulalip elder and
fishing rights advocate, says that “First they came to take our land and
water, then our fish and game. . . . Now they want our religions as well.
All of a sudden, we have a lot of unscrupulous idiots running around say-
ing they’re medicine people. And they’ll sell you a sweat lodge ceremony
for fifty bucks. It’s not only wrong, it’s obscene. Indians don’t sell their
spirituality to anybody, for any price. This is just another in a very long
series of thefts from Indian people and, in some ways, this is the worst
one yet” (qtd. in Churchill 2003).
McCloud’s evaluation is not unique. Thus, for example, in an evoc-
atively titled article published in the popular Ms. Magazine, “For All
Those Who Were Indian in a Former Life,” Andrea Smith asserts that
“While New Agers may think they are escaping white racism by becom-
ing ‘Indian,’ they are in fact continuing the same genocidal practices of
their forebears” (1991a). Elsewhere, Smith observes that “The ‘Indian
ways’ that these white, new-age ‘feminists’ are practicing have very little
basis in reality. . . . these New Agers do not understand Indian people or
our struggles for survival and thus can have no genuine understanding of
Indian spiritual practices” (1991b: 18).
Pam Colorado, an Oneida activist, goes further: “The process is ulti-
mately intended to supplant Indians, even in areas of their own customs
and spirituality. In the end, non-Indians will have complete power to
define what is and is not Indian, even for Indians. We are talking here
about an absolute ideological/conceptual subordination of Indian people
in addition to the total physical subordination they already experience.
When this happens, the last vestiges of real Indian society and Indian
rights will disappear. Non-Indians will then ‘own’ our heritage and ideas
as thoroughly as they now claim to own our land and resources” (qtd. in
Rose 1992: 405).
Whatever one might think about these statements, it is not difficult to
understand why—given the ugly history of Euroamerican dealings with
Native peoples—the indigenous people of North America would hold
such views. One might wonder, however, why non-Native scholars would
similarly express harsh criticisms toward the New Age appropriation of
American Indian spirituality. Excerpts from two different academic arti-
cles will suffice to exemplify the tone of this discourse.
In the first paragraph of her essay on Eliade and Åke Hultkrantz,
Alice Kehoe describes these two scholars as marked by “an arrogant cul-
tural imperialism that denies full humanity to the first nations of the
Americas” (1996: 377). On the last page of her article, Kehoe adds that
132 James R. Lewis

these men and others promoted the myth that “there is a dazzling present
world transcending the dull empiricism of the bourgeois West . . . a myth
that far away the long ago still exists. There in the wild places, noble sav-
ages preserve the true spirituality cast out of our cities” (388). She also
flatly asserts that “Educated men cannot become shamans,” a strange
statement, which clearly (if unintentionally) implies that the only true
shamans are people lacking such an education.
Slightly less acerbic but no less critical, Lisa Aldred, in her article on
“Plastic Shamans and Astroturf Sun Dances,” examines the New Age
appropriation of Native American spirituality, especially the character of
participation in the New Age subculture, through the lenses of a series
of different critical commentators and social theorists. The resulting por-
trait is unflattering, to put it mildly, and Aldred can find nothing positive
about the appropriators other than to say that, on the whole, New Age
consumers appear to have good intentions. As for the people who cre-
ate relevant products for such consumers, “plastic shamans, as well as
other New Age entrepreneurs, could be viewed as “ransackers” of Native
American spiritual traditions in search of ways to market them to con-
sumers. They produce new interpretations by fusing bastardized versions
of these traditions with self-help pop psychology, as well as exotic blends
appropriated from other cultural traditions” (2000: 342–343).
While not all scholars of Native American traditions express
this kind of disdain for New Age appropriations, the fact that these
two pieces both appeared in the respected journal American Indian
Quarterly indicates that such a perspective enjoys the support of main-
stream scholarly specialists in this area of study. This way of framing
the New Age interest in Native spirituality treats it as if it were some
sort of a disease or at least an aberration, unworthy of serious study.
Hence, by implication the only legitimate response to this phenomenon
is critical and dismissive.

Traditional New Age Noaidi

At first glance, the situation of the Sami, an indigenous people located in
northern Norway, Sweden, Finland, and northwest Russia, seems quite
similar to that of Native American groups in North America. Some writ-
ers have even referred to the Sami as the “White Indians” of the Nordic
region (Gaski 1993). The strongest parallel is that the Sami were oppressed
by the dominant non-Sami peoples in all four countries. For example,
land was confiscated, the Sami language(s) was(were) suppressed, their
indigenous religion(s) was(were) destroyed, and Sami women were steril-
ized against their will, particularly in Sweden. As with the situation in
North America, in more recent years steps have been taken in Nordic
countries to partially undo centuries of cultural genocide.
 New Age Medicine Men 133

There are, nevertheless, differences. In the first place, the non-Sami

Nordic peoples are not colonizers in the sense of being foreign invad-
ers who supplanted the Sami, although Nordic peoples did, in a sense,
“invade” the northern regions and then ruled over the Sami. Also, despite
claims to the contrary, most Sami do not stand out as racially differ-
ent from their Nordic fellow countrymen. 2 Another major difference is
that while Christian missionaries in North America tried but in most
cases failed to destroy Native American religions, Nordic missionaries
managed to completely disrupt traditional Sami religion as a compre-
hensive religious system. One obtains a clear sense of this destructive
process from studies such as Håkan Rydving’s The End of Drum-Time
(2004 [1993]).
So where does the current phenomenon of “traditional Sami spiritual-
ity/Sami shamanism” come from? In a complete inversion of the North
American situation, it has primarily been people who are ethnically Sami3
who have adopted both the notion of a universal “indigenous spiritual-
ity” as well as a form of neoshamanism based on Harner’s core shaman-
ism—modified to conform to what little is known about the noaidi, the
religious specialist of pre-Christian Sami culture.
The history of how this came about can be traced, on the one hand,
to Ailo Gaup, a Sami who was raised by foster parents in Oslo. After he
grew up, Gaup traveled to northern Norway in search of a noaidi who
could teach him about his spiritual roots. However, as already indicated,
the aboriginal spirituality of the Sami had, for the most part, died off
long before. What he found instead was a Chilean refugee who had stud-
ied under Harner and who was able to introduce him to neoshamanic
trance journeys via a Chilean version of core shamanism. Gaup then trav-
eled to the United States to study directly under Harner, later returning
to Oslo and establishing himself as a professional shaman (Gaup 2005).
As neoshamanism grew, certain other Sami (as well as other indigenous
groups) approached Harner, “requesting that he teach core-shamanism
to restore their sacred knowledge formerly disrupted due to conquest and
missionisation” (Wallis 2003: 221–222).
Another development that helped prepare the way for Sami neosha-
manism was the growth of the New Age subcultural milieu in Nordic
countries. As noted earlier, this milieu has been especially receptive to
the notion of a universal indigenous spirituality that is portrayed as con-
gruent with New Age thought. It has been participants in this subculture
who have been particularly interested in neoshamanism. As discussed
by Christensen, it was approximately five years into the new millennium
when the northern Norwegian New Age milieu began to turn its collec-
tive attention to Sami shamanism (2007).
Yet another development that helped prepare the ground for the rebirth
of Sami indigenous spirituality lies in the emergence of Sami national
134 James R. Lewis

consciousness and Sami cultural revival, generally regarded as having

its roots in the ongoing demonstrations against the damming of the Alta
Kautokeino river in the Sami area in northern Norway—protests that
began in the late seventies (Hætta 2002).

Artists, musicians and young scholars who wanted to improve the political
situation of the Sami began to explore the old Sámi culture, searching for
building blocks for a new and proud Sámi identity. The traditional Sámi folk
costumes were more commonly worn by young people, traditional crafts were
revitalized, and folklore material was investigated in the search of a common
background. (Mathisen 2010: 68–69)

This revival utilized nonreligious aspects of the Sami tradition to sym-

bolize “Sami-ness,” such as traditional clothing (the kofte) and the tradi-
tional Sami tent (the lavvo). Although many Sami belonged to Læstadian
churches—a distinct pietistic tradition within the Lutheran state churches
of the Nordic countries that tended to set the Sami apart from other
Nordic peoples—the cultural revival movement did not initially draw
from religion as an identity resource (Fonneland and Kraft 2013: 133).
As more and more people began to identify as shamans and as self-
identified followers of traditional Sami spirituality grew into a popular
movement, observers naturally questioned the movement’s authenticity.
This problem was solved, in part, by portraying Læstadianism as a pre-
server rather than as a destroyer of the traditional Sami way of life—a
notion that Henry Minde claimed to find in the work of Johs Falkenberg
(1941) and Robert Paine (1965), and that Minde subsequently desig-
nated as “the cultural preservation thesis” (2008: 8). However, although
Læstadianism might traditionally have provided a refuge for Sami iden-
tity, the idea that the core of pre-Christian Sami spirituality was somehow
secretly preserved within Læstadian churches is improbable.4 This has
not, however, prevented contemporary Sami neoshamans from adopting
some version of the cultural continuity thesis as a way of imaginatively
establishing an unbroken lineage back to an idealized Sami pagan past.
Given the contemporary nature of traditional Sami spirituality and
some of its spokespeople’s claims about representing a manifestation of a
previously hidden religious lineage, one might expect that Sami shamans
would become the targets of the same kind of scorn as that meted out to
New Age shamans in North America. Self-proclaimed Sami neoshamans
have certainly not been less commercially oriented than their North
American parallels (Fonneland 2012; Fonneland 2013; Fonneland, forth-
coming; Mathisen 2010). In general, however, Sami neoshamans have
managed to avoid this sort of intense criticism. While the mainstream
media in Nordic countries—especially in Norway—have been extremely
 New Age Medicine Men 135

critical of the New Age in general (Kraft forthcoming), anything with the
aura of being “indigenous Sami” is given a free pass. A few examples will
suffice to illustrate this point.
In her article on Polmakmoen Guesthouse, a retreat facility in
Finnmark in northern Norway founded and run by Sami entrepreneur
Esther Utsi, Trude Fonneland describes the staging of a product that,
at its core, embodies the New Age stereotype of indigenous spiritual-
ity, clothed in traditional Sami trappings. Thus, for example, Fonneland
remarks that on the Guesthouse website, “healing with crystals and pen-
dulums are transferred from their New Age context and presented as a
natural part of a Sami pre-Christian religion, here known as Sami sha-
manism” (Fonneland 2012: 170). Despite the marked tendency of the
Norwegian media to harshly criticize “New Age entrepreneurs as con-
cerned only with economic gain,” in both local and national media, Utsi
is consistently “portrayed and celebrated as a courageous entrepreneur
full of ideas and energy, who has helped put Finnmark on the economic
map” (169).
For another example, in an article on discourse about “tradition”
in discussions of Norwegian neoshamanism, Torunn Selberg recounts
a newspaper story in Dagbladet about Biret Maret Kallio, another
Finnmark resident. Kallio aroused antagonism from local Christians
because of her shamanic practices and her claim to be a noaidi. Accused
of being a representative of the devil, Kallio is quoted as responding that
“It was the Christian people who brought God and the Devil to the Sami
people, not me.” One particularly interesting aspect of the story is that
the reporter gives Kallio the final word in the story, indicating that the
reporter has implicitly taken her side. In her concluding statement, she
claims that she is a representative of an unbroken tradition from pre-
Christian times: “My work has nothing to do with New Age; this is Old
Age. The drum is a vehicle for contact with one’s inner self, with nature,
with the forefathers, and the spirits” (Selberg 2001: 71–72). Kallio’s ref-
erences to “one’s inner self” and to a romanticized “nature,” of course,
imply an entirely different story about her links with New Age ideas.
Earlier in the same article, Selberg briefly discusses a Norwegian
book by Bjørg Vindsetmo, Sjelen som turist: Om religion, terapi og
magi (Spiritual tourism: about religion, therapy and magic) that trashes
alternative religiosity. The author is particularly harsh in her treatment
of neoshamanism. The book’s year of publication, 1995, indicates that
Sjelen som turist appeared before Sami neoshamanism became promi-
nent in Norway. One wonders how Vindsetmo would have approached
her subject matter in the current atmosphere, in which criticism of any-
thing attributable to the Sami tradition is either muted or left unstated.
136 James R. Lewis

Nordic academicians have, of course, noted the discrepancy between

the claims of Sami neoshamans to represent ancient traditions and their
romantic reconstructions. But even their most critical observations are
mild when compared with the harsh critiques leveled by scholars of Native
American traditions against White neoshamans. Thus, for example, in
I Modergudinnens fotspor (In the Mother Goddess’ footsteps), Marit
Myrhaug asserts that in “its worst form of expression this romanticizing
has resulted in something I would describe as “reverse cultural imperi-
alism.” Earlier one was concerned with destroying Sami religion based
on an understanding that it was a bad thing. [Currently,] one is again in
danger of abusing religion, but now based on a ‘positive’ understanding
of it”5 (Myrhaug 1997: 10).
To take another example, in 2007 there was a broad-ranging discus-
sion regarding a neoshamanic performance at the Riddu Riddu music
festival in the Nordlys newspaper. As part of that discussion, the Sami
researcher Harald Gaski expressed criticism of “New Agey flirting with
old Sami traditions,” saying that “The [socio-cultural] context of the old
belief is gone. Thus searching for it is a regressive nostalgia rather than a
liberating experience. One easily ends up trivializing what one wants to
praise, because the time is no longer appropriate for this once powerful
faith” (Nordlys July 19, 2007).
At the most general level, the point of the present juxtaposition of
American neoshamanism with Sami neoshamanism is clear enough:
the same reconstructed neoshamanism that receives such extreme criti-
cism in the North American context has been popularly accepted as an
authentic expression of indigenous spirituality in northern Europe. The
primary reason for this difference is also obvious: whereas the bulk of
neoshamans in North America are White outsiders to Native American
cultures, the majority of individuals self-identifying as Sami shamans
have Sami heritage.6 Additionally, academicians in North America feel
free to rhetorically thrash neoshamanism, whereas Nordic researchers
tend—even in nonacademic forums such as newspaper interviews—to
express their criticisms with less rhetoric. The source of the difference
in tone between these two sets of academicians is unclear, although one
might speculate that some American researchers feel prompted to repro-
duce the outrage of their informants.
Another, less immediately obvious, component of the Nordic con-
text is that, as mentioned earlier, many Samis are Læstadian or from
Læstadian backgrounds. And while these people generally tend to sup-
port the Sami nation-building project and to be proud of many aspects
of their Sami heritage, they are quite averse to the project of resuscitat-
ing pre-Christian Sami religion. However, the voices of these Christians
tend to drop out in mainstream secular press accounts except when
 New Age Medicine Men 137

traditionalist Christianity is implicitly criticized, as in the story about

Kallio mentioned earlier.
Thus, and in sharp contrast to the North American situation, indig-
enous critics of neoshamanism in Northern Europe do not generally
receive media attention. To speak only about Norway and Sweden, it
is clear that one factor at work in this area of the world is that liberal
Scandinavians feel guilty about their nations’ past mistreatment of the
Sami. As a consequence of this postcolonial conscience (Kraft 2011), the
media tends to treat any story about the Sami with extreme care to avoid
accusations of racism. Academicians—the present writer included—are
similarly cautious.

Conclusion
What can be learned from this analysis is a corollary to one of the basic
lessons that were learned in the wake of the rejection of Eliade’s system-
building project. Like James Frazer before him, Eliade had built the case
for certain universal religious patterns by juxtaposing apparently simi-
lar phenomena that he presented minus their original cultural contexts.
The principal drawback of this approach is that—at the ground level in
their original contexts—superficially similar patterns can, and often do,
embody quite different meanings. This is, in part, the thrust of the accu-
sation of “essentialism” that has been leveled against Eliade and others.
“Shamanism” was one of Eliade’s best-known essentialized products.
Harner took this artificial product one step further by creating the
essentialized working system he referred to as core shamanism. Part of his
vision was that people from different backgrounds could then build upon
core shamanism by adding elements from their own religiocultural tradi-
tions (Harner et al. 1990). However, what most of us studying the contem-
porary impact of Harner’s creation tend to remember the most clearly is
that it is an essentialized artifice. What we tend to forget is that, as people
adapt core shamanism to local situations—as the system indigenizes in dif-
ferent corners of the globe—new contexts supply new meanings.
In the present case, what this means is that, despite superficial resem-
blances, the neoshamanisms found in North America and the neosha-
manism that has taken root in the Nordic region of Europe have come to
embody different social significances—one of which has been discussed
in this chapter. Undoubtedly the same is the case with many of the neo-
shamanisms that have been adopted in other areas of the world. Although
observers have not been unmindful of local adaptations, in the future we
need to grasp this point with greater clarity so that we do not fall back
into essentializing modes of analysis all over again.
138 James R. Lewis

Notes
1. For a discussion of the UN context of “indigenism,” refer to Niezen (2003).
The idea that precontact Native Americans had a conception of “Mother
Earth” has been systematically critiqued in such academic studies as Gill
(1987) and Bierhorst (1994). As a counterpoint, this perspective has been
disputed by Native scholars. See, for example, Churchill (1988) and Weaver
(1996).
2. There are slight differences, but the strong racial “otherness” seemingly evi-
dent in older photographs of the Sami is the result of staging meant to empha-
size differentness (Baglo 2001).
3. It should be noted, however, that Scandinavians have also been involved in
Sami neo-shamanism. Thus, for example, a key person involved in the devel-
opment of Sami neo-shamanism in Sweden has been Jørgen I Eriksson, who
is not ethnically Sami.
4. Fragments of pre-Christian healing practices seem to have been preserved
in Sami folk medicine. In this regard, refer, e.g., to Sande and Winterfeldt
(1993) and Miller (2007). One striking element of these practices is so-called
“blood stopping,” the focus of a 2012 documentary by Torill Olsen and Harry
Johansen, De gode hjelperne (The good helpers), http://tv.nrk.no/program
/koid75001113/de-gode-hjelperne. The film is discussed in Caroline Rugeldal’s
short article, “Avslører gamle hemmeligheter” (Revealing ancient secrets)
published by NRK (Norway’s national news service) December27, 2012,
http://www.nrk.no/nordnytt/avslorer-gamle-hemmeligheter-1.10853683.
5. Translated by Trude Fonneland.
6. Non-Sami Norwegians who become shamans tend to assert that they are
Nordic rather than Sami shamans (as discussed in Fonneland, forthcoming).

References
Aldred, Lisa. 2000. “Plastic Shamans and Astroturf Sun Dances: New Age
Commercialization of Native American Spirituality.” American Indian
Quarterly 24(3): 329–352.
Baglo, Cathrine. 2001. “From Universal Homogeneity to Essential Heterogeneity:
On the Visual Construction of ‘the Lappish Race.’” Acta Borealia 18(2):
23–39.
Barnett, Louise K. 1975. The Ignoble Savage: American Literary Racism, 1790–
1890. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
Bierhorst, John. 1994. The Way of the Earth: Native America and the
Environment. New York: William Morrow.
Christensen, Cato. 2007. “Urfolksspiritualitet på det nyreligiøse markedet. En
analyse av tidsskriftet Visjon/Alternativt Nettverk.” Din: Tidsskrift for reli-
gion og kultur 1.
Churchill, Ward. 1988. “Sam Gill’s Mother Earth: Colonialism, Genocide
and the Expropriation of Indigenous Spiritual Tradition in Contemporary
Academia.” American Indian Culture and Research Journal 12(3): 49–67.
 New Age Medicine Men 139

———. 2003. “Spiritual Hucksterism: The Rise of the Plastic Medicine Men.”
Cultural Survival Quarterly 27(2): 26–28.
Dippie, Brian W. 1982. The Vanishing American: White Attitudes and U.S.
Indian Policy. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press.
DuBois, Thomas A. 2009. An Introduction to Shamanism. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Eliade, Mircea. 2004 [1951]. Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. New
York: Bollingen Series; Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Falkenberg, Johs. 1941. Bosetningen ved indre Laksefjord i Finnmark:
Optegnelser fra 1938. Oslo : Etnografisk Museum.
Fonneland, Trude. 2012. “Spiritual Entrepreneurship in a Northern Landscape:
Spirituality, Tourism and Politics.” Temenos 48(2): 155–178.
———. 2013. “Sami Tourism and the Signposting of Spirituality. The Case
of Sami Tour: a Spiritual Entrepreneur in the Contemporary Experience
Economy.” Acta Borealia 30(2): 190–208.
———. forthcoming. “Changing Religious Landscapes: The approval of a north-
ern Norwegian shamanic association,” in James R. Lewis and Inga Bårdsen
Tøllefsen (eds.) Nordic New Religions. Leiden: Brill.
Fonneland, Trude, and Siv Ellen Kraft. 2013. “New Age, Sami Shamanism
and Indigenous Spirituality,” in Steven J. Sutcliffe and Ingvild Sælid Gilhus
(eds.) New Age Spirituality: Rethinking Religion. Durham, UK: Acumen
Publishing, 132–145.
Gaski, Harald. 1993. “The Sami People: The ‘White Indians’ of Scandinavia.”
American Indian Culture and Research Journal 17(1): 115–128.
Gaup, Ailo. 2005. The Shamanic Zone. Oslo, Norway: Three Bears Company.
Gill, Sam. 1987. Mother Earth: An American Story. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Hardman, Charlotte E. 2007. “‘He May Be Lying But What He Says Is True’:
The Sacred Tradition of Don Juan as Reported by Carlos Castaneda,
Anthropologist, Trickster, Guru, Allegorist,” in James R. Lewis and Olav
Hammer (eds.) The Invention of Sacred Tradition. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press, 38–55.
Harner, Michael J., Jeffrey Mishlove, and Arthur Bloch. 1990 [1980]. The Way
of the Shaman. San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row.
Hobson, Geary. 1981. “The Rise of the White Shaman as a New Version of
Cultural Imperialism,” in Geary Hobson (ed.) The Remembered Earth: An
Anthology of Contemporary Native American literature. Albuquerque, NM:
University of New Mexico Press, 100–108.
Hætta, Odd Mathis. 2002. Samene: Nordkalottens urfolk. Kritiansand:
Høyskoleforl.
Jakobsen, Merete Demant. 1999. Shamanism: Traditional and Contemporary
Approaches to the Mastery of Spirits and Healing. New York: Berghahn Books.
Kehoe, Alice B. 1996. “Eliade and Hultkrantz: the European Primitivism
Tradition.” American Indian Quarterly 20(3/4): 377–392.
Kraft, Siv Ellen. 2009. “Sami Indigenous Spirituality: Religion and Nation
Building in Norwegian Sápmi.” Temenos: Nordic Journal of Comparative
Religion 45(2): 179–206.
140 James R. Lewis

———. 2010. “The Making of a Sacred Mountain: Meanings of Nature and

Sacredness in Sápmi and Northern Norway.” Religion 40(1): 53–61.
———. 2011. Hva er nyreligiøsitet? Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.
———. forthcoming. “New Age Spiritualities,” in James R. Lewis and Jesper
Aagaard Petersen (eds.) Controversial New Religions. New York: Oxford
University Press, 2nd edition.
Lewis, James R. 1992. “Approaches to the Study of the New Age,” in James R.
Lewis and J. Gordon Melton (eds.) Perspectives on the New Age. Albany:
State University of New York Press, 1–12.
Mathisen, Stein R. 2012. “Indigenous Spirituality in the Touristic Borderzone:
Virtual Performances of Sámi Shamanism in Sápmi Park.” Temenos 46(1):
53–72.
Miller, Barbara Helen. 2007. Connecting and Correcting: A Case Study of Sami
Healers in Porsanger 151. Leiden: CNWS Publications.
Minde, Henry. 1998. “Constructing ‘Laestadianism’: A Case for Sami Survival?”
Acta Borealia: A Nordic Journal of Circumpolar Societies 15(1): 5–25.
Myrhaug, May-Lisbeth. 1997. I Modergudinnens Fotspor: Samisk Religion Med
Vekt Pa Kvinnelige Kultutvere Og Gudinnekult. Oslo: Pax Forlag.
Niezen, Ronald. 2003. The Origins of Indigenism: Human Rights and the
Politics of Identity. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Paine, Robert. 1965. “Laestadianismen og samfunnet.” Tidsskrift for samjunns-
forskning 1: 60–73.
Rydving, Håkan. 2004 (1993). The End of Drum-Time: Religious Change
Among the Lule Saami, 1670s–1740s. Uppsala, Sweden: Uppsala University.
Sande, Hans, and Sigrun Winterfeldt. 1993. “Four Sami Healers: A Preliminary
Interview Study.” Nordic Journal of Psychiatry 47(1): 41–51.
Selberg, Torunn. 2001. “Ideas about the Past and Tradition in the Discourse
about Neo-shamanism in a Norwegian Context.” Acta Ethnographica
Hungarica 46(1): 65–74.
Smith, Andrea. 1991a. “For All Those Who Were Indian in a Former Life.” Ms.
Magazine, November/December.
———. 1991b. “The New Age Movement and Native Spirituality.” Indigenous
Woman, Spring.
Snyder, Gary. 1969. Earth House Hold. New York: New Directions.
von Stuckrad, Kocku. 2002. “Reenchanting Nature: Modern Western Shamanism
and Nineteenth-Century Thought.” Journal of the American Academy of
Religion 70(4): 771–799.
Wallis, Robert J. 1999. “Altered States, Conflicting Cultures: Shamans, Neo-
shamans and Academics.” Anthropology of Consciousness 10(2): 41–49.
———. 2003. Shamans/neo-shamans: Ecstasies, Alternative Archaeologies and
Contemporary Pagans. London: Routledge.
Weaver, Jace, ed. 1996. Defending Mother Earth: Native Perspectives on
Environmental Justice. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books.
 8
More or Less Genuine Shamans!: The Believer in
an Exchange between Antiquity and Modernity,
between the Local and the Global1

Bente Gullveig Alver

This article deals with those who in daily life maintain a relationship
with a transcendental universe and a thought-world in which “power,”
and the ability to use this power, are central, and hold the belief that
magic is something that acts, that influences, that causes something to
happen.
We shall follow a Sami woman, Ellen Marit Gaup Dunfjeld, on the
basis of the narrative of her life story. Ellen Marit was born in 1944 in
Masi in Finnmark and died in Bergen in 1991. She was the firstborn of
nine children. She looked at herself as a mediator and a bridge between
people and “powers.” She practiced as a wise woman 2 and especially
as a healer. It was through my work with alternative treatment in the
Norwegian health system that I became interested in her.
Ellen Marit belonged to a generation of Sami who experienced major
changes in lifestyle. Economic centralization, market-economic manage-
ment, and an increasingly capital-intensive technology created an entirely
different framework for settlement and industry. Ellen Marit spoke of the
community’s changing relationship to settlement, which she did not view
as straightforwardly positive, even if it was more convenient, saying that
it was a move “away from nature” for the Sami people:

In the 1960s, it was like this, that everybody should settle in a house. And there
was a deliberate plan by the authorities. I am in a way the last generation to
have lived in tents. I thought it was wonderful to live in a tent. I really liked
it. You lay there and were at one with the earth. It was just the canvas that
142 Bente Gullveig Alver

separated you from the wilderness and the stars and the moon. You were really
there. People lived very close together. . . . In the sleeping tent there were a lot of
people lying in a row under their pelts. (EFA. Protocol GD, p. 94)

An awakening took place socially and mentally at this time among the
Sami: they formed a new pride in being Sami, and this honed the notion
of being an indigenous people and of indigenous peoples’ rights to the
countryside and food resources, and pointed them in the direction of
requiring Sami self-government.
We need to look at how Ellen Marit moved between an older Sami
conceptual world and a neo-religious universe, how she was torn between
her loyalty to the small, tight community and the local, and the opportu-
nities and challenges offered by the world at large and globalization. She
and her development in belief, in thought, and in action are interesting as
an example of the diversity and especially the complexity that operates in
popular religiosity, and particularly within belief. Taking the complex-
ity into account, my treatment may be too highly colored by attempts to
create order and categories based on what Ellen Marit related. I can but
state that I agree with the anthropologist Marit Myrvoll; after fieldwork
in the Måsske community in Tysfjord on continuity and rupture in the
Sami understanding of reality, she notes that “the attempt at professional
categorizations has its shortcomings, and belief enters into a field which
is larger and broader than oneself” (2010: 256).
My treatment here is a portrait of Ellen Marit in a few strokes. I will
look at the various shifts in her conceptual world, try to understand the
kaleidoscopic patterns that characterize and create a life, and highlight
important events, which she believes were turning points and milestones.
But it is also a treatment of popular religiosity and the contemporary
relationship with traditionalization, continuity, and change, toward
transformation and innovation.

An Authentic Shaman—What Actually Is It?

Ellen Marit’s father, Mikkel Gaup, popularly called “Miracle Mikkel,”
was a well-known “wise man” in postwar Norway. He was also known
outside Norway, and there he bore the nickname “Healing Fox” (Gaup
2005: 86, Strøm 2013: 102). Until the early 1990s he described himself,
as did those around him, as a “reader”3 or healer (Fonneland 2010: 156).
This indicates that he used words and formulas in his practice. Later
he was called a shaman. Inspired by the neoshamanic movement, the
term “shaman” came to be used more commonly through the 1980s and
beyond. When I interviewed Ellen Marit in the mid-1980s, she called
 More or Less Genuine Shamans! 143

herself and her father not just shamans but the last true shamans in
Finnmark. When interviewed about the course of her life in 1990, she
used the concept of the shaman rather than noaidi of both her father
and herself. But what was it about her, and her father’s conceptual world
and practice as a “wise person” that in her opinion made them eligible
not merely to hold the status of shamans but moreover to be regarded
as authentic? The Sami shaman, the noaidi, in the form we know from
ancient sources, is long gone.
Ellen Marit had a background in a tradition-rich reindeer-herding
setting. She composed the book Reindrift: Samisk næring—samisk
fremtid (Reindeer-herding: Sámi sustenance—Sámi future) on tra-
ditional reindeer herding (Gaup 1979). In the setting in which she
grew up, the old Sami conceptual world was still alive, and this was
maintained by the family’s older generation, both through stories and
through behavior. Right from childhood she had a keen interest in this
universe, believed it and acted upon it. She was already as a child aware
that she had special supernatural powers. As she entered her teens, her
father supported her in this and began to carefully teach her more about
how he saw the world. Through him she had a close relationship with
nature to inspire her, with the dead and the world of the dead, with the
spirit world, and with helping spirits in the form of various birds and
animals.
It was her close relationship with this thought-world and with her own
religious experience that resulted in her calling herself and her father
genuine shamans. She seems to set authenticity in opposition to neosha-
manism. This she encountered, for example, among Ailo Gaup’s ideas
about Sami shamanism, which he publicized in the book Sjamansonen,
first published in 1987. It was a type of approach that had little to com-
mend it to Ellen Marit. She says,

I do not think shamanism can be learnt the way I understand shamanism. But
you can learn to develop or use your own resources. It’s a completely different
thing. But it is not shamanism: shamanism belongs to religion in a culture. It
must be interpreted in relation to nature and a particular way of life. You can-
not just drag out bits and bobs and call it shamanism. I would not do it. But
I think you can teach people to develop their spiritual sides more. . . . I think
myself I am a shaman. We call it noaidi in our culture. If I am not well inte-
grated into shamanism, then I would like to see the person who is more inte-
grated than me! Apart from my father. (EFA. Protocol GD, p. 61)

Neoshamanists’ relationship with nature as divine, and magical practices

as a central part of religious expression were matters that both Ellen
Marit and her father could well recognize in themselves. Nonetheless,
144 Bente Gullveig Alver

she claimed that her father called neoshamans fraudsters: man was born
with supernatural powers; it was not something that could be learned or
you could read up on. The shaman was chosen by the spirits. It was not
something you could decide or control.
But it turned out as time went by that Ellen Marit herself was not
immune to neo-religious ideas. In the late 1980s, she came into contact
with the American neo-religious “goddess movement.” Although she
denied it when questioned directly, this relationship with and even bur-
geoning of neoshamanism was to color both her conceptual world and
her terminology. I will return to this matter.

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden!

Ellen Marit told me her life story while she was seriously ill, six months
before she died. When she realized how sick she was and had to admit
that her life was ebbing away, she asked if she could tell her story to me.
She believed she could better understand her life by putting it into words.
I was not that close to her; I had learned of her through my university
background. But we had respect for each other, and for her it was impor-
tant that she should be able to relate things freely without regard to loyal-
ties. Although she mainly wanted to understand who she was, she also
wanted others after her death to understand who she had been. She was
herself fluent in writing and would probably have preferred to write her
own story. But she realized she was too ill to do so.
Telling one’s life story shapes a life, teases out the tangled threads,
explains and justifies, and fits things in so that there is coherence and
harmony. The kind of emotion that a life story opens is both backward
looking and future oriented. The past is used to construct the present and
to direct the way to the future.
Long afternoons I sat by Ellen Marit’s sickbed and heard her recount
her tales. The world around left us alone in peace. I walked with her
along wayward paths, and I did not stop her to ask her to explain the
way, even though I was not always clear why we went the way we did. It
was her life—her quest. She repeated things rarely and never interpreted.
The short autumn days with the failing light blurred all the contours of
the room. It almost hid the symbols of power of the “goddess friends”—
mostly the bear in all its forms—which were fighting for space with the
glass of water and the fresh flowers that stood on her desk every day. I did
not always see her face clearly on the embroidered pillowcase on which
she demanded to rest her head. But out of the soft light, out of the metal-
lic smell, out of the pain and sadness of the past, out of the closeness
between two women grew a story about the magician—about mankind
in constant motion, searching for meaning.
 More or Less Genuine Shamans! 145

Ellen Marit knew it was the last time she would put into words who
she was or who she wanted to be. It made this version of her life story
special. It is a narrative that shows the level of imagination and creativity
someone can unfold in order to create a consistent whole and an under-
standing of her ways in and out of different worlds of the imagination
and explanations of the many choices. Striking too is her affirmative and
accepting attitude toward her religious experiences with the spirit world,
with divine nature.4

Her Father’s Daughter

Throughout her life Ellen Marit considered her father to be her spiritual
guide. Mikkel Gaup was visited by very many people asking for help, and
he was also known for his ability to treat the sick by “remote healing”:
he is said to have been so strong in his thought that he appeared to them
physically, treating them over the phone, while he was many miles away
(Ailo Gaup 2005: 86 ff., Eriksson 2003: 37, Strøm 2013: 102 f.). This he
explained as a form of visualization and transfer of energy (Strøm 2013:
103). He had lost both his parents very early on and grew up with his
father’s parents, who were also known to have “had knowledge of more
than the Lord’s Prayer.” It was his grandfather who had taught him.
People who have met Mikkel Gaup talk of a man with strong cha-
risma. Another “wise person,” Bergit Loen Hatlenes, who was a friend
of his, says of him:

Never, before or since, have I met a man with such power and charisma as
Mikkel Gaup . . . Mikkel was actually a shy and reserved man. He was not that
easy to fathom. But I felt that he opened up to me, and it was a delight to hear
him recount. For example, he related that he was born on a rock on the plain,
and he had been initiated into the shaman tradition by his grandfather. He was
knowledgeable and insightful, and yet so different from any other man I had
met before, let alone after. He was an exceptional man, he had nature within
himself and spread goodness wherever he went. The times when he looked into
the future something happened to his eyes and his whole figure. It was as if he
disappeared into a separate world—only to return. (Strøm 2013: 101)

Ellen Marit admired her father’s ability and willingness to help people,
and especially his knowledge of nature and of the pre-Christian Sami
religion and the conceptual world of an older day. He was her teacher,
but she was his protector against the pressure from the world outside.
Among the many who visited him were various neoshamans, who looked
upon him as a guru or teacher. This was the case, for example, with Ailo
Gaup, who was a relative. Ailo Gaup relates that in 1970 he quit his regu-
lar job as a journalist in Oslo and traveled to Lapland to find someone
146 Bente Gullveig Alver

who could teach him the shamanic art. Here he ended up with Mikkel
Gaup, and he says of him,

Mikkel was for me a noaidi in the old tradition, a word-healer and distance
healer, and he taught me much about the art. The holy sacred sieidi stones on
the plain were well known to him. He could point in the direction of the rocks,
such that the next moment it was as if we were surrounded by their energy. He
nodded toward the sun and the sun’s power opened up in me. He lived right
next to the famous Kautokeino river and had the plain behind. All this and life
in the mountains could be read in his face. He was the one who kept the fire
alive for many through a dark time. (2005: 86)

Ailo Gaup has much respect for Mikkel Gaup and the knowledge he
possessed. Long after Mikkel’s death, claims Ailo, the hours he spent
with him continue to influence his development and lead him onward
(375).
Trude Fonneland, who interviewed Ailo Gaup for her doctoral work
on neoshamanism, cites an enthusiastic Ailo recounting Mikkel Gaup’s
efforts in the Alta conflict, a conflict to which we shall return. Ailo high-
lights how for Mikkel there was a symbiosis between the political and
the spiritual:

Yes, crisis creates rituals, you know. It creates a mood of “it is now the case.”
It created an “us against them” feeling. I remember Miracle Mikkel was
involved there and had almost sort of ritual moments where he spoke out that
this is against the spirit of nature and that nature will fight back, and that it
is nature that we should stick to. He had an amazing effect, maybe one that
worked on me especially, more than anyone else. But he had an underlying
ideology. Mikkel Gaup helped motivate me and others, in a language beyond
politics, beyond the slogans. He had a perspective that was different. (cited in
Fonneland 2010: 150–151)

The legacy Ellen Marit received from her father was a similar sym-
biosis, as we shall see. 5 Ailo Gaup also provided a good description of
Mikkel Gaup’s ritual way of dealing with things:

Once I came to a healing at his place. Then he donned his healer robe and we
went into the bathroom. Then he asked me to sit down on a chair. Then he
began work. He drew his hands up and down my body, until they stopped at
one spot. Then he yoiked and “growled” a bit. This was a kind of sound-heal-
ing, while his hands were like wolf snouts sniffing out filth inside me. When I
went my way, I was much lighter in body and mind. This happened sometime in
the early 1980s and was my first experience of healing. Did it help? Everything
he did affected me, whether it was conversation or healing or just seeing how
he acted towards others. (2005: 86–87)
 More or Less Genuine Shamans! 147

Ellen Marit had seen her father treat the sick many times, and her method
was basically very similar to her father’s. She also wore his red “shaman
robe” when she practiced, and both Mikkel Gaup’s robe and her own
were Ellen Marit’s idea. Red is the traditional Sami color symbolizing
strength and power. She used not just her hands on bare skin when she
practiced, but she used her “whole self,” she said. She concentrated hard
to let the power flow through her to the patient. Often she strengthened
her concentration by formulating inside herself what she was doing and
what she wanted to happen. Thinking in this way was bound up with
specific formulas that she had probably learned from her father and did
not want to reveal to anyone. Like him she also used yoiking in her ther-
apy. She claimed that she was not clairvoyant. But she formed an impres-
sion of the person she was treating, partly by reading their thoughts and
partly through impulses from the body, which she felt as pain or vibra-
tions in her hands. She said that the different diseases produced different
vibrations. But she also received help from the spirit world through a
“voice” that told her where she should lay her hands on the sick person’s
body (cf. Alver and Selberg 1992: 108–109).
Michael Harner, the father of “core shamanism,” was also one of the
neoshamans who visited the aged Gaup.6 Ellen Marit was very much
opposed to neoshamans coming to see her father, and she thought he was
too gullible toward them:

Father does not understand that he gives Ailo Gaup information that gets used,
and then he gets drawn into this in a way. But he does not understand this.
Michael Harner has been at father’s. He has been there twice. There was a
Finnish colleague of Michael Harner’s who came with him the first time. I
do not remember his name. Then he came, that Finnish colleague, by himself
sometime later. He wanted to make a film with father where he wanted to get
into shamanism through it. But he didn’t get permission from me. I did not
want father to be abused in that way, because I do not think he had a clear
enough idea about why he was making the film and how it should be made.
(EFA. Protocol GD, p. 66)

She tried to shield her father from what she saw as exploitation because
she did not take neoshamanism seriously. She also tried to persuade him
not to make statements to reporters, whom she always feared would ridi-
cule him. But she also drew the spirit world into the argument over why
there should be no filming and interviews. The spirit world should be
shown respect and not abused, talked about, or disturbed unnecessar-
ily. She showed me this clearly some years before the life-story interview
with her. We were sitting in my house and talking about how she was
consecrated as a shaman. My phone rang, but it was obviously a wrong
148 Bente Gullveig Alver

number, and there was no one on the line when I answered. Immediately
and obviously rattled, Ellen Marit got up and wanted to go. “Well, I said
some spirits don’t want me to continue talking,” she said, and left me.

The Brave New World of Books

Only Sami was spoken in Ellen Marit’s home in her early childhood. She
was four years old when she first came across “the white man” and his
language. She was so afraid that she and her brother climbed to the top
of a tree, and they had to be lured down with both encouragements and
threats when the danger was over. She encountered Norwegian in earnest
at the age of seven when she started school. She knew no Norwegian, and
the teacher no Sami:

I could not manage Norwegian—could not say a word in Norwegian, so I

didn’t understand what was said. . . . The teacher knew no Sámi and nor did
any of the children. It was a purely Norwegian-speaking school. I sat there day
after day, trying to copy the other kids and the teacher tried to read to me. . . . In
the breaks they tried to be friendly with me, the girls, and talked to me. I began
to copy them, felt like a fool, and I learned a lot of words that I didn’t under-
stand the meaning of, and they really laughed when I said those words. . . . But
I gradually discovered that they were teaching me a lot of bad words, and they
thought it was a real laugh. (EFA. Protocol GD: 14)

Gifted as she was, Ellen Marit soon learned Norwegian, and she came
to like going to school very much. She wanted to learn, and she wanted
to completely understand what she was reading. The books opened up a
wider world for her. It was a joy to her, because she did not know that
there was a world outside her Sami universe.
She was very excited when she discovered fairy tales in the books. She
loved the fairy-tale world, and she seemed to possess the ability to glide
smoothly between fact and fiction, in and out of different worlds: “At
first it was a fairy tale that I was taking part in—it did come true, for
me in any case” (EFA. Protocol GD, p. 7). Her parents did not like her
enjoyment of reading, but she secretly borrowed books from the school
library and read by torchlight under the blanket late into the night. She
thought it was exciting to enter the fairy-tale world, which she felt she
could recognize from her father’s stories. He was a good storyteller, as
when, in spare moments, the whole family, neighbors, and others gath-
ered around him. But there were many other good storytellers in Ellen
Marit’s immediate surroundings:

There was great-grandmother and her children. And father and his siblings.
They grew up with their grandmother. And there were lots and lots of people
 More or Less Genuine Shamans! 149

there. And they told stories, many kinds of stories. Fairy tales and legends and
everyday stories. The stories were often sort of like there was some teaching in
them. So through these little stories or fairy tales you got an introduction to the
so-called supernatural part of our existence. (EFA. Protocol GD: 91)

Ellen Marit was fascinated by the fairy tale “The White Bear King
Valemon.” She lived completely in this tale, and she took turns to be each
of the various characters in it. Sometimes she was the great enchanted
bear, but mostly she was the princess, delicate and bright riding on the
bear’s back. She lived the role of princess so deeply that she felt the ani-
mal’s rocking motions under her and could smell the strong, raw bear fur.
But she was never the evil troll.7 When Ellen Marit read, she became the
people about whom she was reading, and she sensed the story’s sounds
and smells. She existed inside fairy tales, but could quickly jump over and
change worlds when adults called her.
Ellen Marit is not the only one to have been hooked into getting into
older Sami culture in this way. Brita Pollan, who has produced several
studies of Sami shamanism, has claimed that she became aware of Sami
culture through Sami fairy tales. She found them different from other
tales and became curious about the reality behind them (1993: 17). She
set out to investigate whether there was a possible connection between
what she calls “shamanistic experiences” and the composition of Sami
tales.

Courage to Stand Up to Parents

After elementary school Ellen Marit’s parents said this was enough
schooling. She was needed for work at home. They wanted her to marry
a reindeer-herding Sami, and she did not need any more bookish knowl-
edge. In our conversations Ellen Marit portrayed herself as strong by
nature and very stubborn. She strove to the last to enter the so-called
“continuation school.” Her teachers thought she should continue to sec-
ondary school and had applied for a place for her there. But her parents
said absolutely not. Especially her mother was strict when it came to her
daughter’s future and her Sami identity. She did not want, among other
things, for Ellen Marit to wear anything but Sami clothes. When she was
confirmed, she was not allowed to wear a white robe, like the others, but
had to wear her Sami attire:

When I reached the teen years, there was a conflict. I wanted to wear more
normal clothes, and there was a real fight over it, especially with my mother.
She said that I should wear my Sámi clothing: I was a Sámi, and I would never
be anything but a Sámi. But the whole time I was different from the others. But
150 Bente Gullveig Alver

after a while I argued my case for wearing regular clothes and I walked around
in them even if mother did not like them . . . I felt that it was important for me to
be like the others and not stick out in everyone’s eyes. I just did not want it. But
everyone knew that I was a Sámi. And fortunately, I will say, my parents were
so strict right at these times of upheaval, otherwise I could have veered over
to becoming Norwegian. But they were very strict with me, so I grasped how
it was so important for me to keep my Sámi identity, to be proud of it. And of
course I was. . . . It was much easier for my siblings. They did not have the same
problems, because we had lived in Eiby a while and were more assimilated.
(EFA. Protocol DG: 7–8)

Her mother placed great emphasis on educating her in everything that

a reindeer-herding Sami woman should know, and not just know, but
know well. For the young Ellen Marit, as for other Sami women, this
meant heavy chores. Although she was closely bound to her father her
whole life, and he was her guide in the spirit world, as an adult she saw
clearly her mother’s role in the family, as the one who holds it together in
everyday life, amid the chaos of people visiting Mikkel Gaup:

Father always had a good time sitting and talking nonsense with all the people
who came. So mother had to be responsible for keeping everything in order
and looking after the work. So I felt really sorry for mother for that. She has
had a lot of hardships. And had she not been the strong type that she was, it
would not have been so good. It was she who kept everything in order and was
at home the most. Father was with the reindeer and could be gone for days. . . . It
was usually like that with all the reindeer-herding men. They are not at home
so much. So it is the woman who is in charge with everything to do with the
home and children and everything going on. (EFA. Protocol GD: 24)

But despite what Ellen Marit portrays as a strict upbringing, with an

emphasis on inculcating Sami norms and rules, she says that right from
childhood on she was treated lovingly and much admired by the family.
Hence she had the courage to stand up to her parents, even though she
was raised to believe that this was not done: Sami youngsters should
respect their elders and their opinions.
But in one area, she always listened to her mother. This was in her
mother’s warnings against evil forces. Her mother especially warned her
against the evil that some women could invoke by means of church sand
or soil from the cemetery. It was a notion in which Ellen Marit believed
firmly. It was a destructive magic that her mother thought thrived during
festive gatherings, because it could be difficult to control in situations
in which many people were gathered. Ellen Marit told of the fear of this
kind of magic once when there were baptisms in the family:

There were two women who were known to have devil’s sand or church sand,
which they used. Weddings and baptisms were suitable occasions to release
 More or Less Genuine Shamans! 151

some devilry. Mother sat and watched them surreptitiously throughout the eve-
ning. And do you not think that they went up to the cooking pots more and
more often? And she was afraid they were going to put something in the pots,
so she just had to watch. Because there are some families that are known to
operate with evil forces. So you have to take care, otherwise you get demons
inside you. They can put them in through liquor or food or anything else. They
do it mainly out of worship of the evil power, and they have pledged themselves
to the evil one. . . . If sometimes I was allowed to go alone up to Kautokeino,
I had to prepare myself. I could never accept anything from strangers, drink
anything or eat anything. If you had to have it, you always had to do a ritual
first. . . . It was mother who taught me that. (EFA. Protocol GD: 30)

And so Ellen Marit went her own way as best she could. As she looked
back on her life, she was very aware that she belonged to a genera-
tion in upheaval; she went “from the pure Sámi culture directly to the
Norwegian,” and that was tough. Her enjoyment of books, which gave
her a window onto another and bigger world than the Sami, also pro-
duced a split in her. She wanted to be Sami, but she also wanted to be
“Norwegian.”

“I am the modern nomadic Sami”

Ellen Marit married young, maybe to get away from home or to get out
into the world. She did not choose a reindeer-herding Sami as her parents
wanted her to—they had looked into many marriage candidates for her
whom they thought suitable. She fell in love with a Sami from a southern
region in Norway. She married him when she was 20, and together they
went to the south of the country and settled in a major city, where he
began legal studies:

Since it was determined by his family’s closest members that he would become
a lawyer, because the Sámi people needed it, that was the path he chose to fol-
low. He was very involved and is very involved and is up among the experts in
the field today. He has worked very hard for the Sámi cause. . . . We have worked
actively together. I have often been an interpreter for him, especially during the
Alta case. (EFA. Protocol GD: 98)

Many in Ellen Marit’s own family were interested in politics, and she
asserted that she had always been engaged in politics and in what was
happening around her. But she thought that as far as getting a hear-
ing goes, it was a problem that when young she was very shy. It was a
shyness that she eventually overcame. Through her husband’s work as
a lawyer for the Sami she realized that it was important to raise your
voice in political matters. Her political commitment was strengthened
through her collaboration with her husband. The couple moved several
152 Bente Gullveig Alver

times, following wherever his work led them, both within Norway and
abroad. But amid all these moves Ellen Marit took on various jobs to
assist. She worked in a grocery store and a kiosk, she sewed fur coats
and hats at a furrier’s, took a typing course, and had foster children,
along with the two children she had in her marriage. But when her hus-
band began practicing as a lawyer, she also wanted to have the educa-
tion she had dreamed of. She applied to a school of journalism and was
trained as a journalist.
In her narration, Ellen Marit gave an impression that the city and the
people in the city, and the life they lived, was scary. Here she was possibly
influenced by her father’s ideas about the city and urban life, but perhaps
more generally by neo-religious ideas. She claimed that her father pleaded
with people from the town and said to them,

You call my land a wilderness, but it’s your town that’s the wilderness. My land
is not wild. It has been the way God created it here for hundreds of years. . . . It
is you who have made the wilderness. (EFA. Protocol GD: 46)

Wilderness or not, Ellen Marit was attracted to city life. But here too she
flitted between different realities—between the hectic life of the city and
the tranquility of open spaces in Finnmark. One of her close friends says
that while Ellen Marit lived in Oslo, she liked to sit at a window table
at the Grand Café, which has its windows facing the main street, Karl
Johan. She wanted to see, but she also wanted to be seen. Additionally,
she visited the city and mixed with the public as a journalist—for exam-
ple, on the television screen on the popular entertainment program
Sommeråpent. Above all, though, she was a public figure in the fight for
Sami rights and in her efforts in the Alta conflict. But she always yearned
for Finnmark and the great lonely plains:

I usually say that I am a modern nomadic Sámi. It’s a fact that I carry my home
with me and in me. And when I’m here in the south, I have it all in myself. I
can be there in thought. Through the mind, through the spirits, I am there
whenever I want and I can. I can see it and I see my loved ones, my friends and
relatives and parents and siblings. I see them. I can call them by yoiking. So I
use yoiking a lot when I’m alone. Through yoiking you can call who you want.
Then they are there, and you’re not alone. So then you can be anywhere. So
yoiking is one of the most amazing things about the spiritual part of people.
Through it you can express yourself and communicate over a very wide range.
You can contact the spirit world. You can get in touch with this world through
the spiritual part of yourself. (EFA. Protocol GD: 71–72)

But she was not content with being at home in Finnmark on just a men-
tal level. She felt a great responsibility for what happened at home and
 More or Less Genuine Shamans! 153

followed the yearly round and the pulse of her family’s life as reindeer
herders. In the fall she took herself home and took part in the women’s
work at the slaughter and the harvesting of berries. But when as an adult
she really began work as a “shaman” with her father as a spiritual guide,
she also went north to be with him and to recharge her batteries from
nature at the family’s sacred sites and centers of power.

The Alta Conflict

The Alta conflict was, for Ellen Marit as a politically conscious person,
both a milestone and a turning point. It is instructive to see how her
involvement in this conflict illustrates how her life as a magic practitioner
melded with her role as a political activist. What was the Alta conflict
about?8
In 1978 the Storting, Norway’s national assembly, adopted a proposal
for the production of hydroelectric power from the Alta-Kautokeino river
system, which involved an area that was important for Sami reindeer-
hearding. One of the Sami activists against the project, Eirik Myrhaug,
says in the book Sjaman for livet (Shaman for life):

The authorities claimed that the core of the Alta case was to carry out a resolu-
tion passed lawfully by parliament to dam large areas to build a power plant
in what was then perhaps Europe’s most magnificent and unspoiled wilder-
ness. Many saw more sides to the case. The Sámi and many others viewed it as
a crime against the indigenous populace perpetrated by society at large. The
environmental movement saw in it a symbolic cause. But this was also true
for the protection of cultural heritage, and many thought it was a matter of
prestige at the center of the political establishment, and many people and many
politicians were really opponents. It was grist to the mill for prestige theory
when Gro Harlem Brundtland admitted that the development was probably not
necessary. But even if the dam were built, the publicity would make out that
the Sámi had won a victory in achieving a positive outlook for Sámi autonomy.
It was also a victory for the environmental movement. (Brynn and Brunvoll
2011: 124–125)

In the years following the parliamentary decision, one demonstra-

tion after another took place against the project. The demonstrations
attracted many people—a motley crew of environmentalists, nature lov-
ers, and left-wing radicals. But very quickly Alta became a cause for Sami
rights. The demonstrators on the Sami side took drastic measures. In
late 1979 the Sami movement put up a lavvo, the traditional Sami tent,
in front of the Storting, and seven young Sami went on hunger strike for
many days to stop the project. Prime Minister Oddvar Nordli had to give
in to pressure and promised to delay construction. But everyone knew
154 Bente Gullveig Alver

that this only meant a reprieve, and in January 1981, work started anew.
Ellen Marit says,

Finally, the government sent a ship up to Alta with 600 police. That was in
January 1981. It was worse than during the war. The state of things in Alta
was absolutely horrific then. Hostility was rife even within families. And a lot
of informing going on. It was totally unacceptable. You must understand that
the Sámi people are not a homogenous group. There are as many opinions as
in the Norwegian population. But we had experts on our side that proved the
detrimental effects. We held meetings and conferences. But it only helped a lit-
tle. . . . So the police ship came up. So the same seven guys started a new hunger
strike in Oslo. And one of them was my brother Ante, who was now on hunger
strike for the second time. . . . I started to get anxious. How would it turn out?
And mother was anxious. . . . I don’t know who left it up to me, but it just came
over me that now I had to do something. So I went home by myself and did a
ritual and prayed for guidance and strength to do what I had to do. For I would
not want them to die, those young boys. (EFA. Protocol GD: 101)

The Sami movement had formed an action group, which sent the prime
minister a letter in which they demanded a clarification of Sami rights
and demanded an end to the construction work. Nordli promised an
investigation of the issue, but rejected the request to cease construction.
It was at this point that the young Sami went on hunger strike again.
As Ellen Marit emphasizes, the concern for her brother contributed
to her, along with a few other women, starting a petition in Finnmark
against the construction.9 Later they decided to go to Oslo to see what
they could accomplish there. When they set off, this group of women had
no appointment with the authorities. But they were lucky enough to get
to the city on February 3—the day Norway got a female prime minis-
ter, Gro Harlem Brundtland. According to Ellen Marit’s narrative, they
managed to get an appointment with her, and on February 6 the prime
minister received the 13 Sami women in her office, and they told her that
they were staying there until construction was halted. Brundtland left the
office after a short time, but the Sami women stayed there for 18 hours
until they were removed by police. The hunger strikers were also arrested
but later released.
Both the hunger strike and the occupation of the prime minister’s
office received great attention. Afterward, Ellen Marit felt that the Sami
had achieved a great deal, thanks to the Alta conflict and the focus on
looking at the rights of the Sami as an indigenous people. But she was
angry that the women’s efforts were swallowed up among the men’s:

Of course I would have wanted the river to be saved. It was really the big wish.
I also believe that the women’s group which was involved, at least many of
 More or Less Genuine Shamans! 155

them, look at it like this. Yes, now we can go and be happy that what happened
did happen, even though they called us protesters and abused us. But had it
not been for us, it would not have turned out as positively as it did within the
Sámi culture. But it has always been like that, that when women do something,
it sinks into oblivion. What has been written about the Alta case has been
about what the men did. When history is written, it’s the men’s story, not the
women’s. (EFA. Protocol GD: 118)

Although she welcomed the way the Sami had been made visible as an
indigenous people, and the fulfillment of rights and the new pride in
being Sami, she was disheartened by the change she saw in reindeer-
herding, and especially by her people’s relationship with nature and
their lack of respect for it. She cited a list of negative impacts on nature,
which the Sami themselves supported. In particular, she was skeptical
toward the motorization of movements on the plains, which she felt
destroyed the grazing land: she felt it was not just the authorities who
were responsible for the destruction of nature.

The Political and Religious Activist in Symbiosis

In both the Alta conflict and later, Ellen Marit spearheaded an inter-
national campaign demanding recognition of Sami rights. Her political
activity was always closely connected with her religious and magical
conceptual world. As she mentions (see above), she spent precious time
asking the spirits for advice and conducting rituals to bring success for
the trip to Oslo before the group of Sami women went down there. The
night the women stayed at the prime minister’s office, several of them
had dreams, and these were interpreted by the oldest woman in the
group. The dreams and their interpretation were important for Ellen
Marit as a political activist, and acted as a sign that the spirits had
chosen her to accomplish something in the Vatican and elsewhere in the
world. Together with two other Sami women she ended up seeing the
pope in Rome and got to talk to him for a few minutes about the Sami
people’s situation. She also later went to the UN human rights’ office in
New York with an appeal.
The involvement of Ellen Marit and her whole family in the Alta con-
flict was a major turning point in her view of herself as a Sami, and it
deepened her pride in her Sami identity. As part of this, in 1984 she
applied to the University of Bergen to take a major in folklore. She wished
to compile and translate her father’s stories from Sami to Norwegian and
thereby elucidate his thought-world and what she saw as its roots in his
practice as a shaman. She wanted to use the past to shape and legitimize
her present.10
156 Bente Gullveig Alver

The World of the Spirits—The House of the Spirits

In Ellen Marit’s worldview, “power” was a key concept, and she related
to it both as a noun and as a verb. Based on his father’s thought-world,
she understood power as something that through particular rituals she
invoked to herself from the outside—from the world of the spirits, from
the dead and from nature. The noaidi of yore had an important role in
sharing in the power of nature, including through being out in nature.
For neoshamans who mostly live in cities and do not have daily contact
with nature, “sitting out” is an important ritual for getting in touch with
the spirit world and with their own inner self. Fonneland writes about
this ritual:

“Sitting out” is a ritual that provides the practitioner with experiences of

nature and the forces that operate there, and thus also opens up the chance for
the practitioner to acquire a certain status in the community. The idea is that
nature through ritual can function as a mirror that reflects and gives answers
to the individual player. In the same way as in the ritual of the sacred places,
“sitting out” opens up contact with the spirit world. To “sit out” in nature,
with all that implies, works here as a means to break down the boundaries
between our world and that of the spirits. (2010: 124)

As Fonneland mentions, one can also make contact with the spirit world
by being in certain places, the so-called “holy places,” which might be
special mountain areas or special rock formations that stand out from
others. (On the holy places, see Fonneland 2010: 114–123.)
Ellen Marit and her father had a strong belief in the power of these
holy places, and they went to see them together and individually. Different
families could have their own holy places, and Ellen Marit might take
close friends and peers along to the family’s sacred place, but they had to
perform the same cleansing rituals as she did. She speaks of the family’s
sacred place:

Our family shrine is near where we live now. It’s called “Kolmalaitri” and has
been used for generations. You can go there when you like, but you do not
need to go there more than once a year. It is not necessary. You can summon
the spirit where you are. Whether you are alone or just two of you, which I and
my father were. But mostly you should go alone. Whenever you go, you should
ask permission. It is also very important that you ask for permission when you
settle down and need to rest. You ask the spirits of the place if you are allowed
to do it and say why you have to do it. . . . You mustn’t just make yourself com-
fortable. You have to make an offering too. You can give whatever you want.
You can give coins, money or whatever you may have—jewelry. . . . We were
brought up to it, otherwise they might bring evil upon you. (EFA. Protocol
GD: 69)
 More or Less Genuine Shamans! 157

The spirit world, as Ellen Marit reiterated time and again in her nar-
rative, was a dangerous world to visit. It was her father who taught her
this. You had to approach it in a very specifically regulated way and per-
form certain rituals if it was to succeed. When rituals were performed,
for example, against illness, the spirits needed to be asked for permission
because rituals release power. You had to approach the holy sites with
respect and caution. And you had to have a reason to visit these sites:

The dead must not be disturbed unnecessarily. It was said that the reasons that
many Sámi have graveyards on the islands is that they have a notion that there
should be running water between the realms of the living and the dead. That
is why there is always water near the offering place, the holy site . . . Then you
must do a ritual where you wash yourself and send a prayer to the gods, the
spirits, and then turn some of your clothes inside out before you pass over. The
same when you go away from there. (EFA. Protocol GD: 71)

It was only during the last year of her life that the spirit world became a
brighter and friendlier place for her, thanks to her finding out about the
American “goddess world,” but not least as a result of the death of her
two sons, whom she saw as part of this spiritual world. She could not
look upon her beloved boys as dangerous; she needed to relate to them
as friendly helpers.
Ellen Marit had a dramatic story that illustrates well what Mikkel
Gaup had taught her and her extended family on the dangerous world of
the spirits and the measures that needed to be taken with it. She related
that one of her brothers once camped in the mountains not far from a
fishing lake, where he and some friends wanted to fish. But this brother
had forgotten his father’s admonitions to ask the spirits for permission
to camp. Those sleeping in the tent had a very restless night, with voices
chattering outside the tent and clattering and crashing. Eventually, the
tent was struck so it fell on those who were trying to sleep. Enough was
enough. They took to their heels and ran off. The next day her brother
went back, and he discovered seven graves there with long stones that
were stacked in a special way, as the Sami in earlier times used to do, all
facing in an east-west direction. He then found out that he had raised the
tent on a grave that was slightly higher than the others in the surround-
ings, and he thought it might be a shaman’s grave. When he came home
and related the incident, Mikkel Gaup blamed his son for forgetting what
he had taught him: to ask the dead for permission before camping—
and especially when it concerned a dead shaman’s grave. He got what he
deserved, thought Mikkel Gaup (EFA. Protocol GD: 70).
According to an old Sami concept, to become a great shaman
demanded certain characteristics—often seen as male qualities—such as
158 Bente Gullveig Alver

courage, endurance, physical strength, resourcefulness, and natural and

local knowledge. But if we go to the older written sources we have about
Sami shamanism, it is not just men who were shamans, even though they
are the majority, but women too are spoken of (Tolley 2009: 143–149,
Pollan 1998: 97–103). In Ellen Marit’s family it seems to have been both
men and women who believed they had inherited special abilities and
practiced as “wise men” or “wise women.”
Ellen Marit was particularly concerned in her practice with medi-
cal treatment, and perhaps had little to do with “big matters.” But in
her account of her life, she creates a story that has as its highlight the
meeting with the spirits and the way they test her courage and strength.
She related both to a more undifferentiated spiritual world, in which she
claimed that the spirits could take on any form, including human form,
and to spirits whom she called by name (cf. Tolley 2009: 203–205). The
names she used were names from the pre-Christian Sami religion. She did
not seem to distinguish clearly between what she called the spirits and
the dead, or between the spirit world and the world of the dead. She was
aware of this herself:

There are other spirits in nature than just dead people. Like some who might
have got a little further towards complete development. I have not entirely
clearly sorted out the idea for myself, whether the pure nature spirits are a
level higher than human spirits. I think I have understood from the stories that
it’s the dead person who is at the lowest level. And so one can develop until
one reaches the divine. I imagine that nature spirits have progressed further
than the deceased. That’s the way I imagine it. It is a kind of hierarchy. (EFA.
Protocol GD: 70–71)

Although it was not quite clear to me which spirits she was talking about at
any particular time, the belief in them and communication with them was
an underlying note in her narration all the time, like the subtle chiming
of a wind harp at the weakest breeze. The note is just there, but it breaks
through more clearly when she talks about her personal crises, about how
she visits holy sites, or performs certain rituals, or receives a message.
When she got a message from the spirits, as she often did, it was mostly
about what she should do, or what she should leave be. Spirits expressed
themselves through a voice that commanded, that gave orders that could
not be contravened. The spirits were generals, while she was just a soldier.

Dream and Vision as a Divinatory Arena

The will of the spirits can be read from events or from certain signs and
omens, and can be expressed in dreams and visions. For Ellen Marit,
 More or Less Genuine Shamans! 159

dreaming was important in her communication with the spirits. Some

dreams and their interpretation create a structure in her narration and
stand, if not as turning points, at least as milestones in her life. When
young and inexperienced in interpreting dreams, she often turned to her
father. Later she did not ask him for advice on interpreting the dreams,
except in the most critical situations. But he was of great importance as
an interpreter of the young Ellen Marit’s dream of her dead grandmother
calling her to her grave. This dream he interpreted as the spirits’ choosing
Ellen Marit, and the event signified a turning point in her life.
Three nights in a row Ellen Marit dreamed her dead grandmother was
calling her. The grandmother saw her come to her grave and put flow-
ers on it. The grave was a long and arduous day’s journey away, where
part of the journey had to be by rowing a boat and on foot. Ellen Marit
wanted at first not to understand the dream’s message. According to the
older shamanic tradition, the election to be a shaman roused resistance
from the one chosen. It was a responsibility that was not undertaken
willingly. But after consulting with her father, she realized that it was
not something she could refuse: then the dead would punish her. When
the dead woman called a third time, there was no way around it if she
wanted to hold on to life and health:

So she came again the third night and said the same thing, and then I got a
move on. Then I went to my father and told him that grandmother had visited
me three nights in a row and asked me to come with flowers to her grave,
“Well, you must understand what you have to do. You have to understand what
you must do!” “Well, what shall I do then?” “Well, you must do what she tells
you to.” And so I did. (EFA. Protocol GD: 52)

No spirit comes a fourth time for a good purpose. If you did not under-
stand the seriousness after the third time, it was all the worse for you.
Ellen Marit’s father understood the seriousness. He told her to do what
the dead demanded, but first he taught her the rituals she needed to
approach the realm of the dead and be protected against them. Ellen
Marit also belonged to a tradition in which she did not have much choice
when it came to the fate she was assigned in terms of the Sami commu-
nity’s views on naming. As the firstborn, she was given the name Marit
after the long-dead grandmother who was now calling her. The name
Ellen she received from her great-grandmother, who had raised Mikkel
Gaup. Both of these women had special abilities and were able to treat
disease. According to Sami and Norwegian folk belief, someone takes on
the personality and skills of the person after whom they are named. The
story of Ellen Marit’s calling reflects a traditional society’s focus on the
group’s influence on the individual’s choice and the course of life marked
160 Bente Gullveig Alver

out for him or her. It is not the individual who has free choice. The choice
is bound up with the traditional regulatory framework and the group’s
preferences.
Ellen Marit’s father and her husband followed her for the first part of
the way to the grave, but then she had to go on alone. She got lost and
walked and walked for many hours, but did not find it. Eventually, she
got help from another member of the spirit world—a helping spirit in
bird form:

Suddenly there is a small sparrow which stops in front of me by the road-

side—up in the air—and it flaps its wings, and stays perfectly still. I am as it
were caught by this sparrow. So it flies to the left. Then I follow it with my gaze
and see that only fifty meters from the trail lies the cemetery! I just had not seen
it, although I had walked past it many times. So I did some rituals before I went
through the church gate, and rituals when I came to the grave. It has a picket
fence around the grave. So I put the flowers there, finished and left. Afterwards
I realized that this was a test of my endurance, my patience. Thirdly, it was a
test of obedience, that I could learn how to take a message and obey. My father
taught me the rituals I should use. And he also made me aware that I would
make that kind of contact and come up against tests like this. (cited in Alver
1999: 155–156)

Ellen Marit saw this religious experience as a final confirmation of elec-

tion by the spirits, represented by her grandmother, and that her father
would guide her all the way to becoming a “fully worthy shaman.” She
knew from him that to get the knowledge and insight that was needed,
she had to expect that life would become tough for her. She had to build
up her strength through mastering the challenges the spirits proffered.
They wanted to test her to see if she was strong enough, good enough.
Later in the course of her life Ellen Marit’s dreams continued to pro-
vide dream symbols that fit into an older Sami conceptual world. But as
time passed and she gained more insight into a neo-religious thought-
world, she adapted the interpretations of her dreams toward a brighter
universe.

Chosen by Fate
A person’s fate can be revealed through signs or a message from another
world. Ellen Marit knew that her two sons would not survive her, and
she told me this early on, before the elder one died. She had been given
a message through a dream that still came back to her. It was a dream
in which she and her sons were run down by black runaway horses, and
she found herself on the roadside with the bleeding, dying boys pressed
close to her.
 More or Less Genuine Shamans! 161

But she did not just know that they were going to die but also how
they would die. Her youngest son had a birthmark on his neck, as Ellen
Marit’s mother immediately saw when he was a newborn. To the close
family her mother had said she was uneasy about that birthmark. She
saw it as a sign that the child would not grow old, and that he would die
a violent death. Marks on the body have been interpreted from of old in
both Sami and Norwegian tradition as a sign or message from “another
world.”
In 1981 Ellen Marit lost her youngest son in a tragic accident when
he was 18. It caused her to have still more anxiety over her eldest son’s
fate. For he too had a birthmark that foretold his fate. It was shaped like
a fish. It was interpreted by the family elder as a sign that he would die
in the water. In addition he slept with half-open eyes, which was also a
traditional sign of drowning.
The youngest son’s death confirmed Ellen Marit’s belief that it was
fated, and she was reluctant to leave the place in which her elder son was
living. She reorganized her studies and her life to be in the city where
he was. She could not free herself from the dream of the black horse as
a symbol of death and her lifeless boys. One day in 1984 her son dis-
appeared quite suddenly. The family took it fairly calmly—youngsters
often follow their own mysterious ways. But after some days Ellen Marit
dreamed that she saw him lying floating in water with his face turned
over. The dream made her certain that he was dead. No one completely
believed her desperate tale, however, except her father. He confided to
Ellen Marit that he had had a vision in which he saw the boy coming
toward him, his clothes drenched. A few weeks later the boy was found
drowned.
The Danish scholar Per Stounbjerg writes in his discussion of the auto-
biographical text that the text creates hierarchies:

Some events are highlighted as the core events, others are just garnish. The story
provides a sequence of pointers in the form of reversals and turning points, and
thus transforms life into an intelligible whole. We recognize it as narrative: we
are recounting not just our lives. The story itself is one of the most important
metaphors we use to understand it at all. (1994: 45–46)

In Ellen Marit’s life story the tales about the doomed and death are
absolutely central. The loss of those dearest to her is associated with the
thought of what she must endure in order to tread the “shaman path” and
have a part in secret knowledge. She was to feel the force of her father’s
words: “I cannot give you my strength. It is you who must build up your
strength.” After her youngest son’s death she was so grief-stricken that
she did not have the energy to get up from her bed and go to the friends
162 Bente Gullveig Alver

and family who gathered in the house when the accident was discovered.
She was completely paralyzed, wanting only to sleep, to be gone, to avoid
taking part.
Her father went to plead with her. He asked her to get up, to join
the other mourners. He thought she was not behaving appropriately as
a shaman or Sami by her self-imposed isolation. He told her that such
intense grief was not something the spirits favored. They decide, and
humans obey. He reminded her that death is not an absolute, and that it
is just the side of life seen in the mirror. Dying is a transition to another
life, another dimension. One must get used to living with death on the
left side. Her father spoke to her not only as her spiritual guide but from
an old Sami conceptual world and from the traditions of its society.
Grief must be lived out in the community and through certain rituals.
Her father’s admonitions about who she was and what was expected of
her forced her to her feet. But he said that did not give her life meaning;
her loss had made her life into something else. Her father spoke to the
shaman in her, and perhaps to the Sami, but not to the mother, the per-
son. It was her elder son who did this. The fact that he was still there got
her to start eating again.
For the first time in the narrative process Ellen Marit questioned the
conceptual world her father stood for. She needed something other than
the spirits’ dominance over her life and ideas of the realm of the dead as
a dark and dangerous house of spirits of which her son was now a part.
A few weeks after her father touched upon her sense of duty and talked
the “shaman” onto her feet, she had an experience in a new community.
It was a women’s community, which triggered a sense of closeness and
security that she needed and gave her loss and her life new meaning:

I was invited to a conference in Gothenburg a few weeks after my younger boy

died. I was going to cancel the trip, but luckily my family was so sensible that
they insisted that I should go—and it was good that I went. I had a powerful
experience on 6 August—Hiroshima day. It was celebrated by the women at
this conference by launching light boats (pieces of cardboard with lights on)
into the canal. It was a stream of light flowing down as far as you could see—a
wonderfully powerful vision. It was so very powerful to me, that I was not the
only one who mourned, that I was not the only mother in the world who had
lost a child. There are women who lose children every single day, every second,
all year round. Think of all those women who lost their children in Hiroshima.
Then a great calm came over me. After that, it was not so tough. (cited in Alver
1999: 159)

Away from the Sami community and from family, from expectations and
obligations, she gave up her feelings of violence. In a world of light mov-
ing in flowing water, in solidarity with women who light candles and
 More or Less Genuine Shamans! 163

commemorate their dead, grief grew lighter. From looking at her son’s
death as a grim reflection of fate, she allowed herself a few moments, a
few hours, a few days to concentrate on being a mother: to see the unfair-
ness of the boy’s death, the unfairness in other children dying, and the
incomprehensible in Hiroshima—but an injustice and incomprehensibil-
ity that she shared with many.
After both sons were dead, the world of the dead and the spirit world
were very different for her, because her boys were now situated there. She
poeticized a brighter world for them. She met her boys in her dreams and
experienced them as loving helpers. On the level of feeling and experience
she had close contact with them and it filled her with warmth. The spirit
world lost some of its fear and terror, but perhaps something of its power
too. It became more human and less dangerous.

I saw the lads like stars twinkling at me as I lay in bed, half-unconscious.

Two stars coming toward me and twinkling and flashing and shining. Then
they changed—and they stretched their hands toward me. I saw them walk
no further. Well, I saw the elder—he came to me. I do not remember how long
afterwards it was. Then he says: “Mum, you must not cry for me. I am in the
light.” And it was so beautiful. (cited in Alver 1999: 157)

In many ways her depiction of life in the realm of the dead resembles the
many contemporary tales of near-death experiences, permeated by a tone
of beauty, light and joy (Alver 1999: 57–74).

Meeting the Goddesses

After the reverberations from the Alta conflict leveled off, Ellen Marit
continued to fight for minority rights. Inspired by her friendship with the
social psychologist and politician Berit Ås, she was also concerned with
women’s equality and peace processes more generally. Berit Ås had heard
about Ellen Marit and invited her to speak at a Nordic conference on
women in Denmark in 1979, which discussed politics and work in light
of women’s emancipation (Haslund 2008: 204–205). Ellen Marit agreed
to attend. Here she appeared not only as a lecturer on male and female
gods in the pre-Christian Sami religion but also as a “healer” for the vari-
ous conference participants. And not just that: Berit Ås relates that Ellen
Marit taught the conference women the ritual moon dance: “We danced
in the middle of the night to various words that I do not remember: a
large ring of over a hundred women charmed by Ellen Marit’s beauty
and individuality.” Later Berit Ås and Ellen Marit met each other over a
common cause in the Alta conflict both in Finnmark and in Oslo, and at
the peace conference in Gothenburg in 1981. In 1987, Berit Ås wanted
164 Bente Gullveig Alver

to examine how peace and women’s studies were pursued at American

universities and to try to create interest in raising money for a women’s
university in Løten, which was inaugurated 1985. Close political friends
insisted that she had to have a secretary with her who would help her
maintain a record of what she experienced and got out of the trip. Berit
Ås asked Ellen Marit, who said yes. This six-week trip, in which she
interacted closely with Berit Ås while visiting various American universi-
ties and other institutions, had a great influence on her, in both the politi-
cal field and the religious (Haslund 2008: 202–215). Berit Ås’s political
enthusiasm for equality and peace affected Ellen Marit. In her life story
it emerges in her reflections on the importance of forgiveness to achieve
peace in the world, and how pure ritual can empty the mind of hateful
thoughts. When it comes to the religious and the magical, it was also on
this trip that she made contact within the academic world with a group
of women who belonged to a neo-religious movement. Ellen Marit called
them “goddesses” (see Orenstein 1990). Berit Ås had good opportunities
to see Ellen Marit as both a political and a religious player on this trip.
When I asked what she thought of her, she replied,

I admired her for her strength and determination, her courage and strong integ-
rity. That she behaved as if she had those powers and insights that she had, and
did not give up or stop through other people’s condescension, I see as some-
thing almost worthy of wonder. (Letter from Berit Ås, November 30, 2013)

The American goddesses looked upon Ellen Marit as an interesting

acquaintance, because for them she was a “primeval woman,” a shaman
and an icon of their quest for the power of nature, for the protection of the
environment and Mother Earth, and for the true and original. Central in
this neo-religious contact network was the literary scholar and ecofemi-
nist Gloria Orenstein. She and Ellen Marit made such a good contact that
she visited Ellen Marit in Norway, as she wanted to learn about “real sha-
manism” from her. Orenstein found herself a private trainer so that she
could physically cope with the hardships of the north Norwegian moun-
tain landscape. Ellen Marit took her to the plains, and together they vis-
ited the ancient holy places and the centers of power. Ellen Marit related
that Orenstein had come to the conclusion that the two were “soul mates”
or twin souls, and that they had had contact with each other on the men-
tal level before they met on Ellen Marit’s American trip. For example,
this soul friendship also manifested itself for Orenstein in that she felt
the same pain in the body as Ellen Marit when Ellen Marit had cancer.
Ellen Marit did not know what to think about this “soul mates” business,
which did not entirely fit into her conceptual world, but the two had close
contact with each other right up to Ellen Marit’s death.
 More or Less Genuine Shamans! 165

Both Orenstein and Ellen Marit spoke of their relationship as one

between teacher and student. Ellen Marit influenced Orenstein through
her teaching on the Sami conceptual world, but Orenstein’s thought-
world also colored Ellen Marit’s way of thinking. As an effect of the
influence of this world of ideas of the “goddesses,” Ellen Marit’s guide
suddenly began to address her in English.
Orenstein discusses Ellen Marit as her teacher in the article “Toward
an Ecofeminist Ethic of Shamanism and the Sacred” (1993). She puts
her forward as a person who uses her dreams and visions as a baseline
for her political work, and she says of her, “Being a political leader was
being a spiritual leader, and vice versa.” Orenstein recounts her visit to
Ellen Marit in Finnmark, in which she felt that she was learning about
“genuine shamanism” as opposed to what she had learned previously in
neoshamanistic workshops. Orenstein describes very clearly some inter-
esting differences between the two women’s ways of thinking:

From my own experience in Samiland, I know that I was always wait-

ing to meet my “power animal” and my shaman teacher was always
taking me to the real reindeer, the real birds, the real mosquitoes. It
wasn’t until she communicated with birds, brought them to us, talked
with them, and sent them away, or until she “psyched out” the problem
of a lost reindeer, that I began to understand how the neo-shamanic
narrative from contemporary workshops had actually blinded me to
the fact that real animals are also spirit and power, and, at least to my
shaman teacher, they were every bit as important, or even more so,
than her owl spirit guide who had appeared to her in childhood.
Sometimes I used to feel that I had a more “shamanic” perspective
than she did, because I was always coming up with sophisticated sym-
bolic interpretations of dreams and I was always looking for “power
animals,” while she seemed to be more interested in the real animals
and she understood the figures in dreams to represent the spirits of
real people. The truth is that she made less of a distinction than we
do between real and spirit people or animals. To her, all was real, all
was spirit, all was sacred, simultaneously. There was no contradiction
in that. (1993)

New Horizons
Encountering a new horizon of opportunity, and inspired by her feminist
and neo-religious networks, Ellen Marit developed a rebellious attitude
toward the control that she experienced on many levels from both forces
and people. This rebelliousness is seen in her treatment in the last phase
of her life of the stringent regulatory framework for rituals and ritual
166 Bente Gullveig Alver

usage in the old Sami conceptual world, when she inaugurated a different
approach to the rituals. The rituals became more individual, more per-
sonal, more creative. For example, one of her very last rites exemplifies
a different view from what her father had taught her. She described how
she helped a group of people rid themselves of hatred, for example against
former spouses. Ellen Marit was at that time too ill to participate as a
leader of the ritual, but it was conducted according to her instructions:

They should get themselves two big cloths, one red and one yellow, big enough
to put them around themselves. Then they should put on some old clothes,
some clothes that they could discard. Then they should find a place to burn
them or a river they could throw the things into. . . . First, they should put on the
old clothes, then wrap them in a bundle and throw them into the water while
wearing the red fabric around them. It symbolizes power. Then they should
offer various prayers. These they could make up themselves, ritual prayers
based on the idea that the spirits should help them get rid of hatred. When
they have done this ritual, they should dress in different clothes and don the
yellow fabric. The yellow symbolizes spirituality. They should pray the spirit
to fill them, so that they would be filled with more love and that power of love
should take the place where hatred had been. . . . You have to prepare yourself
mentally for the rituals. You must build this up and plan it and enter it on the
mental level too. You must conduct these rituals in this way. And the words
you say, you must adapt to your situation and what affects you. There is no
uniform recipe for this; it can suit all cultures and all people throughout the
world. (cited in Alver 1999: 163).

The ritual has a traditional Sami feel, including the color symbolism and
the way the evil is destroyed. But the reflexivity associated with what is
said and done and the show of love power, replacing hatred and filling
the mind space, seems to have originated in the neo-religious conceptual
world.
Ellen Marit’s rebelliousness is also seen in her struggle against the
idea that her bitter fate was directed by the spirits, and that she had
nothing with which to resist these trials. She was looking for a different
understanding and found assistance in neo-religious notions. These neo-
religious ideas had shown her a way through the grief over the loss of her
sons and had opened up the notions of death and a friendly kingdom of
death, which she did not find in older Sami ideology. She was confident
that her sons were with her on a mental level, that she communicated
with them daily in a different way from how she otherwise communi-
cated with the spirit world. The grief opened up a religious experience
in which she felt she was one with the universe, an experience of limits
being effaced between humans and the powers, between life and death,
between vision and dream, dream and reality. Before her elder son died,
he painted a wall where he lived with a huge, brilliant sun. For Ellen
 More or Less Genuine Shamans! 167

Marit, this was a sign that the sons were in a realm of light, in a kingdom
of love—a land she too would come to. She found peace in the belief that
they would come back in new shapes for a better life than the life they
had been wrenched from so abruptly. “I have lost both my children. But I
think that they were not supposed to have a longer time in this life. They
had to move on. They were developed enough to proceed to the next
phase” (EFA. Protocol GD: 125).

Love Power
In her final years, Ellen Marit expanded her views on the power that was
central to her thought-world and to her actions, and its limits. She gave
the power she related to a new name. She called it love power.

It just gets clearer and clearer, the deeper one penetrates into this stuff. That
what is important is love and the power of love. And love is what permeates
all creation. . . . If you first discover the amazing power it is and what it can do,
against all evil and enmity, so you are never in doubt any more. (cited in Alver
1999: 162)

This power, which she had attached to the spirit world and the dead
ancestors and sacred places, we meet now in humanity itself. Ellen Marit
flitted in and out of different thought-worlds and belief systems. She
still talked about the spirits out there and their permission to develop
and strengthen the power, but she also moved the center of power from
something outside the person to something that exists in herself. She saw
humanity as divine in a different way from before. But the belief that
power can be used for specific purposes, that the magic works, is there
all the time.

Spirituality is there. And that’s the biggest part of every human being. Some
people have these abilities to a greater degree and can develop them more
strongly than others. But everyone can develop them more than they actually
do. You have to find your own answers through listening to your guide or
guides, then you will arrive at the answer—the answer that is for you. . . . Your
road or path does not need to look like my path, but the goal is the same. The
goal is to become divine. What my guides have told me is that everyone can
create their own rituals based on the position they are in, based on their own
background. . . . When you do these rituals, it is the core of your being. What
you do and what you say—the meaning of it is that you fix your whole atten-
tion on the core of spirituality, on the divine. It is the goal of every soul to be
divine. (cited in Alver 1999: 162)

The goddess ideology gave her concepts and categories to fill in the words.
She used the term “spirituality” and talked about development and the
168 Bente Gullveig Alver

way into the core of the individual. It is as if the ego or the “I-person”
gets bigger. She talked about the individual ways to go about finding my
answers and yours. After she focused her thoughts on love power in her
life story, she said that she did not think she could have explained so
clearly what power was ten years earlier, because she did not have or did
not want to use the words she now used. But for me the power at which
she marveled and questioned a decade before was the same power to
which she related as she lay on her sickbed.

Journeys Back and Forth

Ellen Marit essentially had little freedom within the older Sami concep-
tual world and the traditional reindeer-herding community, which was
her background. Her role as the family’s elect with powers of mediation
was governed by the expectations of the family and community. But she
made her choices. If one is to believe what she says, she followed her
will from childhood on. That she managed to do so, she explained, was
because she was a child who received much love and attention. Without
doubt, her life story shows a child who was allowed to fend for herself
early on, who had a great responsibility for siblings and daily home rou-
tines laid upon her, but who also, filled with fantasy as she was, found
room for herself, a space to learn and play. She was not to be the wife
material they tried to make her; she took her stand on getting more
schooling and chose an academic career and to some extent a life in the
city, instead of marrying into reindeer-herding.
She had a rebellious streak in herself, a desire to break free, but as
is often the case, she paid for it with a longing to return. All her life
she flitted between different belief systems and different contexts. Her
practice as a shaman or “wise woman” was bound up with an older
Sami conceptual world with her father as a spiritual guide. Although
she was against all forms of neoshamanism, and she and her father
looked at that kind of shamanism as deception, her own world of ideas,
advice and treatment practices were gradually colored by neo-religious
ideas, although she vehemently denied it. It may, of course, be because
neo-religious ideas gradually became mainstream in Norwegian soci-
ety. But her contact with Berit Ås, especially their week-long travels in
the United States in 1987, the context of peace and women’s confer-
ences, and her relationship with the ecofeminist Gloria Orenstein were
important for her development as both a political and religious player.
The ideas of the “goddesses” about the protection of Mother Earth
and nature, and humanity as divine, were reflected in Ellen Marit’s
imagination and helped open up a brighter spirit world than the older
Sami one. Among the “goddesses” she also encountered a longed-for
 More or Less Genuine Shamans! 169

sounding board for the individual, for the proximate, for intimate rela-
tionships, feelings, and experiences, and not least an arena in which
political and religious commitment fused. What separates Ellen Marit
from many other Norwegian “wise women” is that she used her spe-
cial abilities not only to benefit the individual but also for the group,
for society. This creates a firm connection back to the ideas of the old
noaidi.
One of late modernity’s core concepts is creativity. “To be oneself and
exist as a creative human, what higher happiness can be achieved? This
is the highest value” (Hauge 1990: 58). Ellen Marit as a creative person
regarded magic and the magical as the key to creativity, to shaping and
changing. The belief in power, and that this power could accomplish and
be used, was the essence, the very core, of her life’s work toward forming
an identity. Ellen Marit’s life story is about how people use this magic to
understand and recount who they are and what they want.
When in her narrative she lends shape and color to the power, she ends
up beside her father, with what he said, what he did, what he was. There,
on her bed, bound up in her body and her pain, loaded down with love
energies from a network of friends who were more or less linked with
neo-religious contexts, she waited for her father to come and make her
healthy or—in the last stage—whole. She was convinced that she was in
the last stage of her development to becoming a fully worthy shaman. But
in her thoughts and her story her father underwent a transformation. He
was like a savior and like the top of the hierarchy. His magical world and
that of the “goddesses” merged into one universe in which the common
denominator was nature as sacred, and in which he was the overseer of
nature, of creativity, of love.
Ellen Marit asked to tell her story, to be allowed to remember, to
understand why things had to be as they were, or turned out. Through
narration her various identities and her various roles knitted together
into a whole, something meaningful to leave behind. ‘Life’s pattern one
recognizes only when one wanders life’s paths anew” (Stounbjerg 1994:
45). What she told me relates to the events of her life. But through the
journey back she gave form to what she thought lay ahead for her. There
up ahead were her boys. When she had finished her long story, she was
silent and became completely still. Her gaze slid past me and fixed on
something far, far away: “Look,” she said, “look at the boys! They’re
standing there at the gate like two twinkling stars, waiting for me.”

Notes
1. The text is translated by Dr. Clive Tolley, Docent, Department of Folkloristics,
University of Turku, Finland.
170 Bente Gullveig Alver

2. “A “wise” person perceives him or herself as someone with special abilities

and as a channel for supernatural powers. As a wise woman she exists in a
state of power deriving from the fact that her surroundings accept who she
is, and treats her on the basis of the values and norms traditionally associ-
ated with this institution” (Alver and Selberg 1992: 61).
3. On the “reader” and the reader’s characteristics, see Myrvoll 2010:
148–153.
4. My knowledge of her is not limited to this one text. I spoke with her many
times about her attitudes toward and use of her special abilities, about folk
medicine and about her way of understanding illness and treatment.
5. See also Fonneland on the wise woman Esther Utsi’s vision of Polmakmoen
Guest House. This vision goes beyond the idea of the guest house as just a
place for holiday guests and conference participants. “Her hope is that the
personal, spiritual and cultural experience she offers her guests will impact
at a higher, political level, and contribute to the development of a new eco-
nomic era” (2012).
6. On Harner’s development of core shamanism, see Harner 1980. On Harner,
see Svanberg 2003: 97–103. Svanberg says, “If it was Carlos Castaneda and
books about meetings with Don Juan that established the interest in neo-
shamanism in the West, it was Michael Harner who made sure that there
was a practical approach to the practice of a view of life which previously it
had long been possible to encounter only in literary depictions, expressing a
shamanic interpretation of reality and ways of living. Literary shamanism is
supplemented for Harner with practical application.” (2003: 97)
7. Paradoxically the role of princess haunted her. In some ways she was dif-
ferent in the Sami communities in Finnmark. This otherness was in some
groups considered arrogance, and she was called “princess.” She was beauti-
ful then too, as fairy-tale princesses always are.
8. See the description of the Alta conflict in Kraft and Fonneland’s introduc-
tion, here.
9. In this campaign, this women’s group met opposition from their own people.
Especially the Laestadian Sami were against rising up against the authori-
ties, something they looked upon as a sin against God. See the similar pre-
sentation of the issue in Myrvoll 2010: 230–252.
10. Before she got as far as the main subject, she became seriously ill and had to
interrupt her studies.

References
Alver, Bente Gullveig. 1999. “At dø—og at vende tilbage! En moderne vision
om det genvundne paradis” and “Det magiske menneske: Magi som perspek-
tiv for identitetsarbejde og selvforståelse,” in Bente Gullveig Alver, Ingvild
Sælid Gilhus, Lisbeth Mikaelsson, and Torunn Selberg (eds.), Myte, magi og
mirakel i møte med det moderne. Oslo: Pax, 57–74 and 147–164.
Alver, Bente Gullveig, and Torunn Selberg. 1992. “Det er mer mellom himmel
og jord”: Folks forståelse av virkeligheten ut fra forstillinger om sykdom og
behandling. Sandvika: Vett & Viten.
 More or Less Genuine Shamans! 171

Brynn, Grace, and Bente Brunvoll. 2011. Erik Myrhaug: sjaman for livet. Oslo:
Nova.
Dunfjeld, Ellen Marit Gaup. 1979. Reindrift: Samisk næring, samisk fremtid.
Tromsø: Norsk Reindriftsamers Landsforbund.
Eriksson, Jørgen I. 1988. Samisk shamanism. Umeå: h:ström.
Fonneland, Trude A. 2010. “Samisk nysjamanisme: i dialog med (for)tid og
stad: En kulturanalytisk studie av nysjamanar sine erfaringsforteljingar—
identitetsforhandlinger og verdiskaping.” Doctoral dissertation, University of
Bergen.
———. 2012. “Spiritual Entrepreneurship in Northen Landscape. Spirituality,
Tourism and Politics,” Temenos 48(2): 11–27.
Gaup, Ailo. 2005. Sjamansonen. Oslo: Tre bjørner forlag.
Harner, Michael. 1980. The Way of the Shaman: A Guide to Power and Healing.
San Francisco: Harper & Row.
Haslund, Ebba. 2008. lld fra asker: Et portrett av Berit Ås. Oslo: Pax.
Hauge, Hans. 1990. “Før, under og efter subjektet,” in Hans Hauge (ed.),
Subjektets status. Om subjektfilosofi, metafysik og modernitet. Aarhus:
Aarhus universitetsforlag, 52–72.
Myrvoll, Marit. 2010. ““Bare gudsordet duger”: Om kontinuitet og brudd i
samisk virkelighetsforståelse.” Doctoral dissertation. University of Tromsø.
Orenstein, Gloria Feman. 1990. The Reflowering of the Goddess. Oxford:
Pergamon Press.
———. 1993. “Towards an Ecofeminist Ethic of Shamanism and the Sacred,”
in Carol J. Adams (ed.) Ecofemnism and the Sacred. New York: Continuum.
Read on Web: http://www.babaylan.net/wordpress/toward-an-ecofeminist-
ethic-of-shamanism-and-the-sacred/
Pollan, Brita. 1993. Samiske sjamaner: Religion og helbredelse. Oslo:
Gyldendal.
Skånby, Sten. 2005. “Den mystiske indianen: Schamanism i skäringspunkten
mellan populärkultur, forsking och nyandlighet.” Doctoral dissertation.
Stockholm University.
Stounbjerg, Per. 1994. “Livet som forbillede: Om den selvbiografiske fortælling.”
K & K, 21(76): 43–54.
Ström, Anne-Karine. 2013. Bergit: Helbredende hender. Oslo: Orfeus.
Svanberg, Jan. 2003. Schamantropologi i gränslandet mellan forsking och prak-
tik: En studie av förhållandet mellan schamanismforskning och neoschaman-
ism. Åbo: Åbo Akademi University Press.
Tolley, Clive. 2009. Shamanism in Norse Myth and Magic. FF Communications,
144, no. 296. Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica.

References
The interview material is stored in the Ethno-folkloristic Archive (EFA),
University of Bergen. According to Ellen Marit Gaup Dunnfjeld’s wish, it is
closed and not publicly available before 2021.
Earlier short versions in Norwegian and Danish of Ellen Marit’s life are found in
Alver and Selberg 1992, Alver, Gilhus, Mikaelsson and Selberg 1999.
 III

Neoshamanism in Secular
Contexts
 9
Sami Shamanism and Indigenous Film:
The Case of Pathfinder

Cato Christensen

Nils Gaup’s 1987 Pathfinder1 is usually referred to as the first ever Sami
feature film. It was a genre-specific action-adventure film, set in an
ancient past, in a harsh, snow-covered landscape. It told the story of
Aigin, a young Sami boy, whose resourcefulness and etic values save his
people from a band of murderous bandits.
The film was an immediate success, both commercially and critically.
It was even nominated for an Academy Award. It was hailed for its gran-
deur, its visual beauty, its suspense, but perhaps most importantly, its
ethnopolitical importance. The film was seen as a statement of the worth
of Sami culture—to the world, but particularly to Sami communities. By
the mid-1980s, many Sami had been assimilated into Norwegian-ness,
and found themselves out of touch with their Sami ethnicity and even
ashamed of links to anything “Sami.” To them, Pathfinder was described
as a boost for “pride and identity” (Norwegian News Agency 1987).
This chapter focuses on a somewhat neglected aspect of Pathfinder as
an ethnopolitical phenomenon, namely its emphasis on religion. Drawing
heavily on ethnographic accounts of Sami pre-Christian shamanism, so-
called noaidevuohta, Pathfinder offers an elaborate portrayal of reli-
gious aspects of ancient Sami society. But the film’s religiosity, I argue,
was much more than a merely “apolitical” cinematographic adaptation;
it was embedded in broader discourses of establishing markers of a new
postcolonial Sami identity. 2
I discuss Pathfinder from a cultural-analytical perspective (cf.
Ginsburg 1991). Emphasis will be put on the film’s mediation of meaning
and its connection to broader discourses of Sami ethnopolitics. Besides
176 Cato Christensen

the film itself, I will examine media coverage in connection with its 1987
release and interviews with filmmaker Nils Gaup. I also reference other
films that shed light on the subject matter. The discussion is structured
into five sections, but principally moves back and forth as it aims to con-
ceptualize Pathfinder’s emphasis on religion, both in terms of broader
discourses of reclaiming the Sami past, and processes of “indigenization”
of Sami ethnopolitics.

An Ethnopolitical Movie
Coming home from a hunting trip, the young Sami boy Aigin (Mikkel
Gaup) witnesses the murder of his parents and younger sister by a band of
black-clothed marauders, the Tchudes. Aigin watches the Tchudes from
a hilltop when he is noticed. He is shot and wounded by an arrow, but
eventually manages to escape to a neighboring siida (reindeer commu-
nity). In fear of an imminent Tchude attack, most of the nomadic Sami
group leaves for safer territory by the coast. Aigin and a few other men
stay behind to fight the Tchudes. The men are slaughtered. Only Aigin
survives. He is captured and forced to act as a pathfinder for the Tchudes,
to lead them to the Sami’s coastal settlement . . .
Pathfinder was action oriented, fast moving, high on suspense, and
brutal. The media emphasized its international and “Hollywood-like”
profile. It was especially noted that the film bore a close resemblance to
the Western genre (Iversen 2005, Solum 1997). It was referred to as a
“Sami Western” or a “Northern” (Dahl 1987). Several newspapers also
highlighted the fact that it was the first Nordic film shot in the grand for-
mat of 70 millimeter and equipped with Dolby stereo sound in six chan-
nels. Presumably, in 1987, this was an audiovisual power pack reserved
only for the biggest blockbusters (Haave 1987a).
The film was a significant breach with the norms of filmmaking
in Norway at the time, because of its grandeur and genre specificity,
but most importantly because of its ethnic dimension (Iversen 2005).
Although Norwegian cinema had occasionally featured Sami characters
and, to various degrees, centered on Sami-related themes in the past, this
was the first feature film ever to depict Sami culture from “the inside”
(Christensen 2012a, Skarðhamar 2008). The director, Nils Gaup, was
himself a Sami. The film used Northern Sami (Davvisámegiella) as the
main language of dialogue. It was shot on location in the midst of the
Sami core areas in Finnmark, the northernmost county of Norway, and
most of the cast were local Sami amateur actors. Aigin was the first-ever
true Sami hero on film (Mecsei, in Kulås 2008). The story of the film,
although presented in the familiar cinematographic idiom of American
 Sami Shamanism and Indigenous Film 177

adventure movies, was also deeply embedded in Sami culture and tradi-
tion. It was adapted from Sami folktales, framed in the title sequence as
a “story that has been passed down from generation to generation for
nearly 1000 years.” The media reported that Nils Gaup, the director, had
“first heard the story from his father, who in turn had heard it from his
father” (Haave 1987b, my translation).
Pathfinder was born out of an ongoing process of Sami political and
cultural revitalization. It was launched in a crucial period in terms of
raising Sami ethnic awareness both inside and outside Sami communities
(Eidheim 1998). The decade of the film’s release, the 1980s, was initiated
with the so-called Alta conflict (1979–1981). This event marked a water-
shed in terms of placing Sami rights issues on the Norwegian national
political agenda, and finally putting an end to the politics of assimilation
that had dominated the Norwegian-Sami relationship for over a century
(ibid., Minde 2003). In the wake of the Alta conflict, the ongoing Sami
social movement came to attract more and more people and to express
itself in new ways and in new arenas, beyond strictly political channels.
Art and popular culture now became tools for forging a new postcolonial
Sami identity (Eidheim 1998).
Entwined in the cultural and political situation of the mid-1980s,
Pathfinder took part in a broader discourse concerning “what it meant
to be a Sami,” what the characteristics of Sami culture were, and how
Sami tradition and history should be viewed. In his extensive analyses,
folklorist Thomas DuBois argues that the film, as such, should be seen an
expression of the Sami “community’s conscious choice to maintain and
reassert cultural difference despite (or even because of) long-term pro-
cesses of acculturation, language attrition, and political disenfranchise-
ment” (2000: 256). Pathfinder, he argues, was “a proposition to Sami
and non-Sami alike regarding the identity and future of Sami people”
(ibid.). DuBois especially brings to the fore the film’s promotion of cul-
tural traits, as signifiers of ethnic distinction and communality. While
not a prime concern in DuBois’ analysis, religion—I argue—is perhaps
most prominent as such.

Religion as a Cinematographic Theme

Religion plays a significant role in Pathfinder. Supplementing the action-
oriented core plot, the film gives rich descriptions of the ancient Sami
society’s religious dimensions. With a seemingly impressive degree of his-
torical meticulousness and heavily drawing on ethnographic material,
the film depicts several known aspects of pre-Christian Sami noaide-
vuohta. It features, for instance, a noaidi (shaman) as a leading character.
178 Cato Christensen

It depicts shamanic drum rituals, performed with a richly and beautifully

decorated drum, and it depicts animal visions and bird omens.
In general, the film presents a cinematographic universe wherein peo-
ple’s lives are highly determined by spiritual beliefs and notions, such as
beliefs in predestination and the guidance of visions, and where under-
taking religious rituals is an integral aspect of everyday life. For instance,
an extensive sequence of the film is devoted to the traditional bear hunt
ritual of the Sami (cf. Hultkrantz 2000). As the protagonist, Aigin, finds
his way to a larger group of Sami while fleeing from the evil Tchudes, the
whole group is involved in performing rituals following the killing of the
bear: dancing around a fire, spitting chewed birch bark on the hunters to
reduce “the power of killing.”
Religion also forms the basis for a prominent subplot in the film,
focusing on the growing bond between the young protagonist, Aigin,
and the noaidi, Raste (Nils Utsi). The subplot is set even in the first
sequence, before the opening credits. By voice-over, we hear a man telling
about visions of seeing a reindeer bull for the third time. The man is later
revealed to be the noaidi, and the vision is a foresight of his own death.
This adds an extra dimension to the immanent Tchude threat, beyond
the mere matter of survival. Knowing he will die, the noaidi Raste has
to find his successor, to ensure the continuance of the religious tradition
of the Sami. As the plot progresses and the significance of this religious
tradition to the Sami is elaborated, we come to understand the severity of
the situation. Religion is essential to the Sami society, its foremost char-
acteristic and inducement. It is what constitutes them as a people and is
inherently tied to their existence.
Religion is the primary cultural trait that differentiates the Sami from
the Tchudes. A prominent leitmotif in the film is the contrast in world-
view between the two ethnic groups. This is made particularly explicit
in a core scene midway into the film, as the old noaidi conveys insight
into his (the Sami’s) worldview to the young, inexperienced Aigin. In this
scene, Raste warns the young hero of losing site of the “interconnected-
ness” that binds him to his Sami community and his environment, or else
he himself becomes a Tchude, “a man who has lost the path, stumbling
blindly towards self-destruction.” The religious theme culminates in the
film’s final scene. As the old noaidi has been killed in the fight against
the Tchude villains, Aigin now becomes the Sami community’s spiritual
“pathfinder.” With the aid of his resourcefulness, Aigin has managed
to stop the Tchudes’ attack, and now he also ensures that the spiritual
foundation of the Sami people is upheld. “We always have a pathfinder,”
a woman states, as she hands Aigin the ritual drum. These are the final
words spoken in the film.
From a purely technical perspective, these religious motifs, symbols, and
props serve important aesthetic functions in the film. They add a touch of
 Sami Shamanism and Indigenous Film 179

mystery to the story, making it more than a mere action film. They form
a narrative strand to supplement the rather formulaic, hero-villain core
story, providing an “extra layer” to characterization, imagery, plot devel-
opment, and suspense. Lengthy sequences focusing on religious ritual, for
instance, help give complexity to the Sami characters, hence promoting
emotional investment among audiences in their well-being in the face of
war and genocide. But in so doing, the weight given to religion in the film
also goes beyond the merely aesthetic. The story of Aigin, his rite de pas-
sage and initiation as a shaman forms the basis of Pathfinder as a moral
tale, about the essence and foundation of Sami culture, and its resilience
toward outside threats. As such, religion sits at the core of the film’s affili-
ation with a broader process of Sami identity construction, an articulation
of the essence of Sami culture, its uniqueness and seminal foundation.

Recuperating the Religious Past

Pathfinder could be seen as an example of what anthropologist Faye
Ginsburg (1991, 2002) referred to as “screen memories,” that is, a cin-
ematographic recreation of the past directed at rectifying alleged mis-
representations or neglect of the given community’s past in the discourse
of dominant society. While not portraying an actual historic event,
Pathfinder’s folktale-based story expressed a retelling of history from
a pronounced Sami perspective. The film resonated with broader dis-
courses circulating at the time about reclaiming and recuperating the
Sami history and past. As discussed by, for instance, anthropologist
Harald Eidheim (1998), the conceptualization of an ethnically distinct
history has been vital to the process of Sami cultural revitalization. A
prime orientation of the Sami movement has been to collectivize a notion
of the Sami as “a people who had established their homeland on the tun-
dra, the coasts and the woodlands in the north long before the Nordic
people arrived at the scene” (ibid.: 42). Pathfinder, envisioning a mythical
past in which Sami natives faced the threat of invading outsiders, was
arguably an enactment of such ideas.
In media coverage in connection with the 1987 premiere, such inten-
tions with the film were prominent. The focus was, on the one hand,
on the extensive course of research into Sami history and tradition that
had gone into making the narrative, settings, props, and costumes of
the film as authentic as possible. Allegedly, the film team had consulted
both scholars and different museums, including the Tromsø University
Museum—a world-leading center for research on Sami history and pre-
Christian religion. In one interview, Gaup put it like this: “I have read
heaps of books about Sami culture; even the ancient Romans have writ-
ten down something about it. And we have consulted several scholars”
(Bakkemoen 1987, my translation).
180 Cato Christensen

On the other hand, emphasis was on intentions within the film to

recodify Sami history and tradition, to make it adaptable to the cur-
rent ethnopolitical situation. For instance, the focus was on director Nils
Gaup’s “belief in the powerful potential of Sami culture” and his inten-
tion for the film to “give the Sami increased confidence their own identity
and culture” (Berntzen 1988, my translation). As The Norwegian News
Agency put it, “Unquestionably, his [Gaup’s] driving force is to show the
strength and diversity of Sami culture, and to accentuate the historical
lines of this minority that have opposed Norwegian assimilation politics
for centuries” (Tonstad 1987, my translation).
Infusing the film with religious motifs and symbols seems to have been
at the core of the intentional “traditionalization” of Sami culture and
identity. In interviews, the opportunity to convey Sami traditional religi-
osity to a contemporary audience was even stated to be the prime motiva-
tion for making the film in the first place. As Gaup himself put it,

Originally, the plan was to make a film about a spiritual leader, like the film’s
Raste character. At one time I consulted a scholar of shamanism, but I aban-
doned the project because I could not find a good story there. I got the feeling
that the story of the shaman lacked tension. . . . The story of the young boy and
the Tchudes, however, that’s pure suspense. In a way, it was my way of tricking
people into getting something from both kinds of story (Gaup, in Løchen 2003:
102, my translation)

In terms of accentuating the historical lines of Sami culture, emphasis

on pre-Christian shamanism was, arguably, all but natural. Probably no
aspect of Sami culture and tradition was more in need of recuperation
than the religious tradition.
Throughout history, religion has been a prime ethnic marker of the
Sami people. Even the oldest known sources on Sami society empha-
size their religiosity as a constituting cultural feature, what distin-
guishes them as a group, different from other “peoples” (cf. Historia
Norwegiæ, tenth century). However, the descriptions of Sami religion
have for the most part been derogatory, contrasting Sami heathenism,
sorcery, and devilry to true Christianity and civilization (Kristiansen
2001). Such descriptions were at the core of the intense Christian mis-
sion directed toward the Sami from the seventeenth century onward,
and also a foundation for the more extensive politics of assimilation
that was undertaken from the middle of the nineteenth century, offi-
cially lasting up until World War II, and for all practical concerns even
longer (ibid.). The result of the Christian missionizing and assimilation
politics was that the old religion—the Sami noaidevuohta—gradually
disappeared (Rydving 1993). As most Sami were christened and many
came to affiliate with the Lutheran revival movement of Læstadianism,
 Sami Shamanism and Indigenous Film 181

the pre-Christian religious past came to be commonly viewed as illicit

(DuBois 2000). Oppressed and devalued for centuries, Sami shamanism
and pre-Christian traditions came to carry little allure for most Sami.
This was the situation even in the mid-1980s, during the time period
when Pathfinder premiered. The process of raising Sami ethnic, cul-
tural, and political awareness was well on its way, not least following
the aforementioned Alta conflict. But the religious past, Sami pre-Chris-
tian traditions, remained a delicate matter.
While arguably in need of recuperation, Gaup’s emphasis on religion
was also probably, for the very same reason, somewhat risky. Indeed,
as folklorist Thomas DuBois (2000) notes, the religious aspects of the
film, the references to Sami pre-Christian religion, held a tremendously
divisive potential in the Sami society of the 1980s. Pathfinder’s depiction
of Sami pre-Christian religion could even have been, he argues, “a threat
to the feelings of unity and consensus, which the revitalist work should
evoke” (ibid.:268).
There might be several reasons why negative responses from Sami
communities never came. Most notably in that regard, Pathfinder’s
account of Sami shamanism was characterized by avoidance of the sor-
est elements of the Sami community’s religious conflicts. For one thing,
the narrative of the movie was placed in the era prior to the arrival of
Christianity in Sami society. The film thus avoided making a dichotomi-
zation between Christianity and Sami noaidevuohta part of the plot, and
also avoided taking sides as such. In other words, the film’s account of
shamanism just “blended in” as part of the narrative’s time period, and
with no other option, the film’s Sami could hardly be blamed for their
religious affiliation.
The film also excluded the potentially most problematic aspects of
Sami pre-Christian religiosity from being represented. This included,
for instance, the aspect of trance, perhaps the most disdained aspect of
historical noaidevuohta. Reading from ethnographic sources, the noaidi
falling into trance was a salient aspect of the Sami pre-Christian ritual
(Bäckmann and Hultkrantz 1978). But over the course of Christian mis-
sion and assimilation politics, this element became a primary subject of
suppression and disgrace in Sami societies—a symbol of heathenism,
idolatry, sorcery, and sacrilege (Mebius 2000). Trance has also been asso-
ciated with so-called “arctic hysteria” and has therefore laid the founda-
tion for highly derogatory characterizations of Sami people as inherently
mentally unstable by nature and especially predisposed to hysteria and
obsession (ibid., Pollan 1993). Even today trance is still a somewhat
shameful aspect of Sami pre-Christian religion, often associated with
negative stereotypes about the Sami as drunken and staggering (Mebius
2000). So, even though trance, and shamanic trance journeys, is given a
182 Cato Christensen

central place in ethnographic descriptions of traditional noaidevuohta, it

was totally excluded from Pathfinder.
A similar point can be made about the film’s treatment of the musical
expression of joik. Joik is included in the film, both as part of the film
score (by Sami artist Nils-Aslak Valkeapää) and the plot, but without
the religious associations documented in much ethnographic material.
Joik in pre-Christian Sami society was primarily linked to the noaidi, as
a means of evoking trance (Olsen 2004). As such, just like trance, joik
also has a history of being a somewhat delicate matter in Sami society.
Several examples can be given illustrating that joik has been problematic
and divisive for the Sami population, even quite recently (Kraft 2009a).
For example, both Nils-Aslak Valkeapää’s joiking during the opening
ceremony of the Lillehammer Winter Olympic Games in 1994 and Sami
artist Mari Boine’s “hymn joik” during the Norwegian Crown Prince
couple’s wedding in 2001 met with strong objections, particularly in
Laestadian milieus (ibid., see also Kraft in this volume). Pathfinder’s
emphasis on joik as a purely musical, rather than religious, phenomenon
was inherently sensitive to such tendencies.
Other aspects of Pathfinder’s version of Sami pre-Christian religion
might be interpreted in the same way. Corresponding to the exclusion
of trance and the secularization of joik, the film included neither elabo-
rative accounts of shamanic initiation nor gods. In this way, the film
further avoided provocative aspects of “the old Sami heathen religion.”
Additionally, the noaidi, Raste, is depicted as a highly sympathetic char-
acter. Raste is an active, responsible, and indisputably good community
member. He represents common sound values such as harmony, compas-
sion, selfless devotion, and ecological sustainability. Generally, the reli-
giosity of the film was given only positive connotations. It was not only
sensitive to potentially negative prejudices from the film’s contemporary
Sami communities, but arguably also sufficiently ambiguous as to con-
flict neither with Christian nor secular worldviews, for that matter. The
depiction of religion in the film was, one might argue, accommodated so
as to be acceptable and unifying even across disparities in a diverse Sami
population. And Sami shamanism was promoted as the common ground
upon which to assert this unified Sami identity.

Indigenous Spirituality
The weight given to religion in Pathfinder might also be understood
beyond the national context of the Sami-Norwegian relationship and the
stigmas associated with Sami pre-Christian religiosity. This brings to the
fore that the Sami awakening out of which the film obviously grew was
 Sami Shamanism and Indigenous Film 183

not restricted to its being a Norwegian or even a Nordic phenomenon.

It also involved a larger world of international politics and rights, and
intercultural contact between native groups from all around the world.
The Norwegian Sami “became” an indigenous people officially in 1990,
when the Norwegian state ratified ILO 169, but this was preceded by
more than a decade of intense “indigenization,” comprising changes
of both political and cultural nature (Eidheim 1998; Minde 2003). In
this process, an entirely new context for the formulation of self-image
and the identification of a Sami cultural domain was created. New and
alien symbols of indigeneity were adopted, in public discourse and at
local levels, in towns, villages, and rural areas, and individually, in Sami
individuals’ concept of self. As anthropologist Harald Eidheim put it,
“it became increasingly common for ordinary Sami people to view their
existence and cultural survival in terms of an indigenous peoples’ per-
spective” (1998: 37).
Over the last decade, a corpus of research has been devoted to reli-
gious aspects of such processes of “indigenization,” not merely related to
the Sami experience but also to the forging of “indigenous peoples” as a
global category in itself. 3 Terms such as “indigenous spirituality” (Kraft
2004), “indigenous religion” (Niezen 2012), or “aboriginal spirituality”
(Beyer 2007) have been coined to express the phenomenon. In different
ways, these concepts all refer to processes in which the intercultural com-
monality between indigenous groups has become infused with notions
of them as one spiritual community. Such notions, it is argued, have
increasingly become part of “the common terminology of indigeneity,”
for instance, in UN fora and international law—a discourse into which
indigenous delegates from around the world are “socialized” (Karlsson
2003: 406).
There is nothing new to “Western” spiritual fascination for the groups
now labeled “indigenous.” According to historian of religion Armin W.
Geertz (2004), such fascination might even be seen as an expression of a
primitivist ideology that ever since antiquity has influenced Western soci-
eties, and continues to do so. Among other things, it is commercialized
on the global New Age/neoshamanism market, promoted by the likes of
Michael Harner and Carlos Castaneda (cf. Wallis 2003). What is new,
however, is what anthropologist Harald Prins (2002) calls “the paradox
of primitivism,” that is, the adoption of primitivist myths by “the primi-
tives” themselves, as a counterhegemonic strategy. Increasingly, ideas of
indigenous peoples as carriers of a common religious heritage that has
been lost in Western dominant society are turned into an asset for and by
indigenous peoples themselves (Beyer 2007). For ethnic groups in the pro-
cess of gaining recognition for cultural particularity, the instrumentality
184 Cato Christensen

of such ideas is marked. Assertions of a worldview fundamentally dif-

ferent from, and even opposed to, the “Western” world’s religions and
worldviews are a way of stating both cultural difference and inherent cul-
tural worth (ibid.). It is a way of marking cultural boundaries in a process
of group formation. The asserted unique religiosity of indigenous peoples
is the “difference which makes a difference,” to paraphrase anthropolo-
gist Gregory Bateson (1972: 276).
In terms of the Sami, research on the religious aspects of indigeni-
zation is growing.4 Most prominently as such, historian of religion Siv
Ellen Kraft has in a number of articles over the last few years placed
emphasis on the utilization of religious heritage as a cultural asset and
resource for the Sami (e.g. 2004, 2006, 2009ab, 2010). Indeed, there has
been a marked change in the attitude toward Sami pre-Christian religion
over the last decades. Although stigmas still exist, especially in pietistic
Christian milieus, the general public discourse is characterized by posi-
tive references to the Sami religious past. There is also a broad tendency
for the Sami religious past to be evoked more implicitly, encompassed in
vague terms such as “Sami spirituality” and “Sami nature spirituality,”
and commonly ascribed to the Sami people as something like an inher-
ent cultural essence (Kraft 2009a). In general, such concepts are part of
an increasingly collectivized mythic discourse of the Sami, as indigenous
peoples, with strong ties to a pre-Christian origin and a spiritual rela-
tionship to nature, the earth, and the landscapes that they traditionally
have inhabited.
In many ways, it is this very same utilization of religion as a symbolic
resource that was promoted with Pathfinder’s portrayal of Sami shaman-
ism. The film’s ideal of a religious past as a unifying force, of religion as a
marker of cultural boundaries and difference from “others,” and conno-
tations of cosmological holism and ecological sustainability, all seem to
reflect the repertoire of “indigenous spirituality.” This also brings to the
fore questions of the formative role of a film that is now almost 30 years
old, as a catalyst, not just for legitimating Sami pre-Christian religion as
a positive aspect of Sami culture but also for a discursive reorientation of
“local” Sami religious history in global milieus.

A Cinematographic Formula—
Concluding Remarks
While leaving the question of Pathfinder’s role in legitimating Sami pre-
Christian religion ultimately unanswered, it is at least worth noting that
Pathfinder’s depiction of religion as a core to cultural particularity and
continuity seems to be a formula that works in terms of filmmaking. Not
least is this indicated in later productions by its director, Nils Gaup, who,
 Sami Shamanism and Indigenous Film 185

in the increasingly vital, flourishing, and versatile field of Sami film,

remains the best-known Sami filmmaker. For instance, in his latest pro-
duction, Hjerterått (2013), 5 a teen drama television series, Gaup has the
same actor as Raste in Pathfinder, Nils Utsi, reprise the role of a noaidi.
The noaidi character is now even moved to a modern Sami environment.
Besides hinting at the continuity of Sami noaidevoutha in the present day,
the noaidi is, just like in Pathfinder, one of the good guys, devoid of the
negative characteristics that have often, particularly in Christian circles,
been connected to historic noaidevuohta.
A similar nod to notions of Sami culture as inherently tied to its
pre-Christian religious roots can be found in Gaup’s historical drama
The Kautokeino Rebellion, one of the most viewed Norwegian feature
films in 2008. Marking Gaup’s return to his Sami roots after a series
of productions without Sami content, the film featured a “Sami ver-
sion” of the historic so-called Kautokeino rebellion, a violent rebellion
among a group of Sami reindeer herders in 1852 that resulted in the
killing of a police officer and a local merchant. Just like Pathfinder,
The Kautokeino Rebellion is interesting in terms of both recuperation
of the past in general, and particularly in terms of religion (Christensen
2012b). The historic rebellion is perhaps the most stigmatized incident
in the history of the Sami in Norway, due to its having been explained
as an outcome of Sami religious fanaticism (Graff 2009). Allegedly, the
rebellious Sami had maintained a rather radical and fundamentalist
approach to the Lutheran revival movement of Læstadianism, which
spread in the Sami core areas of northern Scandinavia from the 1840s
onward (ibid.).
Gaup’s adaptation redressed such perspectives. Placing responsibility
for the tragic events instead on Norwegian authorities and discrimina-
tory policies toward the Sami, the film consequently gave a highly posi-
tive account of the religiosity of the rebellious Sami. Gaup’s version of
Læstadianism was entirely sympathetic and low key. It even took on many
of the same characteristics as his recuperated version of Sami noaide-
vuohta in Pathfinder, being mostly a sort of nature-oriented cosmological
holism. Gaup’s rebellious Sami were children of the earth, character-
ized by communitas with each other, their reindeer, and their natural
environment, and with a spiritual foundation in the past. Although pre-
Christian religious practices are never depicted explicitly in The Kautokeino
Rebellion—which focuses on a period after the Christianization of the
Sami (cf. Rydving 1993)—it is still implicitly present in the film. It forms
a basis for the film’s entire discursive landscape, so to speak: the pre-
Christian religious heritage of Sami culture remains, hidden and uncon-
scious, but available as a resource in the darkest of hours. As Gaup him-
self put it in an interview, commenting on a scene in which a wrongfully
imprisoned Sami turns to joik for comfort and strength, “Shamanism
186 Cato Christensen

is the power that people can mobilize in painful situations in order to

remain resilient, survive and move on” (qtd. in Morset 2009: 119).
While not conclusive for the scope of Sami filmmaking today, these
examples, nevertheless, also point to a more general trend in filmmaking
among many indigenous groups around the world (cf. Ginsburg 2002,
1991, Hood 2008, Dowell 2006, Cummings 2011, Columpar 2010, Singer
2001, Kilpatrick 1999, Fielding 2003). From the aboriginal Australian
Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002, Philip Noyce), via Maori Whale Rider (2002,
Niko Caro), to the acclaimed first Inuit feature film ever, Atanarjuat:
The Fast Runner (2001, Zacharias Kunuk), there is a marked tendency
to promote spirituality as a core characteristic of indigenous communi-
ties. It is perhaps no wonder. In fact, as filmmaking has been utilized
by indigenous groups as a vehicle for internal and external mediation of
culture, identity construction, and redressing of outside cultural domina-
tion, it is in many cases done so with Pathfinder as a shining “landmark”
(Dowell 2006: 376). Being “the first and, so far, the only Indigenous film
to be nominated for an Academy Award” (Wood 2008: 136), Pathfinder
continues to screen at various indigenous and independent festivals and
showcases around the world. Pathfinder has arguably been exemplary,
demonstrating that indigenous people can make good feature films, even
commercially successful ones, and with a thematic backdrop of religion
as a crux to cinematographic constructions of identity. Pathfinder has
itself become the pathfinder.

Notes
1. Original title in Sami was Ofelaš. In Norwegian, the film was entitled
Veiviseren.
2. This chapter is based partially on a previous article, published in Norwegian
(Christensen 2010), but it also adds new aspects to the analysis of religion in
Pathfinder.
3. See e.g. Niezen 2012, Kraft 2004, 2006, 2009a, 2010, Tafjord 2012, Brosius
1997, Karlsson 2003, Cox 2007, Beyer 2007.
4. See e.g. Kraft 2004, 2006, 2009ab, 2010, Fonneland and Kraft 2013,
Fonneland 2010, 2013, Christensen 2010, 2012ab, Christensen and Kraft
2011, Mathisen 2010.
5. In English, the title means something like “cruel.”

References
Bateson, Gregory. 1972. Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in
Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology. Northvale, NJ;
London: Jason Aronson.
 Sami Shamanism and Indigenous Film 187

Beyer, Peter. 2007. “Globalization and Glocalization,” in James A. Beckford and

N. J. Demerath III (eds.) The Sage Handbook of the Sociology of Religion.
Los Angeles: Sage, 98–117.
Brosius, J. P. 1997. “Endangered Forest, Endangered People: Environmentalist
Representations of Indigenous Knowledge.” Human Ecology 25(1): 47–69.
Bäckman, Louise and Åke Hultkrantz. 1978. Studies in Lapp Shamanism.
Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International.
Christensen, Cato and Siv Ellen Kraft. 2011. “Religion i Kautokeino-opprøret:
en analyse av samisk urfolksspiritualitet.” Nytt Norsk Tidsskrift 1: 18–27.
Christensen, Cato. 2010. “Religion i Veiviseren: en analyse av samisk religiøs
revitalisering.” Din: Tidsskrift for religion og kultur 1–2: 6–33.
———. 2012a. “‘Overtroen er stor blant Viddenes folk’: om religion og koloniale
relasjoner i samisk filmhistorie.” Tidsskrift for kulturforskning 11(2): 5–25.
———. 2012b. “Reclaiming the Past: On the History-making Significance of the
Sámi Film The Kautokeino Rebellion.” Acta Borealia 29(1): 56–76.
———. 2013. Religion som samisk identitetsmarkør: Fire studier av film. Phd
dissertation, Department of History and Religious Studies, University of
Tromsø.
Columpar, Corinn. 2010. Unsettling Sights: The Fourth World on Film.
Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.
Cox, James L. 2007. From Primitive to Indigenous: The Academic Study of
Indigenous Religions. Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing Company.
Cummings, Dennise K. (ed.). 2011. Visualities: Perspectives on Contemporary
American Indian Film and Art. East Lansing: Michigan State University
Press.
Dowell, Kirstin. 2006. “Indigenous Media Gone Global: Strengthening
Indigenous Identity On- and Offscreen at the First Nations/First Features
Film Showcase.” American Anthropologist 108(2): 376–384.
DuBois Thomas A. 2000. “Folklore, Boundaries and Audience in The Pathfinder,”
in Juha Pentikäinen (ed.) Sami Folkloristics. Åbo: Nordic Network of Folklore,
255–274.
Eidheim, Harald. 1998. “Ethno-Political Development among the Sami after
World War II: The Invention of Selfhood,” in: Harald Gaski (ed.) Sami
Culture in a New Era: The Norwegian Sami Experience. Karasjok: Davvi
Girji, 29–61.
Fielding, Julien R. 2003. “Native American Religion and Film: Interviews with
Chris Eyre and Sherman Alexie.” Journal of Religion and Film 7(1), www.
unomaha.edu/jrf/Vol7No1/nativefilm.htm, accessed May 2014.
Fonneland, Trude A. 2010. Samisk nysjamanisme: i dialog med (for)tid og stad.
Ein kulturanalytisk studie av nysjamanar sine erfaringsforteljingar—iden-
titetsforhandlingar og verdiskaping. PhD dissertation, University of Bergen.
———. 2013. “Sami Tourism and the Signposting of Spirituality: The Case
of Sami Tour: a Spiritual Entrepreneur in the Contemporary Experience
Economy.” Acta Borealia 30(2): 190–208.
Fonneland, Trude A., and Siv Ellen Kraft. 2013. “New Age, Sami Shamanism and
Indigenous Spirituality,” in Steven J. Sutcliffe and Ingvild Sælid Gilhus (eds.) New
Age Spirituality: Rethinking Religion. Durham: Acumen Publishing, 132–145.
188 Cato Christensen

Geertz, Armin. W. 2004. “Can We Move Beyond Primitivism? On Recovering

the Indigenes of Indigenous Religions in the Academic Study of Religion,” in
Jacob Olupona (ed.) Beyond Primitivism: Indigenous Religious Traditions
and Modernity. New York: Routledge, 37–70.
Ginsburg, Faye D. 1991. “Indigenous Media: Faustian Contract or Global
Village?”. Cultural Anthropology 6(1): 92– 112.
———. 2002. “Screen Memories: Resignifying the Traditional in Indigenous
Media,” in Faye D. Ginsburg, Lila Abu-Lughod, and Brian Larkin (eds.) Media
Worlds: Anthropology on New Terrain. Ewing: University of California
Press, 39–57.
Graff, Ola 2009. “Fra skurker til helter.” Ottar—Populærvitenskapelig tidsskrift
fra Tromsø Museum 1: 46–55
Historia Norwegiæ (unknown author). 1999. Published in Roald E. Kristiansen,
“Finnene” fra Historia Norwegiæ [slutten av 1100-tallet]. http://www.love.
is/roald/, accessed May 2014.
Hultkrantz, Åke 2000. “Fifty Years of Research on Sami Folklore and
Mythology,” in Juha Pentikäinen (ed.). Sami Folkloristics. Åbo: Nordic
Network of Folklore, 75–101.
Iversen, Gunnar. 2005. “Learning from Genre: Genre Cycles in Modern
Norwegian Cinema,” in Andrew Nestingen and Trevor G. Elkington (eds.)
Transnational Cinema in a Global North: Nordic Cinema in Transition.
Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 261–278.
Karlsson, Bengt G. 2003. “Anthropology and the ‘Indigenous Slot’: Claims to and
Debates about Indigenous Peoples’ Status in India.” Critique of Anthropology
23(4): 403–423.
Kilpatrick, Jacquelyn. 1999. Celluloid Indians: Native Americans and Film.
Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Kraft, Siv Ellen. 2004. “Et hellig fjell blir til—Om samer, OL og arktisk magi.”
Nytt Norsk Tidsskrift 3–4: 237–249.
———. 2006. “Samisk folkemedisin og nyreligiøse plastikk-sjamaner: Et kritisk
blikk på nyromantiske forskningsperspektiver.” Din: Tidsskrift for religion
og kultur 2–3: 43–52.
———. 2009a. “Sami Indigenous Spirituality: Religion and Nation-building in
Norwegian Sàpmi.” Temenos 45(2): 179–206.
———. 2009b. “Kristendom, sjamanisme og urfolksspiritualitet i norsk Sápmi.”
Chaos: Dansk-norsk tidskrift for religionshistoriske studier 51: 29–52.
———. 2010. “The Making of a Sacred Mountain: Meanings of Nature and
Sacredness in Sápmi and Northern Norway.” Religion 40(1): 53–61.
Kristiansen, Roald. 2001. Samisk religion. En kortfattet oversikt. http://www.
love.is/roald/samiskreligion.htm, accessed May 2014.
Løchen, Kalle. 2003. “Intervju: Om Veiviseren,” in Margaret Ljunggren (ed.) Fra
idé til film: Veiviseren. Nesbru: Vett og Viten AS, 99–107
Mathisen, Stein R. 2010. “Indigenous Spirituality in the Touristic Borderzone:
Virtual Performances of Sámi Shamanism in Sápmi Park.” Temenos 46(1):
53–72.
Mebius, Hans. 2000. “Historien om den samiske nåjden,” in: Thomas P. Larsson
(ed.) Schamaner: Essäer om religiösa mästare. Falun: Nya Doxa, 41–75.
 Sami Shamanism and Indigenous Film 189

Minde, Henry. 2003. “The Challenge of Indigenism: The Struggle for Sami Land
Rights and Self-government in Norway 1960–1990,” in Svein Jentoft, Henry
Minde, and Ragnar Nilsen (eds.) Indigenous Peoples: Resource Management
and Global Rights. Delft: Eburon Academic Publishers, 75–106.
Morset, Kari S. 2009. Stemmene fra nord. Samisk revitalisering: Den kunstneriske
kampen som levendegjorde en truet samisk kultur [Voices of the North. Sami
revitalization: The artistic struggle that revived a threatened Sami culture].
PhD dissertation, Scandinavian Studies, University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Niezen, Ronald. 2012. “Indigenous Religion and Human Rights,” in John Witte
and M. Christian Green (eds.) Religion and Human Rights: An Introduction.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 119–134.
Olsen, Kjell. 2004. “Heritage, Religion and the Deficit of Meaning in
Institutionalized Discourse,” in Anna-Leena Siikala, Barbro Klein, and Stein
R. Mathisen (eds.) Creating Diversities: Folklore, Religion and the Politics of
Heritage. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, 31–42.
Pollan, Brita. 1993. Samiske sjamaner: Religion og Helbredelse. Oslo:
Gyldendal.
Prins, Harald. 2002. “Visual Media and the Primitivist Perplex: Colonial
Fantasies, Indigenous Imagination, and Advocacy in North America,” in
Faye D. Ginsburg, Lila Abu-Lughod, and Brian Larkin (eds.) Media Worlds:
Anthropology on New Terrain. Ewing: University of California Press,
58–74.
Rydving, Hakan. 1993. The End of Drum-Time: Religious Change Among the
Lule Saami 1670s–1740s. Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell International.
Singer, Beverly R. 2001. Wiping the War Paint Off the Lens: Native American
Film and Video. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Skarðhamar, Anne-Kari. 2008. “Changes in Film Representations of Sami
Culture and Identity.” Nordlit 12(1): 293–304.
Solum, Ove. 1997. “Veiviserne,” in Gunnar Iversen and Ove Solum (eds.)
Nærbilder: Artikler om norsk filmhistorie. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget,
187–202.
Tafjord, Bjørn O. 2012. “Indigenous Religion(s) as an Analytical Category.”
Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 25(3): 221–243.
Wallis Robert J. 2003. Shamans/Neo-Shamans. Ecstasy, Alternative
Archaeologies and Contemporary Pagans. London, New York: Routledge.
Wood, Houston. 2008. Native Features: Indigenous Films from Around the
World. New York, London: Continuum.

Media
Bakkemoen, Edel. 1987. “På flukt i samenens land,” Aftenposten Amag
September 26, 1987.
Berntsen, Kristin V. 1988. “Navn i nyhetene: Nils Gaup,” NTBtekst April 11,
1988.
Dahl, Henning Kramer. 1987, “En film som viser vei,” Morgenbladet October
2, 1987.
190 Cato Christensen

Haave, Harald. 1987a. “‘Veiviseren’—første spillefilm på samisk noensinne,”

NTBtekst June 4, 1987.
———. 1987b. “‘Veiviseren’—Samisk film-thriller ut i den store verden,”
NTBtekst September 24, 1987.
Kulås, Guri. 2008. “Den første helten,” Klassekampen January 11, 2008.
Norwegian News Agency 1987; “‘Veiviseren’ styrker samisk stolthet and iden-
titet”, NTBtekst October 2, 1987.
Tonstad, Per Lars. 1987, “Navn i nyhetene,” NTBtekst October 1, 1987.

Films
Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner 2001. Zacharias Kunuk. Isuma Igloolik
Productions.
Hjerterått 2013. Nils Gaup and Grethe Bøe-Waal. Original Film AS
Pathfinder [Ofelaš/Veiviseren] 1987. Nils Gaup. Filmkameratene AS.
Rabbitt-Proof Fence 2002. Philip Noyce. Rumbalara Films.
The Kautokeino Rebellion [Kautokeino-opprøret] 2008. Nils Gaup. Borealis
Production.
Whale Rider 2002. Niko Caro. South Pacific Pictures.
 10
Contextualizing Exhibited Versions of Sami
Noaidevuohta

Stein R. Mathisen

Introduction: Circular Itineraries

An attempt to visit (and revisit) at least some of the exhibitions and muse-
ums in Arctic Scandinavia that present versions of Sami noaidevuohta
had taken our group on a rather long detour during the summer of
2013—driving in a wide circle through the northern parts of Norway,
Finland, and Sweden. One day we visited the Steilneset Memorial in
Vardø, a spectacular monument to the memory of the victims of the
Finnmark Witchcraft Trials 1600–1692. Opened in 2011, it had been
created by the French/American artist Louise Bourgeois (1911–2010) and
the Swiss architect Peter Zumthor (b. 1943). The site commemorates the
91 victims who were accused of practicing witchcraft and sentenced to
death by burning, often after severe torture. One of the main components
of the monument is a chair with an eternal flame burning at the seat,
symbolizing the ordeals the victims suffered, while a 125-meter-long
Memorial Hall exhibits the names of every one of the victims in small
niches, together with a summary of the accusations made against them,
and what little is known from the legal records about the everyday lives
of these people (Willumsen s.a.). Some of the victims were, as might be
expected, Sami healers who had practiced traditional noaidevuohta, but
were sentenced to death after the violent encounter with the Church and
legal representatives of the Danish/Norwegian government. The last vic-
tim recorded in this long list of “witches” was the Sami Anders Pouelsen,
who in 1692 was “accused of having used a rune drum and of practicing
godless witchcraft” (Willumsen s.a.: 97). I will return to this Sami who
192 Stein R. Mathisen

confessed to the use of a rune drum. In this connection I will just draw
the attention to the fact that this monument communicates the very dark-
est side of the prosecution of people who were believed to be in contact
with supernatural powers, which the intruding outsiders had associated
with the devil and the dark forces. The memorial very strongly commu-
nicates the personal sufferings this led to, and stresses the illegitimate use
of power and brutal force against people who confessed to other belief
systems, or simply were accused of activities constructed by the visiting
colonizers.
On the evening that very same day, our company arrived in the village
of Anár/Inari in northern Finland, where we had planned to visit the
Siida Sami Museum. We took quarters at the Hotel Inari. What immedi-
ately caught my attention in the hotel room was the large picture above
the bed. It was a drawing of a little boy dressed in Sami costume, lean-
ing over a rune drum about half of his own size, with a rune hammer in
his folded hands. It was a child noaidi, very innocent looking, but still
with something more determined in his eyes as he looked directly at the
picture’s audience. The colors, position, and facial expression seemed to
be filled with harmony and peace. But the magical drawings on the drum
had come to life, as if already setting out to act. I learned that the draw-
ing was made in 2006 by the Sami artist Merja Aletta Rauttila, born
in Kargasniemi, Utsjoki in 1960, and that it was also featured as a very
popular postcard for tourist and visitors, for sale along with other similar
motifs by the same artist in the hotel lobby.
The contrast between the sinister Witchcraft Trials’ Memorial and the
romantic drawing in the hotel room of the Sami child noaidi was striking:
on the one side death, suffering, suppression, and violence; on the other
side childish innocence and harmony. But the historical background for
the two representations was still the same. Historical sources, literature,
and other information about the Sami noaidi are to be found in abun-
dance. But these knowledges have over the years been documented and
represented in very different ways. In the end it has become a complex
task to distinguish between myth and fact, because these two sides of the
phenomenon have become (and were?) so closely interwoven.
The purpose of this study is, however, neither to find the one cor-
rect way of representing Sami noaidevuohta nor to provide any sort of
authorized and “true” version of what these beliefs actually consisted of,
or should be interpreted as. Rather, the intention is to understand some
of the different interests that have been invested, by different actors, in
the representations of this phenomenon in a historical perspective. In this
case, the angle has to include important questions related to the colo-
nializing of the area. Colonialism is here not just a matter of the initial
 Exhibited Versions of Sami Noaidevuohta 193

conquest and the subsequent exploitation of natural resources. It also

concerns how the subjugated people and their culture have been imag-
ined and represented in later phases by the colonizers and by themselves.
The whole range from denigration to romanticizing of indigenous cul-
tures has produced representations that even today continue to leave their
mark on relations between people living in the area. In putting a mate-
rial object like the Sami govadas, the noaidi’s rune drum, in the center
of the analysis, I aim to better understand the substantial and concrete
qualities of some of the immaterial communicative contexts generated
around these objects. The focus of the analysis is therefore not on the
drum in itself as an object, but on the various performances and nar-
ratives that have been attached to it and inscribed in it under different
circumstances.

Noaidevuohta: Performed, Exhibited,

and Commoditized
Given that there is no single narrative to investigate, this analysis has to
consider a rather long history of narratives and performances relating to
Sami noaidevuohta and the noaidi’s govadas. At the outset, the task is to
seek possible connections between different performances, exhibitions,
commodifications, and connected communications related to the rune
drum. There could be a kind of common meta-narrative behind all the
different presentations, but these connections could just as well be con-
nected by narratives that only at first glance seem to be about the drum.
To find an answer to this, it is necessary to start the analysis not with
the drum itself, but rather with an investigation of various actualizations
where the rune drum holds a prominent position. These examples of
communication taking place in recurring historical contexts will be the
primary material of this analysis. This will take us through a long row
of changing contexts, ranging from legal, religious, archival, and museal
arenas, to contemporary tourism, souvenir shops, and digital shows in
theme parks.
As has already been noted, some of the first documented narratives
about the Sami noaidi’s drum were the result of violent meetings between
an indigenous population and the legal representatives of an expanding
national state. It is not surprising that in a historical perspective the nar-
ratives are conflicting, and interpretations of the drum are seen from
opposing points of view. This is of course interesting for several rea-
sons when the narratives are analyzed from a postcolonial perspective.
The noaidi and his drum have been at the center of the formation of
194 Stein R. Mathisen

narratives relating to views of the world that were in deep conflict. On

the one hand authoritative versions represent the political, economic, and
religious power of the state formation, and are usually univocal. On the
other hand, more unofficial counternarratives have come out of contexts
experienced as difficult and dissenting, and therefore the narratives often
contain elements that are polyphonic, ambiguous, and opposing. This
communication can be understood as a form of dialogic narration, build-
ing on the ideas of the dialogic of language as developed by Mikhail
Bakhtin (1981). The rune drum can also be observed in exhibitions of
various kinds, where the museum display, usually the trusted keepers of
those few most “original” rune drums still kept today, would be the most
obvious, but certainly not the only one to be considered.
This study will have its focus on contexts in which the Sami drum is
being used when particular kinds of intercultural meetings are taking
place, namely, in which a dominant majority has taken on the task of
controlling, representing, or commercializing a cultural activity origi-
nally strongly tied to a minority group. Mary Louise Pratt uses the con-
cept of “contact zone” to describe situations in which colonial meetings
are taking place “to refer to the space of colonial encounters, the space
in which peoples geographically and historically separated come into
contact with each other and establish ongoing relations, usually involv-
ing conditions of coercion, radical inequality, and intractable conflict”
(1992, 6). Following this way of looking at the colonial encounter, it
should however not only be understood as a history of total domination
from colonializing interests but also as a situation in which the colonized
and subjugated people, often in spite of dominance and violence, tried to
position themselves in various ways to make their situation more endur-
able. This most often takes on forms of communicative strategies, for
example, in what Pratt calls “autoethnography,” or “autoethnographic
expressions,” referring “to instances in which colonized subjects under-
take to represent themselves in ways that engage with the colonizer’s own
terms” (7). This involves a perspective of looking for forms of resistance
and agency among the colonized peoples, also in communicative acts
that at first glance would seem to conform to the intruders’ way of seeing
the world, or even express subordination to a hegemonic culture. Closer
analysis and contextualized readings of older texts and historical sources
can reveal at least some of these strategies.
The exhibition of rune drums in museums and art collections in simi-
lar ways initially showed the drums in contexts in which the culture of
the others (the colonized) became colonial trophies (Dicks 2003: 146),
typically on exhibit in ethnographic museums of the imperial centers in
Europe. Like other resources, they were first “discovered” on the colo-
nialized peripheries, and then brought into the centers, where they could
 Exhibited Versions of Sami Noaidevuohta 195

be gathered and become part of established collections (Clifford 1997:

193). This new contextualization also produced new orders and new
meanings, with consequences both in the center and on the peripher-
ies. But such processes of transculturation (Pratt 1992: 6) do not only
work in unilinear ways. Postcolonial demands for the repatriation of the
ethnographic materials once collected in the Sami areas raised similar
questions of redefinitions of the collections, once they were brought back
to their places of origin. Repatriation can, however, never reinstate some
original condition, but only reestablish objects in their old surroundings
as heritage. There are two major alternatives for this recontextualization:
either connected to museum exhibits, or to tourism and similar com-
modifying projects.
So an important part of the question explored here is in the end what
happens when symbols and images of cultural and ethnic identity enter
the commercial area? Since cultural difference also exists as commercial
products, especially in tourism and experience industries, there is always
a risk that the ethnopolitical insistence on the relevance of cultural dif-
ferences for rights and policies could be damaged by examples of com-
modification of the same ethnic expressions. As John L. Comaroff and
Jean Comaroff put it in their book on the dilemmas of commercializing
ethnicity,

Those who seek to brand their otherness, to profit from what makes them dif-
ferent, find themselves having to do so in the universally recognizable terms in
which difference is represented, merchandised, rendered negotiable by means
of the abstract instruments of the market: money, the commodity, commensu-
ration, the calculus of supply and demand, price, branding. And advertising.
(2009: 24)

The demands of the market, as well as the specific characteristics of the

new contexts in which Sami noaidevuohta is now appearing again might
change the meanings being communicated, even when the objects and the
symbols have been left relatively unaltered.
This means, for example, that representations, especially in the media
(and in tourism) easily get caught up in primitivist discourses when they
want to show and commodify cultural differences. Harald Prins calls
this “the primitivist perplex” (2002: 58) with reference to media produc-
tions. What characterizes this field of exhibition and discourse today is
therefore a prevailing multivocality and ambiguity, sometimes leading to
unexpected reactions to actions and products intended to work in quite
opposite ways. This is why historical contextualizations of the compli-
cated translocations, transformations, and transculturations of the rune
drum can clarify processes leading up to contemporary representations.
196 Stein R. Mathisen

Performed: Noaidevuohta and the “Rune Drum”

before the Court
It is important to understand how those historic representations of
noaidevuohta that are available to us today have been formed by very
concrete encounters between the indigenous population and repre-
sentatives from the outside world, as well as interpretations of these
meetings. To find the roots of some of the visual and textual representa-
tions of Sami noaidevuohta in museums and exhibitions, I will return
once again to the Sami noaidi representing the last individual destiny
in the long row of victims in the Bourgeois/Zumthor Memorial Hall
in Vardø. On December 7, 1691, the old Sami Anders Pouelsen was
arrested in Unjárga/Nesseby, where he lived, and an instrument called
a Runnebomen (Willumsen 2010: 377, n4, 411: the rune drum; i.e.,
the noaidi’s drum) was confiscated. Both he and the drum were then
brought to the village of Vadsø, the administrative center of the area,
located further out and north in the Varanger fjord. Then in the begin-
ning of the next year, he appeared before the court in Vadsø, accused
“on the grounds that he has owned and used an instrument they call
a rune drum with which he has practised that wicked and ungodly art
of witchcraft” (Willumsen 2010: 377). This witch trial resulted in very
thorough written descriptions of the drum and its use (see the full court
proceedings in Willumsen 2010: 377ff; see also Lilienskiold 1998, 257–
273; Knag 1693, referred to in Hagen 2002), and these descriptions
have in turn become important sources for later studies of the Sami
rune drum and the Sami religion (among many, see Leem 1767: 467ff.;
Friis 1871: 36ff.; Manker 1950: 433ff.; Rydving 1991: 38ff.). The writ-
ten records are of course in the pen of the servants of the court and
the magistrate, but if we choose to see this as a written report from an
actual encounter between the Danish/Norwegian authorities represent-
ing their set of values, and an indigenous Sami representing a conflict-
ing set of values and beliefs, it is still possible to understand how the
relatively weaker Sami part in this confrontation is trying to negotiate
himself into a more favorable position.
At the court’s request, Pouelsen was asked to name every figure on
the drum and explain its meaning. He explained the figures with names
and references, sometimes to Sami belief and gods, and sometimes to
Christian belief, gods, and institutions. It is not so easy to decide from the
text whether this means that the cognitive world depicted on the drum
was already in a process of change, or whether this was a conscious strat-
egy from the noaidi to try to escape negative accusations of demonology.
But the next phase of the court’s investigations is more informative in this
 Exhibited Versions of Sami Noaidevuohta 197

sense. What is really interesting, according to the court proceedings, is

that the old noaidi Pouelsen was allowed to perform with his rune drum
before the court, and to demonstrate how he used this instrument in his
work as a noaidi. The description of this is therefore a unique account of
an intercultural meeting.

Now he picked up the rune drum and tried it, instructing the court how he
plays, having first crossed himself and then made the sign of the cross over the
drum. He recited the Lord’s Prayer in the Karelian [Finnish] language, before
he continued with his own prayer, Ætziem, achie, ja barne, ja Engilen, væche
don, and other utterances that were supposed to mean God our Father, your
Mother, and your Son, and the Holy Spirit, send us your help. All the while,
he kept looking at his figures, and the top danced up and down and he beat
with his hammer and uttered these words to the gods, And you God who hath
created Heaven and Earth, the sun and the moon, and the stars, all humans,
and birds, and all the fishes and the sea. And he confessed his sins saying, I am
a sinful human, old and unworthy, I will be better off dead if you will not help
the one we are pleading for, and he promises he will never again sin, and such-
like utterances of worship. (Willumsen 2010: 385)

Besides the court book, there is another source, written by the deputy
Court Judge Niels Knag, describing certain aspects of the demonstration
of the rune drum in more detail (Hagen 2002: 329). This manuscript,
now in the Royal Library in Copenhagen, describes how the accused
after some time stopped drumming, and told the court that the gods
could not come to an agreement, as to whether they would answer him or
not. The gods were skeptical, because the call came from a “Norwegian
house.” The accused then called out loud to the gods that they should
not be afraid of the Norwegians. Even if he was playing the drum in a
Norwegian house, the Norwegians did not want to harm them in any
way, he assured them, before he continued his drumming. At last he
received answers (Hagen 2002: 328f., referring to Knag 1693). This pas-
sage shows Pouelsen’s awareness of being an actor in a performance that
could turn out quite differently from the healing sessions to which he had
contributed in Sami local societies. Anders Pouelsen must have known
that he was in a very difficult position when he was accused of witchcraft
by the Danish authorities, and he was clearly attentive to the existence
of differences in belief and worldview (see also Willumsen 2013: 318).
Hence he tried to imitate sentences and formulations that he must have
picked up in church sermons and at other Christian scenes, to create a
sort of meeting ground or contact zone where the relations between the
two groups could be negotiated.
But Pouelsen’s strategies in this respect did not prove successful.
On the contrary, the court was eager to show its authority and will to
198 Stein R. Mathisen

dominate the false beliefs of the indigenous population. They therefore

declared that

his practice is found to be extremely punishable, particularly the fact that he

paints the Holy Trinity, God the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, whom he
with his incantations and abuse, which God will judge, so grievously profanes,
scorns, desecrates and outrages, and the fact that he recites the Lord’s Prayer
and makes the sign of the holy cross over himself and over the rune drum
when preparing to play on it, and the reference he makes of his pictures as
representations of God, God’s created elements, telling them, You God, who
hath created Heaven and Earth, the sun and the moon etc. and, finally, the fact
that he paints Hell and the devils, and he is particularly reluctant to explain his
dealings with them. (Willumsen 2010: 390)

The court found it “highly necessary to make a hideous example of such

godlessness” (391). But since there were no witnesses declaring that he
actually had harmed anyone with his evil deeds, they were not quite sure
whether he qualified for a death sentence. In the demise of the witch-
craft craze in Europe, the court found his case “indeed a most unusual
one, requiring due consideration from superior authorities” (391). He
was seen as guilty of committing witchcraft, but the court decided to
imprison him, and to send his case to the Danish king in Copenhagen for
further consideration regarding the possibility of a death sentence. While
imprisoned, he was, however, killed only two days later with three blows
of an axe to his head while he was asleep by Willum Gundersen, a servant
working for the amtmann (regional governor), Hans Hansen Lilienskiold
(1650–1703). In a trial that followed, the servant was declared insane:
“he committed this killing in a condition of rage and confusion, when
he was bereft of his senses, of which he has but little, for which reason
he cannot be sentenced to loss of life in accordance with the claim from
Anders Pouelsen’s heirs” (402).
The scene in Vadsø’s courtroom had already set strict limits for what
an interethnic meeting, as well as intercultural communication, could be
like in February 1693, and there was little possibility for Pouelsen or his
relatives to gain any understanding for their version of how their beliefs
and their healing practices should be understood in relation to the far
more powerful regime of the Danish/Norwegian state. The court records
can be understood as a filtered version of Sami beliefs and practices in the
area as seen through the Danish/Norwegian judicial system at that time.
But Pouelsen’s performance before the court can perhaps be understood
as an example of attempted auto-ethnography, an effort to communicate
to the court the Sami values and their position, by using concepts and
formulations that he himself thought or hoped would be acceptable to
the court representatives. But to no avail. There was at this point no
 Exhibited Versions of Sami Noaidevuohta 199

opportunity for a real dialogue between the two different ways of under-
standing the visible and the invisible world.

Described: The Collected and Decontextualized

Religious Item
This could very well have been the end of Pouelsen’s story. But together
with the material sent to Copenhagen for further consideration was
also the rune drum. When the drum arrived in Copenhagen in 1694,
it had already started on a long journey through which it eventually
would become an important part of future collections connected to
Sami religion. What were the implications of these changes in contexts?
One might say that the rune drum already was operated outside its orig-
inal and “authentic” context when it was being played in the courtroom
in Vadsø in 1692, even if it was being played by its proper owner. But
this point of departure might prove futile, in the sense that it stresses
and looks for some kind of integral essence in the drum and its use,
some kind of original meaning that should be preserved. Alternatively
the drum could be understood as a specific kind of instrument, which
had been placed in various surroundings and situations. It is exactly
the study of this specific drum’s mobility that can reveal some of the
instrumentalities and agendas that have been linked to it. According to
Pouelsen’s narrative when he was standing before the court, the drum
had followed him on his travels to various places in the northern areas
where he had been living for “a narrow century” (Willumsen 2010: 378).
Now his playing on the drum before the court set the drum, already
decontextualized, on a new journey, even after its owner’s death. The
rune drum, along with manuscripts describing its use and interpreta-
tions of the signs, eventually became part of the Royal Collection in
Copenhagen.
When the description of Pouelsen’s rune drum first appeared in print
75 years after the trial, it did so in Knud Leem’s description of the Sami in
Finnmark (1767). Only now there was no reference to the owner and user
of the drum, in the sense that his name was not mentioned. He was just
referred to as “a Laplander of Finmark” (467, here cited from the first
American edition, in Pinkerton 1812: 475). Neither was there any refer-
ence to the witch trials nor to the contexts surrounding the confiscation
of the drum. But the descriptions in Leem’s book of the signs on the drum
and explanations of its use (op.cit., 467–474) were clearly taken from a
written copy of the court proceedings. It is likely that Leem had access
to these written records while he worked in Copenhagen (Hagen 2003:
88). But the written reports were no longer used as evidence in a criminal
200 Stein R. Mathisen

court. Leem wanted to describe a religious practice that was understood

as wrong, and consequently had to be corrected.
Leem’s interpretations in the book must be understood as the result
of the movement of the descriptions from one context to another.
The descriptions had now left the system of law and entered a system
of religious interpretation and missionary activity. In Denmark, the
Missionskollegiet (Missionary Collegium) had been founded in 1714
to promote missionary activities in the Danish colonies. In addition to
Danish colonies in the East and the West Indies (and later Greenland),
this also included Finnmark, where Leem himself was commissioned and
sent as a missionary to Porsanger in 1725. Leem later became a leading
authority on matters of Sami language and culture within the Danish
mission among the Sami, and was a professor of Sami language at the
Seminarium Lapponicum in Trondheim from 1752 up to his death in
1774. He served in this capacity because the college educated teachers
and missionaries to do missionary work among the Sami and teach them
in their own language. In that vein the last part of Leem’s book aims
to represent the rune drum as material evidence for the existence of a
heretical Sami religion, which could be understood as the antithesis of
Christianity. This description in turn identified a concrete working field
for the missionaries operating among the Sami. The description of the
rune drum and the old Sami religion would make it easier to identify
beliefs and practices that had their roots in heresy. The early missionaries
used these writings as a starting point, added their own observations and
other missionaries’ reports to their own, and produced versions of a Sami
religion that had been freed from any actual context, but that could oper-
ate as a proper antithesis to Christianity, and as a concrete object against
which the missionaries could aim their work.
Within the history of religions, this has sparked an interesting discus-
sion on how ideas about Sami religion had been constituted more as an
antithesis to Christianity than as contextualized descriptions of religious
practices in certain areas (Rydving 1991; 1993). Håkan Rydving under-
stood this as a dynamic confrontation between two conflicting cognitive
and religious views, in which changing drawings, and interpretations of
the images on the drum, could be understood as forms of resistance:

The role of the drums as symbols of Saami resistance is well attested in the
sources from the 17th and 18th centuries. For the Saamis, the drums repre-
sented their threatened culture, the resistance against the Christian claim to
exclusiveness, and a striving to preserve traditional values—i.e. “the good”
that had to be saved. For the Church authorities, on the other hand, the drums
symbolized the explicit nucleus of the elusive Saami “paganism”—i.e. “the
evil” that had to be annihilated. (Rydving 1991: 29)
 Exhibited Versions of Sami Noaidevuohta 201

Rydving points to the court records as the only sources we have con-
cerning Sami understandings of these violent religious encounters. In this
perspective the different versions and interpretations of the drums can
only be understood in light of the colonializing processes taking place in
these specific historic contexts. This also points to the possibility that the
drums themselves and their painted images could have been in a process
of change, as a result of the violent encounter with the representatives of
the new religion. What is important here is also that the documents and
interpretations that came out of these violent and colonializing religious
encounters in their turn became the raw material for the production of
new interpretations and innovative cultural forms.

Exhibited: Indigenous Artwork and Creative

Reinterpretations of the Drum
In Copenhagen, Poulsen’s rune drum as an object had to follow the devel-
opment and the reorganization of museum collections. From being a part
of the Royal Collections, it ended up as a part of the Nationalmuseet
(National Museum) in Copenhagen. But much later the rune drum
was again returned to Finnmark where it had come from. Although
the drum still formally belongs to the National Museum, it has since
1979 been deposited at the Sámiid Vuorká-Dávvirat (Sami Collections)
in Kárášjohka/Karasjok. This is an early example of the repatriation
of Sami objects kept in central European museums, a development and
negotiation that still is going on today, and that concerns other rune
drums as well (Ucko 2002; Silvén 2012). The idea has been that impor-
tant items of Sami cultural heritage should be brought back to the areas
where they had once been confiscated or collected. The process of repa-
triation should be understood as a typical postcolonial process taking
place globally, and in certain ways challenging the old colonial structures
of power. The process itself holds great symbolic value for the once (or
still) colonized peoples. But it can also be understood as a productive
development that in turn has produced new cultural manifestations of
indigenous culture and identity.
The original rune drum once belonging to Pouelsen is of course safe-
guarded in secure surroundings in the Sami museum’s magazine. But a
copy received a very prominent and central place in the exhibition that
was being established in the Sámiid Vuorká-Dávvirat (Sami Collections)
in Kárášjohka/Karasjok. This exhibition was designed in cooperation
with the Sami artist Iver Jåks (1932–2007), and marks a significant
change in ideas of exhibiting Sami noaidevuohta. Earlier exhibitions,
for example, at the Nordiska Museet (Nordic Museum) in Stockholm,
202 Stein R. Mathisen

had focused on the noaidi and his activity, most significantly by pre-
senting mannequin models of the noaidi with the govadas in what was
designed to give an impression of a historically authentic environment,
or by arranging realistic dioramas that were meant to be “peep shows”
depicting a true historical scene as naturalistically as possible (Mathisen
2004b: 11ff.). The diorama was a three-walled extension of the room
where the visitors and the spectators found themselves, and the arranged
nature of the spectacle could only be perceived if one paid attention to
a dividing half-wall of glass. The frozen immobility of the scene also
revealed the ethnographic gaze that had produced it, and made it a frozen
element of culture, denoting a cultural reality that continued to exist only
in the ethnographic present and as something that did not have to be seen
as objects to be understood as parts of historical processes.
Iver Jåks’ exhibition broke this ethnographic narrative, and focused
more on the aesthetic aspects of the drum, thereby reinventing it as
an object of art. This possibility had already been pointed to in books
by Ernst Manker (1965; 1971), where the imagery of the rune drums
was interpreted as a work of “art,” in the Western sense of the word.
The imagery on the rune drums could be compared to paintings, and
sacrificial stones could be compared to sculptures (Manker 1965, 11).
The noaidis’ art of navigating in Sami cosmology was paralleled to
representational work by professional artists in the Western world of
galleries art exhibitions. In the same vein, Iver Jåks’ interpretations
paved the way for a situation in which the drum could be exhibited in
museums as an isolated object, very much in the same way any object
of art would have been presented to the public in an art museum. In the
same manner, the ethnographic objects were not enclosed as exemplars
in a glass showcase, or contextualized as belonging to social processes
in dioramas, but rather displayed as unique sculptures, where form,
materiality, and shape were important. In his own work, Jåks was also
inspired by the world of images depicted on the skin of the rune drum,
and this was (and became) the case for many other young Sami artists
as well.
As a source of inspiration, other copies of Pouelsen’s rune drum
found their way into a wide range of museums and exhibitions. One
copy is exhibited in Várjjat Sami Musea (Varanger Sami Museum) in
Unjárgga/Nesseby (close to the area where Pouelsen lived when he was
arrested in 1691), one at the Kulturhistorisk Museum (Museum of
Cultural History) in Oslo, one at the museum in Alta, and at exhibi-
tions at several other museums. These exhibited drums have in turn
inspired Sami artisans (duodjárat) to make copies or versions of the
Pouelsen rune drum, and some of these have also eventually been
exhibited in art collections and art museums, or ended up in private
 Exhibited Versions of Sami Noaidevuohta 203

collections. To sum up, the specific rune drum of Pouelsen has been
copied and recontextualized in such a wide variety of new surround-
ings that it probably is no longer possible to give an overview of all of
the examples of exhibitions that show it.
In addition to these copies are more creative (and interpretative) uses
of the rune drum and its imagery by artists and authors. Most inter-
esting in this connection is the path-breaking work of Sami artist Nils-
Aslak Valkeapää (1943–2001), mainly because his work was so central
in the ethnic revival of Sami identity, and because his artwork, poetry,
and music had important ethnopolitical implications. In his book of
poems, Beaivi, áhčážan (The Sun, My Father) (Valkeapää 1988, 1997),
Valkeapää presents a wide collection of photos of Sami people that he
gathered from ethnographic collections in major European cities like
Oslo, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Hamburg, Paris, and London.
He had the idea to, together with the poems, connect these images to the
Sami areas where they originated, and also bring the persons pictured
back to their relatives and families. This is a postcolonial reclamation of
a lost cultural heritage, and an attempt to use this heritage to establish
a new basis for an innovative Sami identity. This process is also directly
associated with the rune drum. The image of the drum is featured in
more ways than just on the front of the book. In Sami, the word govadas
can mean both something containing a lot of pictures (like this book)
and the rune drum, with its images and symbols (Hirvonen 2008: 195;
see also Dana 2003).
But recontextualizations of the Sami drum and its images as works
of art can also be problematic and contested. In the late 1990s, the
Sami artist Lars Pirak (1932–2008), together with Swedish artist Bengt
Lindström (1925–2008), was commissioned by the Luleå Arts Council,
the municipality of Jokkmokk, and the Vattenfall hydroelectric company
to decorate the Akkats Dam, part of a hydroelectric power station on
the Lule River. The dam was decorated with large colorful murals, with
motifs taken from Sami mythology. The north side of the intake build-
ing has a large version of a rune drum. It is claimed that this artwork
reappropriates the surrounding nature and the man-made installations
as genuinely Sami, as well as establishes the Jokkmokk area as an impor-
tant center for Sami heritage and innovative creative artwork (Scheffy
2004: 226). This view was, however, not shared by some members of
the Sirkkas Sameby, whose traditional herding routes were interrupted
because of the dams along the Lule River, and several of the old sacri-
ficial stones became submerged under water (Scheffy op. cit.). They felt
that the artwork was a misrepresentation of traditional Sami interests in
the area, and that the artwork in fact functioned as a cover-up to hide the
theft of indigenous Sami resources and rights.
204 Stein R. Mathisen

Commodification: Serialized Drums

and Commercial Signposts
If the art world ran the risk of producing contested images and versions
of Sami noaidevuohta, this is certainly also the case when images con-
nected to Sami spirituality appear in various commercial enterprises.
Many of these products are in some way or other connected to tour-
ism. Both heritage tourism and cultural tourism are important areas for
the development of a flourishing contemporary experience industry in
Northern Scandinavia. The tourist boards of the area promote travel to
the north to experience the Midnight Sun in the summer and the Aurora
Borealis in the winter. But one recurring and important element in this
tourism package is the opportunity to experience what is labeled “genuine
Sami culture.” While the vast northern landscapes are being experienced
as mostly uninhabited wilderness areas by these urban tourist visitors,
these sights combine well with the European narratives of an indigenous
“nature people” living in close and perfect contact with their natural
surroundings (Mathisen 2010). The Sami, and especially those among
them who are occupied in semi-nomadic reindeer-herding activities, and
who on some occasions also wear their colourful traditional dress, have
become the picturesque materialization of this harmonic relationship
between a barren Arctic landscape and its inhabitants. Therefore, this
part of Sami culture is most often presented to outsiders, and in the tour-
ism industry the reindeer herder is the “emblematic” Sami (Olsen 2004).
In tourism the Sami are given roles as the ultimate and colorful others,
although still indigenous to a part of the European area. But they are usu-
ally associated with the past, and stand in contrast to modern, contem-
porary life. With its closeness to nature, reindeer herding stands for a life
based on traditionalism, harmony, spirituality, and ecological attitudes
toward nature (Mathisen 2004a). Versions of Sami reindeer-herding cul-
ture have become central symbols for a way of life that represents har-
mony with nature and the environment and that offers a special kind of
indigenous, spiritual conscience. This development in tourism has led to
new uses of the image of the Sami noaidi’s drum, this time within the
field of commerce. One can therefore speak of a special form of modifica-
tion of the rune drum called commodification.
Would the rune drum and its imagery retain this kind of criti-
cal function for the indigenous population, as proposed by the artistic
use of Nils-Aslak Valkeapää as a shaman-poet (Dana 2003), even if it
were transformed into more commercial contexts? Some cases from
the world of tourism would suggest that there are good reasons to be
skeptical about this possibility. The Suoma Sami Nuorat (Finnish Sami
 Exhibited Versions of Sami Noaidevuohta 205

Youth Organization) protested against fake “shamanistic” ceremonies in

Rovaniemi, Finland, in which “Finnish persons impersonate a Sami sha-
man wearing dirty clothes and having a dirty face as well” (SSN Protest;
see also Comaroff and Comaroff 2009: 159). This protest concerns a
tourist ritual in the 1980s in which the performing “Sámi” “shaman”
was dressed in a filthy Sami costume, had a sooty face, acted primi-
tively, and marked the tourists’ faces with soot as a kind of initiation
ritual. This ritual clearly recirculated old images of an “ignoble savage.”
Another, more recent, example is a fake “Sámi” baptism that takes place
in Santa Claus Land in Rovaniemi, where people dressed in “Sámi” cloth-
ing perform a ritual, marking the tourists’ crossing of the Arctic Circle by
touching them with a big Sami knife (NRK Sápmi November 4, 2008). A
further blatant example of negative presentations of Sami spirituality is a
deck of cards sold in some souvenir shops in Finland, in which the Joker
card features the noaidi “as a deranged drug abuser getting his visions by
eating fly agaric (mushrooms)” (SSN Protest).
Thus there is a discussion going on, in protest demonstrations in the
streets and in the media, as to where the line should be drawn when it
comes to tourism’s use of images and rituals connected with Sami noaid-
evuohta. Some think that the Santa Claus Hotel’s use of symbols from
the noaidi’s govadas as decorations on curtains and on bedclothes is dis-
respectful toward Sami values, while others think this might be accept-
able (NRK Sápmi). Much of the indignation concerning tourism’s use
of Sami spiritual symbols questions whether the recontextualizations of
these symbols can be understood as respectful or not. What kind of envi-
ronment does a tourist site offer for the presentation of an indigenous
spiritual heritage?
Sápmi Park in Kárášjohka/Karasjok is a modern tourist theme park
established in conjunction with the hotels in the Norwegian Rica Hotel
franchise in 2000. The whole idea behind this theme park was to pres-
ent a genuine and traditional version of Sami culture. The village of
Kárášjohka/Karasjok was, however, not seen as being able to meet the
demands of a growing tourism in the area. The main problem was para-
doxical: that this area in the middle of what is considered to be the heart-
land of Sami culture did not really look Sami enough to be appreciated
by visiting tourists. A theme park could be tailored to meet the growing
needs of the tourism industry.
This new tourist site was established only a couple of hundred meters
away from the already mentioned Sámiid Vuorká-Dávvirat (Sami
Collections) in Kárášjohka/Karasjok, where Pouelsen’s original drum is
kept in the magazine, and where a copy of the drum has been exhibited.
The majority of the tourists who earlier visited the museum to get a taste
of traditional Sami culture, now visited the theme park instead. Beyond
206 Stein R. Mathisen

what a museum is capable of, the Sápmi theme park aimed to give tourists
the feeling of crossing the border between an everyday, ordinary Western
and urban way of life, and becoming immersed in a way of life and think-
ing that belonged to premodern living conditions. This was signaled as
soon as the tourists passed through the gate into the park, after they had
paid the entrance fee, and were free to experience the newly constructed
open-air museum. The Sápmi Park features the lavvu (tent) typical for
this nomadic culture in different shapes, as well as old buildings in tra-
ditional design, in which the Sami lived when the reindeer were in their
winter pastures. Tourists can experience live reindeer, or they can visit a
Sami-inspired restaurant in a giant darfegoahti (turf hut) and consume
dishes with reindeer meat.
But even in Sápmi Park the tourists soon meet the iconic image of
the rune drum, govadas, only this time first as signposts, giving direc-
tions to the various attractions inside the park. If the govadas indeed
played an important role for the Sami as an instrument for orientation
in relation to a spiritual world, and as a supernatural helper to find the
right path to follow whenever problems had to be solved, it had now
been reduced to a simple signpost, advertising the direction to experi-
ences, attractions, and consumption possibilities of various kinds. This
means that the rune drum has been transformed from an image of an
intricate symbolic world, into a denotative sign telling tourists where to
consume. The “drums as signposts” in the theme park lead the tourists
to, for example, the souvenir shop, where among other goods they also
can buy copies of mass-produced rune drums (not the duodji-type of
copies) at relatively affordable prices, available in a variety of sizes. The
imagery of the rune drum is also for sale as decorations in a rich assort-
ment of design products, ranging from drinking mugs to silverware, and
from clothing to jewelry. These transformations of the Sami govadas in
many ways have only very loose connections with the original content,
but still function as markers of Sáminess, nurtured from multiple sources
like history, spirituality, aesthetics, and commercialization.

Ecology and Equivocality: The Complexities

of a Virtual Sami Shaman
One of the “drum signposts” inside Sápmi Park welcomes visitors to the
main attraction at this tourist site: the Stálobákti Magic Theatre (and
the Tourist Information, Coffee Shop, Shop, and Silversmith). This dra-
matized production takes place in a separate scene within the larger
area of the theme park, and is designed to present the traditional world-
view of the Sami people, and more specifically to give an impression of
 Exhibited Versions of Sami Noaidevuohta 207

what noaidevuohta is, and what the symbols on the govadas really stand
for. Realizing that a people’s beliefs or worldviews are not easily repre-
sented in a traditional museum exhibition, the theme park’s organizers
decided to put considerable money and resources into the construction of
a dramatic scene in which the ideas hidden inside people’s heads could
be presented visually. For that reason, this presentation was developed
in cooperation with the international company BRC Imagination Arts
(http://brcweb.com), and with the involvement and assistance of several
contemporary Sami artists and culture workers (according to a credit
poster at the entrance to the show). BRC Imagination Arts had already
done work with digitalized storytelling in several different arenas, like
movies, special effect theaters, modern exhibitions, experience museums,
and theme parks. On their website, the company presents the Magic
Theatre project in the following way,

Located literally near the end of the Earth, at the Sápmi Cultural Park in
Karasjok, Norway, the Sápmi Magic Theatre opened a unique window into the
ancient mythologies of the reindeer herding people known as the Sami. (http://
brcweb.com/Projects/sapmi-magic-theater/)

When the Sápmi Magic Theatre first opened in 2001, this kind of
representation of Sami spiritual culture was both new and technologi-
cally innovative. Combining digital technology, pictures, and film to tell
a narrative based on traditional knowledge and belief made it possible
to develop a commercial product appealing to the experience industry
in general and to the tourism business in particular. The combination
of “ancient mythologies” and ultramodern visual technologies creates a
sense of excitement, offering visitors the chance to enter a kind of time
machine:

Innovative combination of cutting-edge media technologies share the Sami

myths and wisdom with new generations of locals and international tourists.
The host for this enlightening adventure is an old Sami shaman whose face
appears, via the magic of layered digital imagery, in the flames of a campfire.
In-theater effects such as smoke, fiber optics and fog give shape to the tale he
tells, opening hearts and minds to the unique Sami worldview. (http://brcweb.
com/Projects/sapmi-magic-theater/)

One of BRC’s mottos is “creating experiences that matter,” and the digi-
talized, multimediated theatrical performance offers an ethnographic and
historical account of Sami spiritual life. And as with all of their shows,
the intention is that they also carry a moral obligation and imperative,
in BRC’s own words: “With every visitor experience we create, and in
every heart that we touch, we strive to leave the world a better place by
208 Stein R. Mathisen

awaking the best in people” (http://brcweb.com/). The show’s narrative

certainly carries a distinct moral message, although it is less clear what
the imperative of this should be for the visitors. So what is this narrative?
The basic plot of the story is tied to the oppositional conflict between
modernity and tradition, in which the intrusion of modern life and tech-
nology into Sami life is a real threat to the traditional values that once
existed in Sami culture.
The narrative is enacted in two different sections. The first perfor-
mance takes place in a square room, in which a film screen through the
use of film clips from Sami everyday life relates a narrative of a transition
from a traditional, harmonious, nature-based living, to a contemporary
way of life based on technology, snow scooters, and helicopters. At the
end of the film, the audience can watch an old Sami entering a helicopter,
now used in reindeer herding in some districts. While they lift into the
sky in turbulence and heavy noise, a voice-over rhetorically asks what
the Sami forefathers would have thought of this kind of use of the tundra
environments. The film ends, and the visitors are asked to continue to the
next room, to learn more about the spiritual life of the Sami. Walking
through a maze-like passage, one enters the next room, which is circular
and has a high ceiling, imitating the interior of a large Sami tent. One
half-circle of the room has seats for the spectators, and the other half is
a screen.
While the spectators find their seats, the sound of a drum, imitating
the human heartbeat, fills the room. In the middle of the room there is a
fireplace, and in the artificial smoke from this fire the face of the old man
who previously entered the helicopter reappears. Only now he presents
himself as the timeless shaman of the Sami people, and his mission is to
relate the true narrative of the Samis’ relation to nature and the spiri-
tual powers that can be found there. This narrative is accompanied by
an impressive composition of digitally transmitted images, light effects,
sounds, and musical scores. The screen shows an arrangement of pic-
tures from rock carvings, images from the rune drums, and pictures from
beautiful northern landscapes, while artificial stars and Northern Lights
flash over the ceiling. The narrative about Sami spirituality itself is based
on several of the sometimes contradictory historical sources discussed
earlier in this article. But the specific narrative about the worldview of
the Sami is linked with prevailing contemporary ideas of indigenous wis-
dom about nature, about inherently ecologically friendly ways of life, and
about a kind of environmental concern that is lacking in the Western,
modern, urban lifestyle. This way of thinking is recognizable to visitors.
This linking of indigeneity, spirituality, and environmental concern is
already known to national and international audiences from New Age
literature, Hollywood movies, and a wide variety of media presentations.
 Exhibited Versions of Sami Noaidevuohta 209

The aspiration to provide a respectful version of the old Sami noaid-

evuohta and indigenous spirituality, however, also evokes older images
of indigenous peoples as either “ignoble savages” and primitives with
heathen religions, or as “noble savages” who live in a prelapsarian har-
monious contact with nature, freed from the corrupting forces of civiliza-
tion and modernity. The problem is that when the tourists again enter the
streets of Kárášjohka, this contemporary Sami village turns non-Sami in
the eyes of the tourists, and true Saminess (and spirituality) is something
that only belongs in a very distant past, or in the Magic Theatre’s purely
virtual reality.

The Multivocality of Circulating Narratives and

Contextualized Exhibits
The Steilneset Memorial Hall that is dedicated to the victims of the
Finnmark witchcraft trials does not flag any strong references to eth-
nicity. And the victims of the prosecutions indeed had varied ethnic
backgrounds, although about 20 percent of the accused were referred
to as Sami in the court proceedings (Hagen 2002: 322). The short text
in Pouelsen’s niche in the Memorial Hall reads abruptly that he was:
“Brought before the court in Vadsø on 9 February 1692” and “accused of
having used a rune drum and of practicing godless witchcraft” (Willumsen
s.a.: 97). His confessions before the court cover a longer list, although
none of them would really stand out as criminal acts for the contempo-
rary reader. But the memorial tells the narratives of the victims and their
sufferings. Louise Bourgeois’ burning chair is a constant reminder to the
atrocities that were once committed. In the big glass cube, the chair and
the flames are also reflected in seven gigantic mirrors surrounding the
chair. While the burning flame and the historical sources connect to an
historical past, these mirrors, by their shape provide associations with
modern science as it is represented in laboratories, surgery rooms, and
other institutions related to investigation and research. For the visitor,
these mirrors sometimes reflect the flames and the chair, sometimes the
surrounding landscape, and sometimes the visitor her/himself as a spec-
tator. The reflections can carry references to illegitimate uses of power
and atrocities being committed in our own time. On the other hand,
Peter Zumthor’s Memorial Hall for the individuals who lost their lives
during these witchcraft trials in the extreme north of the Scandinavian
Arctic reminds us of the fragility of historical facts. The amassed histori-
cal sources about this gruesome experience are organized as a hanging
textile corridor, suspended from scaffolds above the earth, like victims in
the most vulnerable position. Walking inside the construction, one can
210 Stein R. Mathisen

literally feel how it is the object of external forces when the wind makes
the corridor move.
We have seen that the noaidi’s drum has been interpreted and rein-
terpreted, decontextualized and recontextualized, as it has been devel-
oped as an object of several transculturations. Out of these encounters
between changing actors and versions of the drum, new contexts have
been formed, while some of the old narratives have been retained. The old
narratives of the Sami noaidi, the missionary reports on the “ungodly”
spiritual leaders of the “heathen” Sami, the museums’ frozen exhibitions,
modern Sami artists’ fascination with, and creative interpretations of the
imagery world of the old noaidis’ drums, New Age reinterpretations of
the old Sami noaidi into a version of world shamanism, and tourism’s
commodification of Sami spiritual culture: all of these influences are
in some way or another implicated in the production of a virtual Sami
noaidi at the Sápmi Park’s Magic Theatre in Kárášjohka. But as we have
seen, they all in a sense have connections to the same older historical
presentations of Sami beliefs and spirituality.
But in this way the digitalized version of the old Sami shaman in Sápmi
Park’s Magic Theatre also gets caught in several dilemmas, and some
of these dilemmas can be traced back to the older descriptions of Sami
spirituality discussed in this chapter. On the one hand, the presentation
evokes ideas of the Sami as primitive and ignoble children of nature with
pre-Christian beliefs. Even the planning of the theme park raised pro-
tests among conservative Christian congregations in the area, who feared
that the new center would disseminate old “heathen” ideas among the
population of the area, and in that way become destructive to Christian
work among the Sami. On the other hand, the ever-recurring European
understanding of the Sami as a kind of Noble Savage must also be seen
as equally far removed from the contemporary realities in the Sami area.
The ideas of Sami spirituality as a unique indigenous concern for nature
in fact leave a very limited space for Sami prospects in a modern world.
Often tied to global New Age ideas of aboriginal nature-bound connec-
tions, these ideas and myths fasten a group of already colonized people
to roles determined by the very myths of European majority populations.
The myths of a widespread Western romantic imagination have a privi-
leged position, and have to be met with strategic dialogue.
In this way, the picture of the child noaidi in the hotel room in Anár/
Inari should perhaps not only be interpreted as a romantic image meant
for the tourist market. It also expresses some of the inherent ambiguity
that always follows the image of the Sami noaidi, as it has been outlined
above. Important historical sources (even when they are strongly biased)
testify to the fact that the Sami have an important spiritual heritage
relating to noaidevuotha. But the narratives and presentations relating
 Exhibited Versions of Sami Noaidevuohta 211

to these spiritual traditions have always been influenced by colonializing

forces from the outside world, and from the power relations that have
been developed over time in the border zone. Legal, religious, archival,
museum, literary, artistic, and touristic contexts can all be understood
as parts of these processes. Commodification of noaidevuohta develops
commercial contexts, in which the serialization of rune drums in sou-
venir shops, with relatively cheap versions for sale in a variety of sizes,
also influences the use of the drum in artistic and literary contexts. The
ambiguity relating to Sami spirituality must be acknowledged as part of
any discourse related to this field of knowledge. Subsequently, one might
say that the itineraries of the noaidevuotha-knowledge, represented by
the rune drum traveling through different discourses and entering vari-
ous contexts, are not only circular like the drum itself, but have in effect
formed patterns more intricate and complicated than those painted with
red alder bark on the rune drum skin. Different layers of meaning and
different interpretations are constantly being mixed, recontextualized,
and reinterpreted.

References
Bakhtin, Mikhail M. 1981: The Dialogic Imagination. Austin: University of
Texas Press.
Bendix, Regina. 2000. “After Identity: Ethnicity between Commodification and
Cultural Commentary,” in Regina Bendix and Herman Roodenburg (eds.)
Managing Ethnicity. Perspectives from folklore studies, history and anthro-
pology. Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis, 77–95.
Bourgeois, Louise, and Peter Zumthor. 2011. Steilneset Memorial: To the Victims
of the Finnmark Witchcraft Trials. Oslo: Forlaget Press.
Clifford, James, 1997. Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth
Century. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Comaroff, John L., and Jean Comaroff. 2009. Ethnicity, Inc. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press.
Dana, Kathleen Osgood. 2003. “Áillohaš the Shaman-Poet and His Govadas-
Image Drum.” Academic dissertation. Oulu: Oulu University.
Dicks, Bella. 2003. Culture on Display: The Production of Contemporary
Visitability. Berkshire: Open University Press.
Friis, J. A. 1871. Lappisk Mytologi. Christiania: Alb. Cammermeyer.
Fonneland, Trude. 2012. Spiritual Entrepreneurship in a Northern Landscape:
Spirituality, Tourism and Politics. Temenos: Nordic Journal of Comparative
Religion 48: 155–178.
Hagen, Rune. 2002. Harmløs dissenter eller djevelsk trollmann?
Trolldomsprosessen mot samen Anders Poulsen i 1692. Historisk tidsskrift
81: 319–346.
———. 2003. “Kildene til og resepsjonen av trolldomskapitlet (kap. 21) i Knud
Leems Beskrivelse over Finmarkens Lapper 1767,” in Jan Ragnar Hagland
212 Stein R. Mathisen

og Steinar Supphellen (eds.) Knud Leem og det samiske. Foredrag holdt ved
et seminar i regi av Det Kongelige Norske Videnskabers Selskab 11.-12.
oktober 2002 (Det Kongelige Norske Videnskabers Selskab Skrifter 2,
2003) Trondheim: Tapir akademisk forlag, 79–93.
Hirvonen, Vuokko. 2008. “Bild och text hand i hand. Om mångkunniga samiska
författare,” in Christina Westergren and Eva Silvén (eds.) För Sápmi i tiden
(Fataburen. Nordiska museets och Skansens årsbok 2008) Stockholm:
Nordiska museets förlag, 186–203.
Kraft, Siv Ellen. 2009. “Sami Indigenous Spirituality: Religion and Nationbuilding
in Norwegian Sápmi.” Temenos: Nordic Journal of Comparative Religion 45:
179–206.
Leem, Knud. 1767. Beskrivelse over Finmarkens Lapper, deres Tungemaal,
Levemaade og forrige Afgudsdyrkelse. Kiøbenhavn: Det Kongel. Waisenhuses
Bogtrykkerie.
Manker, Ernst. 1938. Die Lappische Zaubertrommel. Eine ethnologis-
che Monographie. 1. Die Trommel als Denkmal materieller Kultur. (Acta
Lapponica 1) Stockholm: Nordiska museet.
———. 1950. Die Lappische Zaubertrommel. Eine ethnologische Monographie.
2. Die Trommel als Urkunde geistigen Lebens. (Acta Lapponica 6) Stockholm:
Nordiska museet.
———. 1965. Nåjdkonst: Trolltrummans bildvärld. Stockholm: LTs förlag.
———. 1971. Samefolkets konst. Halmstad: Askild & Kärnekull.
Mathisen, Stein R. 2004a. “Hegemonic Representations of Sámi Culture: From
Narratives of Noble Savages to Discourses on Ecological Sámi,” in Anna-
Leena Siikala, Barbro Klein, and Stein R. Mathisen (eds.) Creating Diversities:
Folklore, Religion and the Politics of Heritage. Helsinki: Finnish Literature
Society, 17–30.
———. 2004b. “Representasjoner av kulturell forskjell. Fortelling, makt og
autoritet i utstillinger av samisk kultur.” Tidsskrift for kulturforskning 3/3:
5–25.
———. 2010. “Indigenous Spirituality in the Touristic Borderzone: Virtual
Performances of Sámi Shamanism in Sápmi Park.” Temenos: Nordic Journal
of Comparative Religion 46: 53–72.
Olsen, Kjell. 2004. “The Touristic Construction of the ‘Emblematic’ Sámi,” in
Anna-Leena Siikala, Barbro Klein, and Stein R. Mathisen (eds.) Creating
Diversities: Folklore, Religion and the Politics of Heritage. Helsinki: Finnish
Literature Society, 292–305.
Pinkerton, John. 1810. A General Collection of the Best and Most Interesting
Voyages and Travels, in all Parts of the World, vol. I. (Account of Danish
Lapland, by Knud Leems) Philadelphia: Kimber and Conrad (First English
edition London 1808), 376–490.
Pratt, Mary Louise. 1992. Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation.
London: Routledge.
Rydving, Håkan. 1991. “The Saami Drums and the Religious Encounter in the
17th and 18th Centuries,” in Tore Ahlbäck and Jan Bergman (eds.) The Saami
Shaman Drum. Åbo: The Donner Institute, 28–51.
 Exhibited Versions of Sami Noaidevuohta 213

———. 1993. The End of Drum-Time: Religious Change among the Lule Saami,
1670s–1740s. Uppsala: Uppsala University.
Scheffy, Zoë-Hateehc Durrah. 2004. “Sámi Religion in Museums and Artistry,”
in Anna-Leena Siikala, Barbro Klein, and Stein R. Mathisen (eds.) Creating
Diversities: Folklore, Religion and the Politics of Heritage, Helsinki: Finnish
Literature Society, 225–259.
Silvén, Eva. 2012. “Contested Sami Heritage: Drums and Sieidis on the Move,”
in Domenique Poulot, José Maria Lanzarote Guiral, and Felicity Bodenstein
(eds.) National Museums and the Negotiation of Difficult Pasts (EuNaMuse
Report No. 8) Linköping: Linköping University Electronic Press, 173–186.
(http://www.ep.liu.se/ecp_home/index.en.aspx?issue=082)
Thomas, Nicholas. 1994. Colonialism’s Culture: Anthropology, Travel and
Government. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Ucko, Peter. 2002. “Who Owns the Cultural Heritage?—‘Heritage’ and
‘Indigenous Peoples’ in the 21st Century,” in Vem äger kulturarvet? (Duoddaris
20) Jokkmokk: Ájtte, Duottar- ja Sámemusea, 39–49.
Valkeapää, Nils-Aslak. 1988. Beaivi, áh
ážan. (English translation 1997: The
Sun, My Father) Guodageaidnu: DAT.
Willumsen, Liv Helene (ed.). 2010. The Witchcraft Trials in Finnmark, Northern
Norway. Bergen: Skald/Varanger Museum.
———. 2013. Witches of the North: Scotland and Finnmark (Studies in Medieval
and Reformation Traditions 170) Leiden: Brill 2013.
———. s.a. Memorial to the Witches burned in Finnmark: Guidebook. Vardø:
Varanger Museum IKS.

Web pages
BRC Imagination Arts: homepage (http://brcweb.com); information on Sápmi
Magic Theatre (http://brcweb.com/Projects/sapmi-magic-theater/) (visited
December 12, 2013)
NRK Sápmi: October 30, 2008: “Brenner ikke kofter” (http://www.nrk.no/kanal
/nrk_sapmi/1.6287555) (visited May 29, 2012)
November 4, 2008: “Vil verne om samisk kultur” (http://www.nrk.no/kanal
/nrk_sapmi/1.6293956) (visited May 29, 2012)
Sápmi Park: (http://www.visitsapmi.no/) (visited December 10, 2013)
“SSN Protest against the Exploitation of Sami Culture”: (http://boreale.konto
.itv.se/rovaniemi.htm) (visited December 10, 2013)
Steilneset Memorial, National Tourist Routes in Norway: (http://www.nasjonal-
eturistveger.no/en/varanger/) (visited November 18, 2013)
 11
The Festival Isogaisa: Neoshamanism in
New Arenas

Trude Fonneland

What Is Isogaisa?
Preface
“In Bardufoss, the war drum is replaced by the Sami drum (runebomme),”
NRK Sami radio announced on September 8, 2010. A stone’s throw
away from the fenced and guarded military area near the welfare arena
Istindportalen, green-clad young soldiers have company. People donning
traditional Sami garb from Russia and Norway as well as 150 excited
festival goers have found their way to the festival area. Three big lavvu
(Sami traditional tents) are raised on the field outside, and smoke from
the bonfire lies over the area. In the middle of the crowd, a man starts
to joik (a traditional Sami way of singing). A Sami drum is passed along
from hand to hand and ends up by an opening near the bonfire. This is
where Mayor Viggo Fossum and festival leader Ronald Kvernmo take
over; with a beat of the drum, they declare the first Sami shamanic festi-
val in history to be open.
Isogaisa, which is presented as being an indigenous festival focusing
on the spiritual, was held for the first time on September 3–5, 2010. For
the first two years, the festival was arranged in Heggelia, both inside
and outside of the military arena Istindportalen in the Målselv munici-
pality of Nord-Troms. After 2012, the festival was moved to the guest-
house Fjellkysten in Lavangen, where it is now permanently located.
The establishment of a winter festival arena in Fjellkysten is also in the
cards: the Isogaisa siida (a traditional Sami community) will consist of an
216 Trude Fonneland

Figure 11.1 Festival Poster 2012.

octagon—an eight-sided lavvu and eight peat goahtis (traditional Sami

turf huts) for overnight stays.1
The modern shaman Kvernmo is behind Isogaisa. Having recently
finished a bachelor’s degree in marketing from BI (Norwegian Business
School) in Oslo, he wants to put the theories he learned in school into
practice. 2 Kvernmo invites the audience to take part in an annual festival
weekend of inner travel—to magical adventures in a Sami landscape.
 The Festival Isogaisa 217

According to the festival program, the motivation behind the festival is

to unite a pre-Christian Sami worldview with modern ways of thinking,
and thus create “a spiritual meeting place where different cultures are
brought together.”3
Isogaisa is an innovative festival concept. On the basis of Sami pre-
Christian religion and neoshamanic philosophy, the festival uses sym-
bols, rituals, and ideas to enrich the experience of the audience. In this
way, Isogaisa also exemplifies cultural production through reinterpreting
and redefining the past. One of the products that takes shape in this way
is Sami spiritual and cultural heritage, which can be seen not only as part
of one’s personal negotiation of identity (see Lowenthal 1998) but also as
part of the marketing of the local, which is conveyed as being beyond—
and thus of interest to—postmodern society (see Kirshenblatt-Gimblett
1998: 149–153).
In this chapter, I will look into the types of narratives, products, and
services that take shape and that are put into practice when a shamanic
festival opens its doors to an audience for the first time. I ask what is
included and what is being defined in the marketing of Isogaisa as an
attractive festival venue, and investigate the roles that the past and Sami
pre-Christian religion play in the thematic production. Focusing on the
local aspect, I further explore how the local and distinctive features of
Isogaisa are highlighted based upon global structures and organizations
to generate interest for a specific product and a specific destination.4
This chapter is based upon my own fieldwork at Isogaisa in 2010 and
2012, as well as meetings and interviews with the festival leader Kvernmo.
The information about the festival presented on Isogaisa’s home page and
Facebook page is also a key part of my analysis. 5
The chapter begins with a discussion about the limits of the festival
genre, and moves on to discuss how the Sami neoshamanic movement
has evolved from its early days to the celebrations of the present day
at the Isogaisa festival. I will also present the structure of Isogaisa and
the role of the festival in local revitalization processes—in creating new
images and dreams about the high north.

Isogaisa—a Newcomer to the Festival Arena?

By virtue of being the first Norwegian festival oriented toward New Age
spirituality, Isogaisa contributes to a broadening of the religious land-
scape in Norway. The festival can be characterized as a manifestation of
spiritual entrepreneurship that combines New Age core values with pre-
Christian symbols and stories. Isogaisa is also a key arena for the fur-
ther development of Sami shamanism in a specifically North Norwegian
environment.
218 Trude Fonneland

When I characterize Isogaisa as being a newcomer on the festival

scene, one might well ask, What about the many “alternative fairs”
(Alternativmesser) that are arranged annually in both big and small
Norwegian cities? Are not these also arrangements that focus on exactly
the same types of religious sentiments that come into play at Isogaisa?
Although the boundaries are not sharp, in my opinion the Norwegian
“alternative fairs” fall outside of the festival genre. The arrangements and
products featured at alternative fairs are the same all over the country,
with only minor seasonal and local variations. These fairs are primarily
marketplaces for a plethora of New Age products and services that are
global in scope. The unique aspect of a festival of Isogaisa’s type, on the
other hand, is precisely the local connection and the emphasis on the
particular and local flavor—the unique local culture and local religious
traditions. Like the Norwegian alternative fairs, Isogaisa is an arena for
promoting New Age ideas and trends, but the products on offer here have
a glow of authenticity by virtue of their connection with a local place and
local history. As ethnologist and festival researcher Kjell Hansen says,
festivals are embraced as tools for promoting local and regional develop-
ment (2002: 20). In this way, the festival genre has clear links with the
tourist industry (Yeoman 2004). The organizers of these events use the
festival to conjure up an attractive aura around their cities and districts.
In combining catchy slogans with spectacular images of local nature and
culture, and by connecting these with annual events, the objective is to
create an attractive brand that will generate economic as well as cultural-
social growth (see O’Dell 2010: 25).
The festivals also welcome an audience that increasingly acts as a body
of tourists looking for spectacular events and instant adventure. The
objective of Isogaisa organizers is to reach as many interested people as
possible by tailoring a festival program that targets all age groups. When
asked what type of audience Isogaisa is intended for, Kvernmo says,

People of all ages, from all parts of society, from all countries! Some go there
to meet like-minded people, some go there to attend seminars and workshops,
and some go because they are curious. Isogaisa is suitable for families. There
are arrangements for children, young people and adults. The volume of the
music will be comfortable, and there are no age restrictions.6

Over the past two years we have seen that around 500 people visit the
festival. The majority of these are women of a certain age group. People
working in the health sector also constitute a large portion of attendees.
This is comparable with the demographics of those who attend
Norwegian alternative fairs and New Age workshops and seminars (see
Hammer 1997: 27–29). However, there is one area in which Isogaisa
 The Festival Isogaisa 219

deviates from the traditional interest in New Age activities, which attract
tourists in the form of Norwegian and international travelers to the
region. To them, Isogaisa is probably not primarily regarded as a New
Age gathering, but rather as an event that allows them to experience local
religious and cultural traditions.

Isogaisa—a Center for a Growing

Sami Shamanic Movement
Sami pre-Christian religious expressions, symbols, and narratives—the
so-called noaidevuohta—serve as inspirational sources for the program
and for the products on offer. At the same time, festival organizers say
they want to communicate these expressions in a modern language and
adapt them to contemporary life.7 In this way, Isogaisa can be seen as a
significant contributor to the growing and evolving Sami neoshamanic
scene.
Festival organizer and shaman Kvernmo has been apprenticed to Ailo
Gaup, who was the first to look seriously into Sami pre-Christian reli-
gion as an inspiration for modern shamans (see Fonneland, this volume).
Kvernmo became part of this neoshamanic movement at a time when
Sami neoshamanism was in its infancy. Like Gaup, he was eager to revive
and recreate bits and parts of the Sami pre-Christian religious past, and,
in 2008, he arranged his first workshop on Sami neoshamanism at a
Sami school in the Målselv municipality in Nord-Troms.
The Isogaisa festival is presented as a celebration of the new local scene
of Sami neoshamanism, and, according to the organizer, is intended to
contribute to further development in this field. In order to create room
for growth and development, Isogaisa allows for the gathering and unit-
ing of Sami religious traditions from all of Sápmi, the Fennoscandian
Sami region.
Each year, a specially selected group of Sami people is invited to take
part in the event. In 2010, eight shamans from the Murmansk region par-
ticipated: one interpreter, two shamans, two dancers, and three duodji
performers. In 2011, the youth organization Nurash from Lovozero was
invited, in addition to some of the Sami cultural workers and shamans
who had participated in the festival the year before. The purpose of these
invitations, which are financially supported by the Barents Secretariat, is
to establish a bond between Sami shamans in Norway and Russia.8 “Mini
Isogaisa” festivals also take place throughout the year in both Norway
and Russia, and the objective is the same, that is, to spread information
about the festival and to link different Sami cultures. The program of the
“Mini Isogaisas” spans the course of one day and focuses on socializing
220 Trude Fonneland

and on the performing of rituals, and usually concludes with a concert

featuring Sami performers.
In this way, the festival and the festival landscape are transformed
into serving as a cradle for Sami spiritual cultural heritage and a locally
rooted Sami identity, which is used as a strategy and counterpoint to the
global neoshamanic scene. In our conversation, Kvernmo stresses this
point:

the things that are coming from USA via Michael Harner, that’s a lot of stuff;
that’s where the main beacon is. But we don’t have to go further than just past
Murmansk, to the Komi and Nenets peoples—and then there’s the Sami; that’s
three different people in a small geographical area just over the border, and
they . . . at least the Nenets people, many of them haven’t had contact with the
Russians, so shamanism is a living culture among many of the people within
the tribe. There’s a lot of solid culture to be found there, plain and simple. So,
the things that have been lost to the Sami can be borrowed from them, because
they are so close. And it feels so much more natural than that American thing. I
mean, Michael Harner has done a great job. . . . He has, in a way, mixed together
a lot of cultures, and that’s when you get that kind of world shamanism. But
being a good Sami activist, I’m not sure I like it (laughter). I prefer to turn it the
other way around: if we are to make a festival, we should rather base ourselves
on the Norwegian, the local, the Sami region. And if we are to borrow from
other cultures, we should go to Sami areas in Russia or the South Sami regions.
If we have to go even further, it shouldn’t be any further than to the next people
who may be regarded as distant relatives. That would feel a lot more natural
than taking something from the USA, or South America or Peru or Africa, or
wherever. (Interview, my translation)

In emphasizing the connection with local, similar religious traditions,

the festival sets itself apart from its American roots and supports a brand
of shamanism that is becoming increasingly locally rooted. The Russian
delegations are assigned the role of bridging new and old shamanic tradi-
tions, and are presented by Kvernmo as being important vessels of tradi-
tions and authorities on this subject. In this turn toward the local, festival
organizers emphasize that the type of neoshamanism that is practiced at
Isogaisa is not artificial or constructed; rather, it is founded on traditions
rooted in a local and recent past.
The creation of a Sami neoshamanic milieu that is being formed at
Isogaisa is a matter of writing oneself into a local tradition, and creating
narratives about the local place and local religious traditions. The festi-
val takes part in the global by highlighting the local. Global New Age
currents are colored by local tradition and culture, and transformed into
something that the practitioners can present as being local and unique.
In this way, the festival becomes a resource when it meets the global New
 The Festival Isogaisa 221

Age culture, by making a distinction between what is considered to be

locally authentic and what is considered universal.

Isogaisa—Indigenous Festival with a Spiritual Focus

Festivals are a break from the daily routine and, according to Hansen,
they offer a narrative structure that cannot be comprehended solely by
reading about it; it has to be experienced through action and participa-
tion (2002: 21). This was my experience as well when I got on the bus
to Målselv one September morning in 2010 to observe and take part in
the Isogaisa neoshamanic festival, and similarly when I participated in
the festival weekend in Fjellkysten at Lavangen in 2012. Although I had
studied the program and sought information from the Facebook page
and home page in advance, it was only after I was present and actively
taking part in the festival that the events there became comprehensible
to me.
I will try to impart what Isogaisa is like and what the festival can
offer by way of stories, by describing the atmosphere and values, and by
the observations I made during these visits. The analysis of the festival
will be based upon four different sections and events that in sum make
up the core of Isogaisa, namely, seminars, the alternative fair, entertain-
ment, and ceremonies. These events are presented separately on the fes-
tival posters, and although some of them overlap to an extent and are
arranged simultaneously, I have chosen to present them separately in
order to provide a comprehensive idea of the experiences that are gener-
ated in the thematic production of the festival.

Seminars
The Isogaisa festival weekend has so far had a fairly fixed program,
beginning with a keynote seminar focused on a specific topic. In the two
first years of the festival, the general theme of the seminars was “similari-
ties and differences between conventional medicine and the traditional
practices of indigenous peoples.” The seminar was organized as a series
of lectures with three invited speakers, and was rounded off by a panel
discussion in which the audience was invited to ask questions related to
the theme of the seminar. In order to shed light on this theme, in 2010
the organizers invited shaman Ailo Gaup, postdoctoral research fellow
in clinical medicine Randall Sexton, and pedagogue and Sami researcher
Jens Ivar Nergård. Gaup opened his talk by stressing how it was an his-
torical moment, and pointed out how the opening of the festival marked
222 Trude Fonneland

a milestone in Sami history. He went on to express how the “time is ripe

for a gathering such as this. In a place like this. The fact that people
are summoned to this landscape; to this part of the country.”9 Sexton
took the opportunity to talk about the experience he had gained from his
fieldwork and practice in the region, and stressed that the World Health
Organization (WHO) encourages cooperation between conventional
medicine and local practitioners. Nergård, for his part, pointed out
how, although cooperation is being encouraged, there is little dialogue
between the two traditions in Norway. He moved on to say that Sami
narratives of how the Sami relate to nature are met with little sympathy
by conventional medicine, and that this may have consequences such as
malpractice and prescribing the wrong medication. This is a recurring
issue in his own research, among other things in his book, The Living
Experience: A Study of the Sami Traditional Knowledge (2006)—(Den
levende erfaring: En studie i samisk kunnskapstradisjon).10
In addition to the regular festivalgoers and the Russian delegation, the
2010 seminar audience consisted of people who work in the health sector
in the Troms and northern Nordland municipalities. Their attendance
at the festival had been paid for by their employers, and most of them
only attended this part of the program. It is rare to have Norwegian
municipalities fund shamanic seminars for their employees! What made
the seminar appealing to this particular target group was probably the
connection between neoshamanism and science. Kvernmo comments on
the motivation behind the seminar in this way:

In this seminar, we raise the spiritual up to a scientific level; we find research-

ers who defend our practice and give it some kind of acceptance. This is very
important. Those who attended the seminar were mainly people from the
municipal health sector. They have a relaxed attitude towards what we are
doing. Traditionally it’s been, like, if a patient suddenly receives a visit by their
grandmother who has been dead for ten years, then they have been regarded as
having a problem. Then you’re hallucinating and schizophrenic and need to be
medicated. Of course, there’s a lot of good psychiatric practice going on, but
they are a wee bit afraid of spiritual things. It is sufficient to say, “Oh. So what
did she want?” She’s a helper, that’s all. And then it’s no longer a problem; it’s
a resource. That’s part of the point; they were supposed to raise this to a dif-
ferent level.

In many ways, the seminar demonstrates what religious historian Olav

Hammer identifies as a central discursive strategy that he believes is com-
monly utilized in New Age circles as a legitimizing factor for New Age
products and services, namely, to appeal to rationality and science (2001:
201–330). In this seminar, Sexton and Nergård served as spokesmen for
neoshamanic practices, and their presence has contributed to legitimizing
 The Festival Isogaisa 223

the field. At the same time, the boundaries between neoshamanism and
conventional medicine are blurred.
The three speakers also provided public relations to the local area
and local religious traditions. The seminar was portrayed as an historical
event, regarding both the topic being discussed and the place where the
seminar was held. In various ways, the three speakers shook up estab-
lished stereotypes and conceptions of the north Norwegian region as a
superstitious and uncivilized place, far from modern life and progress.
The new narratives that were thus being shaped also challenged power
and status relationships by imparting a message of how the indigenous
peoples’ cultural and religious traditions form a center and serve as a
resource in our postmodern world.
In addition to the main seminar, the festival also offered smaller semi-
nars and workshops arranged by different exhibitors. In 2010, the neo-
shamans Ailo Gaup and Eirik Myrhaug offered workshops based upon
their courses on neoshamanism, while Sexton taught holotropic breath-
work—a practice in which breathing is considered a tool for altering
one’s consciousness and opening up underlying emotions and energies.
For the past three years, the festival has also held a workshop in which
people are invited to make their own Isogaisa drum, which, according to
festival organizer Kvernmo, “will be a very special and exclusive drum
with enormous energy.”11 The workshop is arranged by the modern sha-
man and drummaker Fredrik Prost from Kiruna. This workshop requires
preregistration and begins as early as Thursday afternoon. The partici-
pants are handed materials from which they are supposed to make their
own drum for use at the festival.
In the process of shaping and developing cultural heritage, there
is a clear focus on objects. At Isogaisa, the traditional Sami drums
(runebomme) are used as the basis for the new drums constructed by the
participants, and they become a symbol of continuity with traditions of
the past. In the words of the geographer David Lowenthal, “To be certain
there was a past we must see at least some of its traces” (1985: 247). The
Sami runebomme is one such trace. In providing participants a place to
shape their festival drums, Isogaisa also offers the audience access to a
firsthand taste of the past. The object, the Sami drum, is in this context
a messenger that enables a dialogue between the past and the present. As
folklorist Jonas Frykman says about the role of objects in cultural pro-
duction: “Things like this—and many more—have become something
more than symbols. They bear secrets and have to be induced to speak”
(2002: 49).
At Isogaisa, the Sami drum no longer has the stigma of being a
reminder of a pagan past; it is instead a powerful, authentic, and magical
symbol of a vital Sami culture (see Mathisen 2011). Using the drum in a
224 Trude Fonneland

festival setting contributes its establishment as both an object that is to be

displayed, as well as a living national and spiritual symbol.

The Alternative Fair

The second main part of the festival program is an alternative fair, which
operates in parallel with the other festival activities right up until the fes-
tival concludes on Sunday afternoon. Compared with the alternative fairs
(Alternativmesser) that are held annually in small and large Norwegian
cities, this festival fair is a “mini alternative fair” with about 30 exhibi-
tors. Whereas the alternative fairs gather a wide range of New Age exhib-
itors and performers, the main focus of the Isogaisa fair revolves around
the Sami tradition, selling Sami drums, brass rings, duodji, Sami art, and
other products related to the practice of Sami neoshamanism.
As festival organizers have chosen to have an alternative fair be one
of the main parts of the festival, the dialogue Isogaisa has with the New
Age milieu is highlighted. An alternative fair is a New Age market in
miniature, which, despite its wide range of topics and products, conveys
a standard repertoire that provides insight into the core values of the
community—the New Age lingua franca (Kraft 2011). In a study of peo-
ple who offer alternative treatments in Denmark, religious historian Lars
Ahlin characterizes the New Age core in terms of four points, namely,
self-spirituality, self-authority, self-responsibility, and holism (2007). At
the festival fair, just as at other alternative fairs, various healers and ther-
apists place weight on the self as a divine being within humanity, which
is absolutely sovereign with regard to one’s own judgment and choices.
The neoshamans who have found their way to the festival fair venue and
who receive festivalgoers for consultation and treatment, regard illness as
a sign that something is wrong with the whole person. As therapists, they
market their role as guides; it is the patients themselves who are respon-
sible for their own healing.
Despite the fact that Isogaisa embraces the core principles of the New
Age milieu, festival organizers also want to distance themselves from
traditional alternative markets. Kvernmo emphasizes,

I don’t know of any other events like Isogaisa. The local alternative fairs do try;
but they lack the cultural bit. There are many good alternative events here in
northern Norway, but you don’t have any core culture; that’s my impression.
My impression is, not that I want to say anything bad about how the alternative
fairs are organized, that it’s a lot about business. “We sell what people want.”
We, on the other hand, don’t do a lot of that. We try to convey a message that
highlights Sami culture and neoshamanism; whereas, the alternative fairs are
more like putting all sorts of stuff together under the same roof, and there’s a
 The Festival Isogaisa 225

lot of variety. Of course, we have to have some variety at Isogaisa, too; there
will be bonfires, lavvu and Sami music. . . .

Kvernmo has adopted the critique that many scholars and media express
toward the alternative market, namely, that there is too much emphasis
on business and there are too many religious traditions mixed together.
In this way, the New Age movement appears to be a low-class culture (see
Kraft 2011). In their focus on Sami culture and tradition, the festival fair
makes a move to mark a distance from low culture.
New Age spirituality and Sami indigenous spirituality are portrayed as
symbolizing two different sets of values: whereas the New Age movement
is criticized for lacking roots and traditions, Sami indigenous spirituality
holds a special status, and is connected with values such as wisdom, the
ancients, cultural heritage, environmental protection, and natural insight.
By marking their distance from typical New Age markets, and by linking
the religious aspects of the festival to Sami culture rather than to the New
Age, festival organizers boost the status of Isogaisa as both a festival
and a business. In contrast with the New Age, the links to a Sami past
and Sami indigenous spiritual traditions become a resource that attracts
attention and guarantees a unique product, service, and experience.

Ceremonies
The many large and small ceremonies that are performed both inside and
outside of the festival area constitute the third main event at Isogaisa. The
festival begins with an opening ceremony, and is followed by a hunting
ceremony, a children’s ceremony, a chocolate ceremony, and various types
of drumming journeys. Additionally, the announcement for the 2013 fes-
tival indicated that it would include a ceremony greeting the dawn, a tea
ceremony, a pipe ceremony, and of course a closing ceremony.
The opening ceremony at Isogaisa 2012 was an event lasting three
hours. At dusk on the first day of the festival, over 200 people gathered
outside of the octagon, and before entering every participant had to go
through a short act of purification in which sage smoke was passed over
his or her body. Inside the octagon festival, attendees gathered in a big
circle around an unlit bonfire. Then all the invited indigenous represen-
tatives from New Zealand, Canada, Russia, and Norway, together with
festival leader Kvernmo, the municipality mayor, and musicians who were
drumming and joiking, entered the center of the circle in a procession.
While the music was playing, four people who were standing in opposite
places were chosen to light the fire while invoking the spirits from the
different corners of the world, from north, south, east, and west. The
festival fire, Kvernmo announced, was a holy fire meant to burn until
226 Trude Fonneland

the end of the festival, and people were encouraged to come and sacri-
fice here during their stay. Then talks were given by the mayor, some of
the indigenous representatives, and Kvernmo himself, who finished his
speech by declaring that the Isogaisa festival 2012 was open. The rest
of the opening ceremony was filled with theater performances and Sami
folk music performed by invited groups and established Sami folk musi-
cians. As the formal program came to an end, festival participants joined
in, singing and dancing.
Activities are a core part of all types of festivals. The audience is not a
group of festival spectators, but rather, they are festival participants. This
implies an active and tangible relationship with the products on offer as
well as the place in which they are offered. Additionally, the series of
ceremonies marketed by Isogaisa facilitates other types of activities than
we usually associate with the adventure economy of our time. Whereas
theme parks, which were the subject of analysis in Joseph B. Pine and
James H. Gilmore’s book The Experience Economy (1999), allow for
immediate satisfaction of the senses, Isogaisa, in contrast, allows for
experiences of a slower kind—experiences that are supposed to affect
the participants on an inner, psychological level. The various ceremonies
are experiences laden with expectations of how they will, in one way or
another, give the festival audience a feeling of increased energy—of inner
growth and development (see O’Dell 2010: 31).
Although the activities offered at food festivals, literature festivals, and
music festivals may also offer experiences for the senses that will influence
and change those who participate, the numerous ceremonies of Isogaisa
offer an additional dimension that more “worldly festivals” do not pro-
vide in the same way. The pipe ceremony, the hunting ceremony, the tea
ceremony, and the many drumming journeys offer ritual passages in which
the sensing of the landscape, the sound of the drum, tastes, and scents rep-
resent a liminality, transformation, and inner self-development. Isogaisa is
thus not a festival in which the audience is supposed to just come and be
entertained; the objective is to come, experience, and be changed.
The ceremony and interactive theater performance, “Those Who See,”
were among the activities that attracted many people in 2010. It focused
on this change, and was staged as a rite of passage. The performance
was created by Haugen Productions, and was also a part of the program
of the indigenous festival Riddu Riđđu in Mandalen in 2007, under the
name Mátki (the journey).12
At Isogaisa, the starting point of the performance was located in
the woods behind Istindportalen. On Saturday and Sunday afternoons,
groups of eight persons were dispatched every 30 minutes to go into
nature and meet actors, healers, dancers, clowns, neoshamans, and musi-
cians. The participants followed a forest trail that combined elements
 The Festival Isogaisa 227

from Sami mythology and natural medicine from various parts of the
world. They took part in drumming journeys aimed at finding their
power animals, cleansing ceremonies, joik, and various creative chal-
lenges such as painting and dancing. The objective of the performance
was, according to the organizers, that participants were to experience
ancient indigenous traditions, and, through these, they would assess their
own lives by asking questions such as: who am I, where do I stand today,
what is my path? “Those Who See” places weight on how inspiration
from indigenous peoples’ religious tradition is a resource in the present
day. This, according to the organizers, is something we in the Western
world have lost and something we should rediscover.
Isogaisa presents itself as being precisely this type of learning arena,
in which those with inquiring minds may acquire the values they feel we
lack in Western culture. The festival offers a perceptible access to the
Sami past, and thus forms a bond between the past and the present. The
festival generates a feeling of how it all happened here, and that here it is
all happening now. It is loaded with powerful symbols, which not only
bring us back in time, presenting tales from the past, but also convey
information about which types of values we regard as important in the
present (see Eriksen 1999: 87ff). In this way, Isogaisa can be said to be a
monument to Sami pre-Christian traditions that are being created within
a certain framework every year. As a monument, Isogaisa contributes
to a “coding” of the local place, which can be deciphered by the partici-
pants at the festival. The Isogaisa monument is not, however, solely based
on the local landscape, but is meant to represent contemporary Sami
neoshamanism in all Sami cultures.
The past, which is revived during the festival, is not the past we know
from history books and the discourses of scholars. At Isogaisa, the link
between memory and the imaginary world that is staged (Lowenthal
1985). Here, the past is not a closed chapter; it is a process that extends
into the present and reaches into the future (Frykman 2002: 54).

Entertainment
Festivals are primarily social arenas in which people come together,
maintain, and expand their social circles, and relax in a nice atmosphere
while enjoying the entertainment. Entertainment is also the final item
listed on the festival program. Isogaisa offers musical performances such
as joik, dance, poetry readings, storytelling, and of course socializing
around the bonfire. This type of entertainment can best be described as
“ritual entertainment”—it has an additional dimension related to each
participant’s self-development.
228 Trude Fonneland

One of the highlights of the entertainment section of the Isogaisa 2011

program was a festival dance for the general audience accompanied by
joik chanting. The dance was published on YouTube prior to the festi-
val, and on the Isogaisa home page people were encouraged to learn the
steps before the festival. The dance and the joik visualized the journey to
the Isogaisa festival by mimicking the movements and sounds of various
Arctic animals. In the festival area, the dance and the joik contributed
to a sense of community. The simple dance steps symbolized a project of
coming together, in which participants of all age groups could take part
according to their abilities. The Isogaisa dance and joik also served to
highlight how formerly taboo cultural expressions are currently entering
popular culture.
Norwegian festivals are generally known for having a relatively high
level of alcohol consumption, where alcohol is an essential tool for set-
ting the mood for the scheduled entertainment. The connection between
alcohol and festival life is something from which the Isogaisa festival
organizers wish to distance themselves, and they have chosen to market
the festival as being a non-alcoholic event. There are probably several
reasons for this.
From a historical perspective, alcohol is associated with colonization,
with being a bad influence, and with exploitation by Norwegian authori-
ties. Hard liquor was a frequently used trade commodity. This created a
codependent relationship, which over time indebted people. History tells
of Sami families who lost all their possessions because of this form of
trade: of social misery, poverty, and conflict.
In addition to such perspectives on colonization, Kvernmo, in an inter-
view with the newspaper Troms Folkeblad, also highlights a religious
argument: “I am a shaman; and although I am not personally a teetotal-
ler, I believe a spiritual practice such as neoshamanism cannot be com-
bined with alcohol” (September 1, 2010). The homepage of the festival
has this to say on the subject:

All the older Sami shamans I have talked to agree on this one thing: Inebriation
has never been part of Sami shamanism! All of them also agree that we, too,
should abstain from mixing shamanism with inebriation! So please, respect
our ancient Sami culture and tradition. Do come to the festival! Come as you
are! You’re really more pleasant when sober!13

In addition to confronting historical stereotypes, the festival leader’s goal

to create a festival in which participants abstain from alcohol, involves a
wish to be taken seriously and to be on par with other, more established
religious traditions. According to Kvernmo, neoshamanism is a serious
 The Festival Isogaisa 229

spiritual practice in which all the senses must remain sharp, and is not
taken lightly. Thus at the festival, one is to obtain intoxication from spiri-
tual experience, which creates entertainment and serves as the basis for a
neoshamanic movement that is growing and evolving.

Isogaisa in the Media

Several Norwegian and Sami regional newspapers have covered the
Isogaisa festival.14 Troms Folkeblad presented it as being Norway’s first
shamanic festival (September 6, 2010), and Salangen Nyheter announced
that the festival was a “Drumming Success” (August 27, 2012), while
Nordlys, in its January 14, 2013, article “Healing the World,” pointed
out that Isogaisa is lauded all over the world for its healing power. In
2010, the same newspaper had a feature article on the main seminar of
the festival, and presented the seminar as an historical moment: “it is
probably the first time in history that conventional psychiatric medicine
is being held up against shamanism in this way” (September 8, 2010).
All of the media stories were completely positive in their festival reviews.
This media angle on the Isogaisa festival is probably due to the fact that
the festival is regarded as a Sami indigenous event rather than New Age.
Festival leader Kvernmo had previously been very clear about his Sami
background in the same media. In this way, the festival is also linked to a
Sami indigenous context. As Siv Ellen Kraft points out, this type of media
coverage can be seen as an expression of a postcolonial consciousness,
which has made one cautious regarding how indigenous peoples are por-
trayed in the media (2011). The way the festival is profiled in the media
can thus be seen as contributing to legitimizing the festival as both a chan-
nel for entertainment and a player in regional development processes.

“Isogaisa: the Beating Heart of a Counterculture”

Festivals are events that serve to profile and expand the local, says Kjell
Hansen in his article “Festivals, Spatiality and the New Europe” (2002).
The special aspect of festivals is that they are indeed taking place (2002:
20). Isogaisa, too, takes place in a specially selected landscape. During the
festival weekend, the local north Norwegian landscape is transformed into
a spiritual hub for Sami culture, both nationally and internationally. When
I asked Kvernmo what he considers the most important aspect of Isogaisa,
he replied, “The forming of bonds. We are in the centre, the south Sami area
is represented there, and Russia is also there.” From having been peripheral,
Isogaisa transforms the place where the festival is held into a creative cross-
national hub for religious innovation and a focal point in Sápmi.
230 Trude Fonneland

The prerequisite for having Isogaisa’s landscape take the shape of a

center is to market the place as being unique—as being different from all
other places. In most cases, this type of marketing is done by creating a
clear local connection, and the easiest way to do this is through its name
(ibid.: 29). The name Isogaisa means “big peak,” or “the biggest peak
among many big mountains.” The word is also familiar from several
poems and songs. The festival organizers aim to use the festival to make
“Isogaisa” a brand name, covering not only the festival itself but also
the growing, evolving Sami neoshamanic movement in general. Kvernmo
says,

Branding. The name Isogaisa. . . . now we are establishing the term Isogaisa, we
are anchoring it in the “top of the mind” of people. So the next time people
think of shamanism, the name Isogaisa should come up, and it should be a
broad term. It’s not only a festival; it’s a shamanic center. We may even launch
a CD soon, which is going to be called the “Power of Isogaisa.”

By marketing and spreading the name Isogaisa and its local connec-
tion, the objective is to expand the local by making the municipality a
hub for practitioners of Sami neoshamanism.
The construction of and the dream of having religious experiences
at often remote centers has been a prevalent pattern in religious history.
The tales and visions of journeys to holy places such as Jerusalem, Rome,
and Mecca have been many. In the postmodern religious landscape, the
distance to these centers has grown shorter, and the number of centers
has increased in step with developments within the religious sphere (see
Kraft 2011). Isogaisa is a clear example of how the northern Norwegian
region is marketed as being such a spiritual center. North Norway, which
in the past was marketed and known for its magnificent nature, gains an
added dimension at Isogaisa, namely, the promise of personal reward in
the form of inner self-development.
The connection between local development and the marketing of spir-
itual values makes the festival an agent of change in extended cultural
innovation and development processes. At Isogaisa, the identity of the
region is recast in a way that replaces the traditional image of North
Norway as being “peripheral,” and as being a politically, economically,
and culturally repressed region. For this reason, Isogaisa is not situated in
a political vacuum, despite the fact that the festival is primarily intended
to be an arena of activity and entertainment (see Hall 2007: 306, Hansen
2002: 28). This is highlighted by the statement made by festivalgoer and
exhibitor Wilhelm Strindberg in the heading above: “Isogaisa: creator
 The Festival Isogaisa 231

of a separate identity and a sense of pride but also a spearhead of coun-

terculture. Isogaisa: the beating heart of the counterculture.”15 Isogaisa,
with its seminars, alternative fair, ceremonies, and entertainment, is like
other festivals in that it is a place for socializing, enjoyment, and leisure.
Nevertheless, it is also a place where the local and global are merged,
where power relationships come into play, where political interests are
materialized, where cultural identities are tested, and where new dreams
take shape.

Notes
1. In the long term, the organizers of the festival want to have Isogaisa Siida
evolve into a spiritual center focusing on indigenous culture.
2. The topic of Kvernmo’s bachelor thesis was the development process of a
shamanic centre in Målselv in Nord-Troms.
3. http://www.isogaisa.org/, accessed 17/06/2011.
4. This chapter is based partially on a previous article, published in Norwegian
in Aura (Fonneland 2013).
5. On their web page, one can find information on this year’s and last year’s
programs, exhibitors, central themes, practical information, and registra-
tion forms for volunteer workers. On their home page, one can also find a
YouTube link where those who are interested may see, listen, and take part
in a special Isogaisa dance, which is accompanied with a special festival
joik.
6. http://www.isogaisa.org/, accessed June 28, 2011.
7. The festival organizers are part of foreininga Isogaisa, which is headed
by festival leader Ronald Kvernmo. Ingebrigt Pedersen serves as cashier;
Monica Dragset is responsible for the expo part of the program; Bente
Arntsen is responsible for the volunteer workers; Eli Sabbasen is the
supervisor of the duty lists; and Inger Anne Kristoffersen deals with
the seminars. Several of these individuals have prior experience in
organizing festivals in North Norway. Isogaisa also hosts several co-
organizers; among them are Spansdalen Sameforening and Foreningen
Kystsamene
8. See http://www.isogaisa.org/default.asp?show=news&artid=2688, accessed
June 28, 2011.
9. From my field notes.
10. The book has been criticized for lacking a descriptive angle and for being a
scientific contribution that naturalizes and contributes to the construction of
mythological ideas. Kraft claims that the book is “yet another contribution
to the discourse about ‘the natural Sami’, and thereby to the primitivistic
tradition” (2007: 60).
11. http.www.isogaisa.no, accessed June 17, 2011.
232 Trude Fonneland

12. Haugen Productions was founded in 2003 by the sisters Liv Hanne Haugen
and Anne Katrine Haugen. They are both dancers, and stand behind sev-
eral productions and performances (see http://www.haugenproduksjoner.
no/).
13. http://www.isogaisa.org/default.asp?pageid=14679 accessed June 17, 2011,
my translation.
14. A search of the term “Isogaisa” in Atekst on January 14, 2013 yielded 70
results.
15. http://www.isogaisa.org/default.asp?pageid=14674 accessed June 28, 2011,
my translation.

References
Ahlin, Lars. 2007. Krop, Sind—Eller Ånd? Alternative behandlere og spiritual-
itet i Danmark, Højbjerg: Forlaget Univers.
Beyer, Peter. 1998. “Globalization and the Religion of Nature,” in J. Pearson
and G. Samuel (eds.) Nature Religion Today: Paganism in the Modern World,
Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 11–21.
Christensen, Cato. 2005. Urfolk på det nyreligiøse markedet. En analyse av
Alternativt Nettverk, Masteroppgåve i religionsvitskap, Universitetet i
Tromsø.
———. 2007. “Urfolksspiritualitet på det nyreligiøse markedet. En analyse av
tidsskriftet Visjon/Alternativt Nettverk.” Din. Tidsskrift for religion og kul-
tur 1: 63–78.
Christensen, Cato and Siv Ellen Kraft. 2010. “Religion i Kautokeino-opprøret.
En analyse av samisk urfolksspiritualitet”, Nytt norsk tidsskrift 1: 19–27.
Eriksen, Anne. 1999. Historie, Minne og Myte, Oslo: Pax Forlag AS.
Fonneland, Trude. 2010. Samisk nysjamanisme. I dialog med (for)tid og stad.
Doktoravhandling: Universitetet i Bergen.
———. 2007. “Med fokus på det nære og lokale. Tromsø—ein samisk urfolksby?”.
Din. Tidsskrift for religion og kultur 1: 79–88.
———. 2013. “Isogaisa: Samisk sjamanisme i festivaldrakt.” Aura. Tidsskrift for
nyreligiøse studier 5: 102–131.
Frykman, Jonas. 2002. “Place for Something Else: Analysing a Cultural
Imaginary,” Ethnologia Europea 32(2): 47–68.
Gaup, Ailo. 2006. Sjamansonen. Oslo: Tre bjørner forlag.
———. 2007. Inn i naturen. Utsyn fra Sjamansonen. Oslo: Tre bjørner forlag.
Hall, Michael. 2007. “Politics, Power and Indigenous Tourism,” in Richard
Butler and Tom Hinch (eds.), Tourism and Indigenous Peoples. Oxford:
Elsevier, 305–318.
Hammer, Olav. 1997. På spaning efter helheten. New Age en ny folketro?
Stockholm: Wahlström & Widstrand.
———. 2001. Claiming Knowledge: Strategies of Epistemology from Theosopy
to the New Age. Leiden, Boston & Köln: Brill.
Hansen, Kjell. 2002. “Festivals, Spatiality and the New Europe.” Ethnologia
Europea 32(2): 19–36.
 The Festival Isogaisa 233

Harner, Michael. 1980. The Way of the Shaman: A Guide to Power and Healing,
San Francisco: Harper & Row.
Kalland, Arne. 2003. “Environmentalism and Images of the Other,” in H. Selin
(ed.), Nature across Cultures: Views of Nature and the Environment in Non-
Western Cultures, Amsterdam: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1–17.
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara. 1998. Destination Culture: Tourism, Museums,
and Heritage. Oakland: University of California Press.
Kraft, Siv Ellen. 2007. “Natur, spiritualitet og tradisjon. Om akademisk roman-
tisering og feilslåtte primitivismeoppgjør. Review-artikkel om Jens Ivar
Nergårds Den levende erfaring (2006).” Din. Tidsskrift for religion og kultur
1: 53–62.
———. 2009. “Sami Indigenous Spirituality: Religion and Nation Building in
Norwegian Sápmi.” Temenos, 45(2): 179–206.
———. 2011. Hva er nyreligiøsitet. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.
Kristiansen, Roald. 2005. Samisk religion og læstadianisme. Bergen:
Fagbokforlaget 2005.
Lowenthal, David. 1985. The Past Is a Foreign Country. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
———. 1998. The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Mathisen, Stein R. 2011. “Indigenous Spirituality in the Touristic Borderzone.”
Temenos, 53–72.
Nergård, Jens-Ivar. 2006. Den levende erfaring. En studie i samisk kunnskap-
stradisjon, Oslo: Cappelen Akademisk Forlag.
O’Dell, Tom. 2010. “Experiencescapes: Blurring Borders and Testing
Connections,” in Tom O’Dell and Peter Billing (eds.), Experiencescapes:
Tourism, Culture, and Economy, Køge: Copenhagen Business School Press,
11–34.
Pine, Joseph B., and James H. Gilmore. 1999. The Experience Economy. Boston:
Harvard Business Scholl Press.
Reksten Kapstad, Connie. 2007. “Når poesien tar plass. Om Olav H. Hauge,
litteratur og festival,” in Torunn Selberg and Nils Gilje (eds.). Kulturelle land-
skap. Sted, forteljing og materiell kultur. Bergen: Fagbokforlaget, 156–178.
Stuckrad, Kocku von. 2005. “Harner Michael—and the Foundation for Shamanic
Studies,” in Bron Taylor (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature, vol.
1, London: Thoemmes Continuum.
Taylor, Charles. 2007. A Secular Age. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Yeoman, Ian. 2004. Festivals and Events Management: An international Arts
and Culture Perspective. Amsterdam: Butterworth-Heinemann.

Media
Troms Folkeblad September 6, 2010
Troms Folkeblad September 1, 2010
Nordlys September 8, 2010
Klassekampen March 11–12, 2006
234 Trude Fonneland

Internet Sources
http://www.isogaisa.org/
http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=184680388209837
http://www.norwayfestivals.com/
http://ec.europa.eu/research/social-sciences/pdf/policy_reviews/euro-festival-
report_en.pdf.
 12
Shamanism and Indigenous Soundscapes: The
Case of Mari Boine

Siv Ellen Kraft

Mari Boine (b. 1956) grew up in a tiny Sami village in the Norwegian
high north, in a world ruled by the strict Christian god of her parents and
the politics of assimilation on the part of the Norwegian state. She has
later described a sin-oriented religion, an ever-present threat of dooms-
day, and a never-ending list of taboos and forbiddens—including music.
All forms of music except hymns were forbidden. Joik—an ancient form
of Sami music—was connected to the devil himself, due partly to its con-
nection with the pre-Christian Sami religion. She has also described her
shame in regard to all things Sami, and—as she grew older—her increas-
ing rage, anger, and rebellion.
Today, in her mid-fifties, Boine is a leading world music artist, one
of Norway’s most influential musicians, and probably the best-known
ambassador of Sami culture in Norway and internationally. Sápmi has
changed dramatically since the time of her childhood in Finnmark, and
Boine is commonly credited for her contribution—to healing processes,
to the rebuilding of partly lost traditions and identities, and to the repo-
sitioning of stigmatized symbols and practices. Artists like Boine, Ole
Henrik Magga, the first president of the Sami parliament, has claimed,
“have done more in many arenas for the breakthrough of political power
than our hundreds of resolutions which I myself have been a part of writ-
ing” (quoted in Hilder 2010: 55).
This chapter deals with the religious dimension of Boine’s contribu-
tion, which she refers to as shamanism, and recognizable as part of a
broader neoshamanistic milieu, albeit with unusual twists. The use of
music as the primary method and source of shamanism is one such twist.
236 Siv Ellen Kraft

Connections to Sami cultural revival and to indigenous peoples are other

twists. As a respected high-culture musician, Boine also disturbs estab-
lished notions of neoshamanism as the religious equivalent of “low cul-
ture.” A major theme of this chapter is that her music has helped soften
resistance against shamanism in Sami circles and contributed to the
establishment of a cultural heritage version of Sami shamanism.
I will be concerned mainly with the public face of Boine’s shaman-
ism, as she has presented it in media interviews, documentaries, on her
official home page, in a recent biography, and in her song lyrics, albums,
and performances, many of which are available on YouTube.1 References
will occasionally be made to interviews she has given in academic con-
texts and that have been published in texts with a more limited public
scope. However, my main concern is Boine’s public self—the self she has
decided to share and present. All translations from Norwegian have been
done by me, but vernacular formulations are in footnotes, in order for the
translations to be as transparent as possible.

Mari Boine (b. 1956)—A Biographical Sketch

Boine has told her life story many times, in numerous interviews, docu-
mentaries, and television shows. This story has, as is commonly the case
with stories that are retold, gained a standardized form and structure,
with the same episodes referred to, often in almost the exact same formu-
lations. There is no reason to question the sincerity of these stories, but
many reasons to believe that Boine tells them publicly for a reason—that
they are intended to shed light upon the broader contexts to which they
belong.
The politics of assimilation and forced Norwegenization belong to
this level of shared premises. Boine grew up with little knowledge of
Sami history and culture beyond the limits of her family, and like many
other children of the 1950s and ’60s she experienced her Sami identity
as a social stigma (Eidheim 1998, 1971). Identity as Sami had in certain
areas more or less disappeared as a result of assimilatory strategies on the
part of Norwegian authorities, 2 and many parents shielded their children
from a culture they had learned to consider as shameful and backward.
Læstadianism is a conservative Lutheran revival movement that
spread during the mid-nineteenth century and that has been a stronghold
among the Sami ever since. 3 Boine has described her parents as unusually
strict followers, and their world as dominated by the Bible and dooms-
day: “I never really reached my father. Bible and doomsday. It was some-
thing that was always there, as a dark shadow”4 (Amundsen 2003, NRK
radio). 5 It stayed with her, she later recalled, as a heritage that she has
 Shamanism and Indigenous Soundscapes 237

spent much of her life trying to overcome and free herself from (Oksnes,
Dagbladet May 8, 2006).
By her early twenties, Boine had married, given birth to a child, and
started her studies at the teacher education college in Alta. During this
same period, the Norwegian government plans to build a hydro-electro
dam led to conflicts and heated debate among the local population, and
eventually to massive demonstrations both on the banks of the Alta river
and in front of the Norwegian parliament in Oslo. Having started out
as an issue involving local people in Alta and Norwegian environmental
organizations, the saving of the river became a Sami cause, and, in addi-
tion, the first Sami cause to be framed in terms of indigenous rights. The
Alta case is commonly regarded as a turning point with regard to public
recognition and Norwegian politics toward the Sami. It was followed by
important political changes, including the establishment of a Sami parlia-
ment in 1989, and it led—perhaps most importantly—to consciousness-
raising among a new generation.
Boine was not among the protesters at the banks of the river.
Tonstad’s (authorized) biography describes her as at this point a bashful
young woman, full of shame, doubt, and unresolved tensions (Tonstad
2012). Boine has in interviews spoken of her shame with respect to any-
thing Sami, and of wanting to get away from it all, even the language
(Amundsen, NRK radio 2003). Boine and her first husband grew up with
Sami as their first language, but spoke Norwegian with each other and
with their firstborn son (Amundsen 2003).
The political unrest nevertheless shaped her (ibid.), and as a teacher-
student she was introduced to Sami history and taught by Sami teach-
ers, as well as introduced to positive perspectives on joik, a Sami way
of singing she had learned to see as primitive and heathen.6 “You have
now sold yourself to the devil,” Boine’s father told her when she took
up joiking” (NN 2005). He died in 1995, without ever accepting her
choice of lifestyle and career (ibid.). The death of her parents left her with
grief but also “with some sort of freedom” and new feelings of emotional
closeness—“I feel that after they died, I felt closer to them than before”
(Amundsen 2003):

We become a part of nature when we die, according to shamanism, so we have

a very good communication now. I walk in nature and talk to my dead parents.
I can feel that they are there. (ibid.)7

Boine’s first album, Jaskatvuođa maŋŋá (After the silence), reveals

a stronger and angrier woman, who clearly takes a political stance.
Released in 1985, Jaskatvuođa maŋŋá confronts the school system, the
Norwegian state’s treatment of the Sami, and what Boine has regularly
238 Siv Ellen Kraft

referred to as den samiske skammen—internalized feelings of shame

and stigma. This first record has been connected primarily to the so-
called northern Norwegian folksong wave, a movement that sought to
reposition a culture that in the national context had been marginalized
(Thomassen 2010: 30). In her breakthrough release, Gula Gula, The
Voice of the Foremothers (1989), Boine turned to joik, and combined
this with jazz and elements from various indigenous musical traditions,
a turn that placed her in the recently established category “world music”
and opened the door to a global market (ibid.: 38).8 Since then, indige-
neity and world music have been trademarks of her career, with respect
to lyrics, soundscape, and the choice of musicians. For Gula Gula, for
instance, the band consisted of musicians from Peru, Sweden, Norway,
and Sápmi, and they used instruments from a variety of indigenous cul-
tures, including breath drone drum, quen breat, and claypot (ibid.).9
By 2014, Boine had produced 12 albums, given hundreds of concerts,
performed at numerous Sami and indigenous festivals in Norway and
internationally,10 and received several prestigious awards, including the
honorary award of the Sami Council (1992) and the Nordic Council
Music Prize in 2003. She was in 2009 appointed knight, first class, in the
Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav; in 2012 became statsstipendiat—an
artist with permanent national funding; and was in 2005 one of ten can-
didates for the position “most important Norwegian of the century.”

Bridging the Past and the Present

The development of Sami neoshamanism coincided with Boine’s early
career. Boine in her (authorized) biography describes how during the
1990s she found comfort in poems by Ailo Gaup, who later would become
known as the founder of Sami neoshamanism, and how they opened a
door for her to powers of which she had been aware during her youth,
but never had understood or dared to take seriously (Tonstad 2012: 238).
Boine later participated in one of Gaup’s recently established shamanist
courses in Tromsø (ibid.: 239). This provided her with building blocks,
and with knowledge of her power animals: the eagle, turtle, and wolf—
her helpers during drum journeys, and sources to which to turn when she
felt scared: “she could [then] send the wolf to eat the threats. She felt that
this helped and gave her strength” (ibid.: 239).11 Boine later referred to
her grandmother, who died when she was 14, as her lifelong guide and
helper, and the single most important person in her life (NN 2014).
Neoshamanism appears just as crucial to Boine’s sense of continu-
ity—in her own life and Sami history. New religions share with nations
 Shamanism and Indigenous Soundscapes 239

a concern with origins and continuity. The challenge of nation-building,

folklorist Anne Eriksen has argued, is not merely to document that a
given nation is old but to an equal degree that throughout its extensive
history it has preserved a cultural distinctiveness, that “‘we’ are still the
same” (1999). Sami neoshamanism was born as an offspring of Michael
Harner’s core shamanism during the late 1980s, some 300 years after
the Christianization of the Sami (see Fonneland and Kraft 2013), but it
was from the start connected to the pre-Christian Sami religion, through
accounts offered by scholarly sources. The bridging of past and pres-
ent has been based partly on notions of a primal source—available to
shamans in the past and the present. Additionally, what scholars refer
to as “the preservation thesis” (Minde 2008a) has offered a “factual”
basis for notions of continuity. This thesis does not question that impor-
tant changes have taken place. It is well documented that the building
of churches became part of a conscious colonizing effort starting in the
sixteenth century, and that by the seventeenth century a systematic and
active Christian mission was established, including the systematic collec-
tion and destruction of runebomme, drums used by the noaidi—Sami
religious specialists—during ritual journeys. Historian of religion Håkan
Rydving, in the title of what has become a classical study of the Lule
Sami, refers to this latter period as The End of Drum Time (1995).
Literally beneath these changes, central elements of Sami drum time
lived on, the preservation thesis claims. Crucial to this theory is the claim
that Læstadianism provided “a sanctuary for the minority populations,
at a time—from 1870 down to World War II—when the authorities
were tightening the screw of Norwegianisation in the name of Social
Darwinism and nationalism” (Minde 2008a: 9). What Historian Henry
Minde refers to as a radical and romantic version of this thesis further
expands these perspectives, by way of links to the pre-Christian past
(ibid.). The old religion never really disappeared, this version claims.
Rather, it went underground. The noaidi found shelter under the garb
of the Læstadian leser (a healer and religious expert); the trance journey
of the noaidi lived on as rørelse (ecstatic outbursts known to occur dur-
ing Læstadian ceremonies);12 and joik—the musical expressions of the
noaidi, lived on as folk-religious practices, outside of the Church.13
In Boine’s interpretation, music constitutes the main medium of con-
tinuity. Boine describes Læstadianism as a heavy burden from which she
has spent much of her life trying to free herself, and also as a carrier of
elements from the Sami religion of the past, introduced to her during her
upbringing, and present as “an almost invisible thread—from the pre-
Christian religion of the Sami to Læstadianism, the singing of psalms
240 Siv Ellen Kraft

and Christianity” (Tonstad 2012: 264). She remembers rørelse as the

highlight of prayer house meetings:

Among the things I liked the best was what we called likhahuset, in Norwegian
rørelse—but which I believe is a residue from shamanistic rituals. At the end of
the meeting they would sing and sing till they reached a kind of trance. It was
probably the closest they came to dancing. Asked each other for forgiveness. I
have talked to other people who grew up with this—who found it frightening,
but to me it was the highlight. (Amundsen NRK radio 2003)14

Looking back (in 2012), Boine described rørelse as crucial to her develop-
ment; “Rørelse is at the bottom of all that I have. Rørelsen, the singing
of psalms and the forbidden joik” (qtd. in Thomassen 2012: 70).15 Her
propensity for repetition in her music, similarly, is connected to a longing
for the trance-like state of rørelse:16

There have been reviews too, [claiming] that this is terribly monotonous.
And so one has gradually realized that there is—if one dares to let one self be
touched by it, that there is another door, one that is more related to—not the
intellectual, the thought. . . . I had a longing for the trance, which came from
my childhood, and the rørelsene I grew up with. (interview with Thomassen
2010: 45)17

These same forces are at play during her concerts, Boine claims, moving
herself and her audiences. During concerts she seeks to create “an atmo-
sphere in which the audience opens the doors to their innermost being
and become susceptible to spirits and journeys” (Tonstad 2012: 109).18
Joik was not part of Boine’s upbringing, but is subjected to a simi-
lar interpretation as that of rørelse, here through the singing of psalms.
Boine notes of the first joik that she “dared to take into her mouth,” that
she had grown up thinking that joik was forbidden, and “probably grad-
ually took over the attitudes of my parents” (qtd. in Thomassen 2010:
38). By the early 1990s, she had come to see a link between Læstadian
psalms and Sami joik traditions, similar to that between rørelse and a
trance journey:

Day after day, for several hours, she sat in the Tromsø Museum, listening
to traditional joik. She had to approach this well, this source of dreams, the
mother of fantasy and the inner secrets of the Sami people. It was condemned
by the Church and missionaries, trampled upon and cursed, but it was a life
nerve that could not be broken. And there was an almost invisible thread—
from the pre-Christian religion of the Sami and shamanism to Læstadianism,
the singing of psalms and Christianity—this she grasped for (Tonstad 2012:
264, my translation). 19
 Shamanism and Indigenous Soundscapes 241

Joik is many things, according to Boine’s descriptions: a source of wis-

dom, a connection to the past, a trance technique used for (shamanistic)
traveling, and even a trance-like state. It is customary to talk of joiking
“something” (as opposed to singing “about”). Boine adds to this a notion
of becoming one with the tone:

She could enter the joik and stay there, become one with the tone. The joik
opened a door in to a room with power and energy, she felt that she flew on the
wings of joik on stage. A people who is in contact with this power cannot be
easily manipulated and controlled. (Tonstad 2012: 315)20

The idea of a deep level of continuity is common to Boine, neoshaman-

ism in general, and a select groups of scholars. The heritage from the
past is located in particular musical and ritual forms: joik, psalms and
rørelse, and at the same time in the subconscious depths of the Sami, or
at least those among the Sami who have grown up with Sami culture
and Læstadian traditions. One may, from this perspective, acknowledge
radical differences between the then and now, the ancient shamans and
contemporary versions, and at the same time maintain a notion of con-
nection and continuity. Sami shamanism almost disappeared, but never
fully or totally. In the words of Boine’s biographer,

Magic is alive in the consciousness of many Sami. The unexplainable has a

status. It is there, usually, as a positive force, able to help people in various situ-
ations. The shaman is by no means dead. . . . This has also to Mari been a hid-
den treasure. She has dared to open it and to gradually make use of it. Today’s
shamans follow a long Sami tradition that was almost destroyed by Christian
missionaries. (Tonstad 2012: 41)21

Current usage of the terms shaman/noaidi and trance/rørelse offer fur-

ther support for notions of continuity. It has, since at least the early
1990s, been common to use these concepts more or less interchangeably,
and to allow for shamanism to frame and account for the pre-Christian
past. Shaman and noaidi are commonly used as synonyms, and in highly
inclusive ways, as designations of not only the religious specialists of pre-
Christian Sami religion and so-called shamanistic religions but also of
Sami religious specialists generally, including Læstadian lesere and New
Age-inspired healers. The late Johan Kaaven (1836–1918), for instance, is
commonly referred to as a shaman and “the last of the noaides.” Kaaven
has been the subject of a number of books, 22 but there is—to my knowl-
edge—no evidence of his ever using drums, performing trance journeys,
or being connected to other typical ingredients of “shamanism.” His posi-
tion as a noaidi/shaman appears to be based on the combination of being
242 Siv Ellen Kraft

Sami and having supernatural powers, including—one of the most well-

known stories claims—the ability to stop the coastal ferry Hurtigruta.
The grandfather of the well-known actor and Sami neoshaman Mikkel
Gaup, similarly, was known as a famous læstadian leser, but is today
referred to as a shaman by Gaup himself and in public media (Fonneland
and Kraft 2013). Ester Utsi, to provide a contemporary example, has
since 1997 offered lodging, healing, and self-development courses at
Polmakmoen Guesthouse, in Tana, Finnmark County. The products that
are provided are in other contexts known to journalists as typically New
Age, a form of religion situated near the bottom of Norwegian media
evaluations of religion (Døving and Kraft 2013). Located in rural areas
of Sàpmi, however, they are commonly connected to the ancient shaman-
istic traditions of the Sami, and in positive ways, as part of Sami cultural
revival (Fonneland and Kraft 2013).
A broad concept of shamanism and the shaman is hardly unique to the
Sami. 23 Rather, “the shaman” has internationally become an umbrella
term for religious specialists among people today referred to as “indig-
enous,” more or less regardless of the content of their expertise and prac-
tices. In the case of the Sami, processes of translation and synonymization
probably date back to the 1970s and later, in the wake of the develop-
ment of neoshamanism internationally. Folklorist Marit Anne Hauan
interviewed the above-mentioned Gaup during the 1970s.24 At that time,
she claims, he was known as a leser and healer, and referred to himself
by this title. 25 Folklorist Bente Alver interviewed Gaup’s daughter during
the mid-1980s. By then, both Gaup and his daughter (Ellen Marit) called
themselves shamans, and even “the last true shamans in Finnmark” (see
Alver: 143, this volume). At some point during this decade, Gaup, whose
healing powers were famous internationally, had also been visited by
Harner and a Finnish colleague (ibid.). The above-mentioned Ailo Gaup
is a relative of Mikkel Gaup. He also visited him during this period, and
retrospectively refers to him as a great shaman.

Indigenous Connections
Læstadians are not likely to sympathize with the undercover version of
(Læstadian) shamanism. Sami Christians in the south of Norway have
experimented with the use of drums, joik, and outdoor ceremonies on
traditionally sacred sites. Liberal Sami theologians from this area have
also argued that the old Sami religion constitutes the Old Testament of the
Sami (Kraft 2009b). Læstadians further north, however, have remained
opposed to anything connected to the religion of their ancestors, includ-
ing the noaidi, joik, drums, and sacred sites. 26
 Shamanism and Indigenous Soundscapes 243

Outside of Læstadian circles, joik is known as an ancient Sami way of

singing, and as a marker of Sami identity. Joik is today classified as Sami
indigenous knowledge, along with duodji (Sami art) and Sami folk medi-
cine (Hilder 2010: 86), and has even served as “evidence” of indigeneity.
A frequently cited story claims that the famous multiartist Nils-Aslak
Valkeapää, during the first meeting of the World Council of indigenous
Peoples in Port Alberni, Canada, in 1975, “used yoik to prove that he and
the Sami delegation really were an indigenous people”:

Several of the indigenous representatives from other places in the world were,
in fact, skeptical about the Sami because of their white skin color; but when
Valkeapää performed a yoik for the assembly the skepticism was blown away
and the Sami were accepted on a par with the others. (Gaski 2008: 358)

The processes through which joik became recognizable as “indigenous”

(in the contemporary sense of the term) lies outside of the limits of this
chapter. However, it is reasonable to assume that the international indig-
enous movement, along with the world music industry, has contributed to
such processes. Scholar of Sami literature Harald Gaski has claimed of the
indigenous movement that musical performances have from the start been
a more or less standard ingredient of meetings and conferences. They have
been followed by indigenous festivals and digital arenas of musical con-
tact and exchange, including the world music industry. The result, Gaski
claims, is music as “the cultural area that globalization has had the great-
est impact on within indigenous cultures,” including mutual inspiration
across different indigenous people (2008: 247). 27 Hilder, along similar
lines, notes that ”indigenous musicians (have) identified a commonality
of cultural expression,” transformed local traditions and built “a global
indigenous soundscape” (2010: 114–115). He adds of the Sami section of
this soundscape, that representations of shamanism have become increas-
ingly popular, including the noaidi, the drum, and spiritual notions of
joik (ibid. :135), and that world music has become a regular and frequent
feature on Sami music channels (2010: 85). The Sami, due partly to this
development, “have come to see themselves as possessing a music her-
itage within a wider global arena of music traditions. Indeed, particu-
lar to the ‘ethnic’ list is a focus on famous indigenous musicians such as
Buffy Sainte-Marie and other bands that have played at the Riddu Riddu
festival. Indigenous music on Sami radio therefore not only mirrors the
emergence of Sami solidarity with other indigenous people, but have also
played a vital role in building a sense of musical and political connection
to their indigenous sisters and brothers” (2010: 85–86).
The Sami musicians interviewed by Hilder agree that through music
they have “felt a connection”; have realized that “there are many
244 Siv Ellen Kraft

similarities,” that—in the words of Sami musician Antte Ailu Gaup—

“We spoke the same language” (ibid.: 113). The Norwegian musician
and musicologist Tellef Kvifte has referred to the resulting sound of such
encounters as “generally ethnic” (2001). 28
Boine has expressed similar a viewpoint in interviews. She seems, more-
over, to consider similarities as not merely the result of recent encounters
between indigenous peoples but as originating from a common source.
Asked by Hilder how she understands the relationship between joik and
musical traditions among other indigenous people, Boine explained that
it “has to do with ‘the primeval’ (urmenneskelige) and its connection to
nature”:

This quality, she reiterated, can be heard in joik, especially [Inga] Juuso’s voice.
Like with joik and other “related” . . . vocal traditions, Boine continued, it is
the way one uses the voice. Whereas “Western” vocal traditions are descrip-
tive and are removed from and outside of what they are singing about, the
“primal-voice” . . . is the very thing it sings, she reasoned. It is only through joik
and related traditions that the “primeval” can be achieved, and it is thus the
“primal-voice” that Boine has been in search of through her musical develop-
ment. (Hilder 2010: 120)29

Boine’s use of “Western vocal traditions” as a contrast indicates that the

“related vocal traditions” are those of indigenous peoples. Her song texts
further elaborate upon musical connections between indigenous people,
and the contrast between indigenous- and western people, or what she
on some occasions has termed “Western A4.” Consider, for instance,
Gula Gula—perhaps her most famous song, on the album by the same
name. Gula Gula means “hear, hear,” but Boine translated it as “Hear
the voices of the foremothers” because, she notes in a radio documen-
tary, “it says more” (Amundsen 2003, NRK radio). Gula Gula speaks
of brothers and sisters from around the indigenous world: “You have
brothers. You have sisters. In the rain forests of South America, on the
barren coast of Greenland”30 (Boine, Gula Gula).31 The song starts with
an invocation of antiquity and traditional knowledge, and continues with
other widely used markers of indigeneity, such as environmentalism, the
notion of nature people, and a holistic worldview. 32 Indigenous people
are presented as the children of Mother Earth, a notion commonly asso-
ciated with the earth as a living being, and with creation and creativity as
embodied processes. Finally, there is a call for revival and responsibility
(“again they want to remind you, that the earth is our mother. If we take
her life we die with her,” Gula Gula).33
The “Western world” constitutes the other in this song text. The Sami
are not explicitly held accountable for the pollution of Mother Earth,
merely for allowing it to happen (“why have you let the Earth become
 Shamanism and Indigenous Soundscapes 245

polluted,” Gula Gula). They are asked to rise to their responsibility as

her sons and daughters, but responsibility for the crisis appears to be
attributed to Western people, to those who have suppressed and colo-
nized Mother Earth and her children, those—to quote the title of two
other songs on Gula Gula—who are White thieves and have claimed the
position of the Master Race34
The contrast between Western- and indigenous people is repeated in
many of Boine’s songs. In “Gods of Nature,” for instance (on Room of
Worship), the stiff and machine-like ways of Western people are con-
trasted to the holistic and dynamic ways of indigenous people:

their hardened talk, their hardened state, their hardened smile, their hardened
laws drain me; suffocate me; raging rivers, howling winds; lightening flashes;
gods of nature; embody them; with Earth Mother Spirit. (“Gods of Nature,”
on the album Room of Worship)

Accompanying the distinction between Western and indigenous perspec-

tives in her song texts are repeated references to nature, often in the shape
of elemental forms like the sun, water, mountains, and animals, particu-
larly birds, and in ways that highlight flow, fluidity, and connections.
Similar notions are expressed through album covers and performances,
many of which are also available on YouTube. Boine often wears a large
shawl during performances, and has become known for her “wheeling
dance,” with arm movements “evocative of a gliding bird” (Cronshaw
2013). Two of her album covers offer variations on this theme. On Eagle
Brother, a swirling movement is indicated through the image of three
women shading into each other, one of them blindfolded and standing
still, the other two spreading their arms in a wheeling fashion. On the
cover of Sterna Paradise she is pictured with a feather-like shawl, doing a
swirl-like dance, outdoors—and with the one end of her shawl spreading
over the back cover, where, in an exaggerated image, it flies over what
appears to be a mountain.
A comparison with traditional Sami national emblems indicates both
continuity with former discourses and a more recent turn to pan-indig-
enous vocabularies. The Sami national anthem, published for the first
time in 1906, draws upon a pre-Christian motif of the Sami as “sons of
the Sun.” In Boine’s music, the sons are partly replaced by daughters and
foremothers, while the “family” is extended from that of the Sami to that
of indigenous peoples. True to the genre of national anthems, the Sami
version ends with a reference to their land as their land: “Remember
the ancestor’s word. Saamiland for Saami.” In Gula Gula, the land of
the Sami is replaced by the geographically more extensive notion of
Mother Earth—of homeland as universal and indivisible, while “own-
ing” is replaced by notions of shared responsibility and the lack of clear
246 Siv Ellen Kraft

boundaries between nature and people—of brothers and sisters who take
care of their mother, and of a mother who secures their very existence.
Indigeneity is still connected to local lands and traditions, but here as
part of their shared connections to Mother Earth. References to nature,
to Mother Earth, and to environmentalism belong to what is perhaps the
single most important theme in Boine’s song texts, performances and
interviews.

Sacred Claims
Boine is clearly aware of and concerned with the political impact of
her music, and of her artistic and political integrity. In 1994 she turned
down a request to perform at the opening ceremony of the Lillehammer
Olympics, on the basis that she would not play the role of “exotic garnish
and alibi.” Nor would she, according to later interviews, be reduced to “a
cosy entertainer” (Oksnes, Dagbladet 2006). Asked by Thomassen about
political intentions behind her music, however, Boine appeared as “more
tentative than agitative” (Thomassen 2010: 71). She confirmed politi-
cal intentions in Recipe for a Master Race (Oppskrift for Herrefolket),
but for the song Gula Gula, for instance—illustrated on YouTube with
atomic bomb explosions and similar scenes of destruction—“she would
not immediately confirm a political agenda” (ibid.). Rather, she told
Thomassen, “I believe that many of the texts are written for myself sort
of to find the way” (ibid.). She chose indigenous musicians, similarly,
because she liked them, not as an act of solidarity: “It is something I have
understood afterwards. This is why one sees, intuition is much, much
wiser than oneself, than the head” (ibid.).35
Similar references to her “inner voice” or intuition have been repeated
in other interviews. Consider for instance the following extract from an
interview with a music journalist:

I very much use intuition. I don’t think first, I just follow a feeling, and it has a
wisdom that is much more wise than the intellectual wisdom. So it’s not that I
sit and think “I should do this,” but I follow this feeling, then afterwards I can
see also with my intellect, I can see a course—“yes, now I understand with my
intellect what this is.” (Cronshaw 2013)

The ability to understand and follow one’s intuition is, she says in an
interview with Thomassen, connected to the distinction between indig-
enous and Western people, and to reminders from the past:

You know, we are raised to become very Norwegian and very westernized, and
this text is more like . . . when these melodies started coming, it was like a voice,
 Shamanism and Indigenous Soundscapes 247

a reminder from those who have been before us. I didn’t see it very clearly then,
but later on seeing the text, it is like a . . . like a reminder from them not to—not
to forget your legacy. And also, this about when you are raised by school and
everything to become very westernized, then other indigenous people become
very distant. And one of the lines here is that, you know, that we have brothers
and sisters in Latin America and on Greenland. (Boine, in Thomassen 2010:
80–81, my translation)36

Boine, in a 2009 documentary on NRK-radio, speaks in similar ways of

her songs as “coming” (“the shamanistic music started coming through
me”), and of her “inner voice,” “intuition,” and “those who have been
before us” as their origin.
What historian of religion Greg Johnson has referred to as “sacred
claims” offer clues to this combination of depths, tradition-based author-
ity, and a downplaying of political motives (2007). Johnson’s context
is North American Indians, and their use of religious language in legal
contexts concerning repatriation. He describes “sacred claims” as a par-
ticular kind of speech, characterized by a combination of depth and met-
aphorical playfulness (ibid.: 24). Indigenous speakers

are compelled to present themselves on legal stages as “authentic” subjects/

objects who, despite their manifest engagement in political processes, must
maintain an appearance of disinterestedness, as signs of “interest” may be
viewed by audiences as undercutting claims to authenticity. (ibid.: 22).

Boine operates on a different stage, but the basic logic of “sacred = authen-
tic” = not profaned by engaging in politics” (ibid.) may to some extent be
transferable. Boine does not deny political engagements, only that they
lack relevance for the coming into being of her music. The latter is based
on the authority of Sami- and indigenous traditions and on voices from
outside her rational self—ancient foremothers and the (subconscious)
depths of her own being. The logic resembles her experience-based recog-
nition of shamanism in Læstadian music and rituals, as traditions outside
and inside of herself. The sacred = authentic = not profaned by engaging
in politics, in these contexts. And they are sacred in a Durkheimian sense
of the term, as that which is beyond dispute and negotiation, anchored in
spheres of absolute truths.

Audience Responses
There are two types of shamanistic music, Ailo Gaup claims on his home
pages, one used for the ritual journey, and one used for relaxation and
pleasure (www.sjaman-sonen.no). That Boine is “an artist rooted in sha-
manism is clear to most people,” he adds. The same goes for Nils Aslak
248 Siv Ellen Kraft

Valkeapää, described by Gaup as the great star before her. In fact, he

concludes, “I know of not one Sami artist today who is not aware of this
connection and draws inspiration from these sources” (ibid.). 37
Leaving aside for the moment the issue of whether this is a reason-
able conclusion, trained neoshamans can easily find their notions of sha-
manism in Boine’s music, and can rely on her own testimonies that it is
so. We have here the main ritual instruments of Sami shamanism, the
runebomme and joik, along with experiences of trance and a primeval
voice, all of it performed by a Sami musician and rooted in Sami reli-
gious traditions. We have, moreover, notions of indigenous brothers and
sisters, of environmental responsibility, and of nature’s all-encompassing
importance—all of which are central to core shamanism.
These same elements can account for the negative view of Boine among
Læstadians. Boine, in addition to her harsh criticism of their religion,
has based her career on what has traditionally been some of its top-level
forbiddens: joik, drums, and trance journeys. She has done so in highly
profiled settings, including national mega-events like the wedding of
Crown Prince Håkon Magnus and Mette Marit Tjessem Høyby in 2001.
Worst of all, perhaps, she has regularly played in Christian sanctuaries,
and even combined Christian and shamanic elements. At the wedding of
the crown prince, she did both, through the performance of what was
referred to in the media as a joik-version of a Christian hymn, in Oslo
Cathedral (Oslo domkirke)—in the presence of (in principle) the entire
country.
The range of possible responses to Boine’s music includes a complete
lack of interest in—or recognition of—shamanistic elements, along with
more diffuse notions of the “magic” or “spiritual.” Boine, I have argued,
regularly refers to religious beliefs in interviews. She sings primarily in
Sami, a language unknown to the broader segment of her fans and audi-
ences, but her albums and many YouTube clips come with Norwegian
and English translations, and during concerts she regularly translates
between Norwegian and Sami, telling her audience the name and content
of the songs. Her Norwegian audiences can thus hardly fail to recognize
a religious dimension in her music. However, knowledge of shamanism
is fairly limited among ordinary Norwegians, implying that they may
not recognize or interpret it as “shamanism.” If they do, however, this
may mean little to them personally. One need not be religious to enjoy
religious music. Boine’s shamanist language is in addition close to that
of late modern psychology. Notions of “intuition” or the inner voice can
be interpreted along the lines of secular vocabularies, and thus as secular
wisdom, just as “indigenous brothers and sisters” can be understood as
merely declarations of solidarity.
 Shamanism and Indigenous Soundscapes 249

Reviews from the past couple of years indicate another perspective.

References to the “shaman” or to “shamanism” are far less common in
reviews of Boine’s albums and concerts than words like “magic,” “pri-
mal force” (urkraft), and “ecstasy.” Unlike “shaman” and “shamanism,”
these belong to the more ambiguous world of what has been referred to as
the “secular sacred” (Knott, Poole, and Taira 2013). News media refer-
ences to “magic” have more to do with the extraordinary than with invis-
ible forces and the ability to control them, but nevertheless carry a sense
of the religious, sacred, or more-than-human. Used in reviews of Boine’s
concerts and albums, moreover, this latter sense is often supported by
other similarly vague references to religion.
A few examples: Boine’s concert in Kautokeino with the Norwegian
Broadcasting Orchestra (Kringkastingsorkesteret) on March 28, 2012,
and in association with a conference for the indigenous peoples television
broadcasters, allegedly left “the audience in ecstacy” and the reviewer
from NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting) “wildly excited” (Berg 2012). The
reviewer used words like “her own aura,” to describe Boine’s unique cha-
risma. He spoke of “primeval forces” and “magical moments,” and of
Boine and the orchestra “entering a higher union.” Concerning the bal-
lad “Elle,” he stated that it is like one “senses the entire Sami history
compressed into one single song, and manifested in a single representa-
tive of Sami culture.”38
The reviewer of a concert in Tromsø on February 8, 2014, together
with the Norrbotten Big Band, used the word trollsk in the headline, a
word that is connected to “troll,” but in a positive and religious sense—as
in enchanted, mystical, or seductive (Larssen, Nordlys: February 9, 2014).
Being at a concert with Boine, the ingress stated, “is like going along on a
trip to the unknown spheres”:39

Boine in a magical way draws us into her world, and there hails the most pow-
erful of all, nature. With her celestial40 voice, she brings us along in the power-
ful world out there. And she has a unique way of conveying her message, a way
that makes us listen to and live ourselves into her world—which she wishes to
tell us about, even though we do not understand a single word. (ibid.) 41

The reviewer of the north Swedish newspaper NSD was less impressed
with the same concert program in Luleå, the week before. “Boine
preached against the Kallak-mine,” the headline stated, including in the
text that followed, references to a “Sami revival meeting against mines”
and “Boine as High Priest and preacher” (Larsen February 1, 2014,
NRK).42 Unlike his Norwegian colleagues, the Swedish reviewer chose
terms from the negative register of religiosity, invoking Boine’s control
250 Siv Ellen Kraft

over her audiences and their religion-like willingness to submit to it.

“High priest” is in the secular press a term of ridicule or concern—the
laughable or threatening. Although used for an opposite purpose, it nev-
ertheless supports the broader tendency among Boine’s reviewers to draw
upon religious vocabularies.
Adding to the above range of possible interpretations are discourses on
shamanism as cultural heritage. I have in a previous study described an
increasing interest in shamanism from this perspective, connected to Sami
nation-building, and expressed through official and semiofficial insti-
tutions such as museums,43 educational programs, festivals, tourism,44
and place-branding strategies, as well as through film,45 art, and music
(Kraft 2009a). To define something as “cultural heritage” implies that it
is separated from the flow of “ordinary history” and positioned as par-
ticularly valuable. In the Sami context, as with Christian cultural heri-
tage in regard to Norwegianness, there is also a “we” involved, or even
produced—as the heirs of the heritage concerned (Eriksen 2009, see also
Selberg, this volume).
Joik belongs to the official category of Sami cultural heritage. Boine
has contributed to the inclusion of the runebomme and the shaman in
Sami heritage, and thus to the heritagization of Sami shamanism (see also
Selberg, this volume). She has done so by regularly and publicly making
visible, audible, and real this part of the past, and by linking it to other
indigenous people, with (presumably) similar heritage from similar pasts.
Boine’s appearance (makeup, hair, and dress) will to many people be rec-
ognizable as what (regarding her sound) has been termed the “generally
ethnic” or “indigenous” (Kvifte 2001). The runebomme can be connected
both to indigeneity and to Sami shamanism. It today constitutes what is
probably the most commonly recognizable marker of Sami shamanism,
due partly to the fact that it (unlike joik) is connected exclusively to the
noaidi.46 Boine has made it a part of her public image. There are numer-
ous pictures of her holding or playing a runebomme, and she regularly
uses it during performances, even in settings in which its contribution as
sound is more or less absent.
A series of concerts with the historian of religion Brita Polland is par-
ticularly interesting with respect to the productive ambiguity of Boine’s
music, as well as to the multisensory appeal of performances. Hilder,
based on attending one of these concerts in Kautokeino in 2009, describes
“a kind of musical and storytelling journey through the Sami pre-
Christian religion” (2010: 136). The program alternated between singing
(by Boine) and recitation of extracts from texts by missionaries, travelers,
and researchers (by Polland), with each song exploring or subverting “the
themes encountered in the preceding story” (ibid.: 137). Themes included
the noaidi and Sami mythology, the burning of drums by missionaries and
 Shamanism and Indigenous Soundscapes 251

state authorities, the rise of Læstadianism, and the so-called Kautokeino

rebellion in 1852 (ibid.: 136–137). Polland provided chronology and nar-
rative coherence to the (necessarily) more fragmented and isolated story
themes in Boine’s song texts, and she added facticity to the narrated
events through references to historical sources and to her own status as
a historian of religion. Polland’s role, Boine notes in a newspaper inter-
view, was to provide a “spiritual backdrop” (spirituelt bakteppe) for her
music, and—she added jokingly of the series—to contribute to public
education and missionary goals (NN 2005, Telemarksavisa).
Boine’s contribution involved performance of the stories narrated,
including the trance journey of the shaman. Toward the end of the two-
and-a-half-hour performance, Hilder notes, Boine’s “soaring electric gui-
tar . . . improvised high-pitched vocalisations of ecstasy induced a kind of
trance in the audience” (ibid.: 137).
Musical performances are multisensory experiences, based on a combi-
nation of aural, visual, and ideological effects and impressions. Members
of the audience may or may not have had trance-like experiences, but
Boine must (with Polland’s contribution) have been recognizable to them
in the role of the shaman, regardless of whether this was interpreted as
theatrical performance, religious ritual, or both. Neoshamans will com-
monly recognize role-playing as a dimension of their rituals. Make believe
is central to neoshamanistic rituals, as probably to most rituals. Make-
believe in a ritual or theater-like context (like concerts) may be merely
that, a playing of roles, but can also imply the enactment, or even the cre-
ation of belief. The theatrical dimension probably lowers the threshold
for religious make-believe. People who may not consider signing up for a
course in shamanism may, nevertheless—in a concert setting—accept the
roles granted to them.

Music-style Shamanism—Concluding Comments

Boine’s life story reflects some of the broader issues and changes in recent
Sami history—the politics of assimilation, the feelings of shame and infe-
riority that it created, rebellion against unfair conditions, the organized
search for nationhood, and the discovery of a broader family of indig-
enous peoples—people with whom they share a similar fate as victims
of colonialism. Similar processes of resistance and revival have during
the past decades taken place among many indigenous peoples. An inter-
national trend in the sense that they occur in local communities around
the world, such processes are also linked through various contact zones
that have been established during this period, including legal arenas, con-
ferences, festivals, websites, and (new) popular genres like indigenous
252 Siv Ellen Kraft

film, art, and music. Social anthropologist Ronald Niezen has referred to
notions of an indigenous we (2003, 2009, 2010) as one outcome of such
processes. Several scholars, including Niezen, have also referred to a reli-
gious dimension of such identity-making,47 variously termed “indigenous
spirituality” or “indigenous religion,” and consisting of elements such as
shamanism and animism, sacred places, environmental awareness, and
holistic worldviews. Niezen defines “indigenous religion” as “a concep-
tual and performative secondary elaboration of the indigenous peoples
concept” (2012:13). During the last several decades, he claims, “the
notion of ‘indigenous religion’ has been so thoroughly conventionalized
that most Euro-American lay people presented with it would likely have
some notion of what is meant by it, probably by drawing upon related
ideas associated with such things as shamanism and forest spirituality”
(119).
The question of whether this is in fact a globalizing trend—a global
religion in the making—awaits further research. Boine’s shamanism con-
stitutes one example of what it may look like from a local perspective,
and it constitutes an example of unusually extensive opportunities for
indigenous identity- and religion-making. Her shamanism, I have argued
in this chapter, has been shaped by various local and global influences.
Boine has participated in numerous indigenous festivals, events, and con-
certs around the world, and worked with band members and music from
other indigenous traditions. Her background in core shamanism has
equipped her with a flexible set of religious resources, including notions
of a primal voice, of power animals and helpers, of sacred landscapes and
holistic perspectives, and of distinctions between Western and indigenous
ways of being and thinking. Similar notions appear to be widespread in
the indigenous soundscapes that have framed her career, along with con-
cepts of connected musical traditions, and supported both by the world
music industry and the indigenous movement internationally. Her music,
in turn, has contributed to the religio-cultural dimension of Sami nation-
building processes—as a way of performing, articulating, and reclaiming
Sami identity within the broader frames of global indigeneity.48 And it
has contributed to issues and concerns highlighted by the international
indigenous movement and the movement for Sami revival: the healing of
colonial wounds, the revival of partly lost traditions and the reposition-
ing of stigmatized symbols. Boine herself appears to consider music as
important to all these levels of restoration, healing, and development.
Shamanism in Sàpmi is far from the position of Christianity—as the
favored choice of faith and religious practice—but interest in neosha-
manism appears to be increasing. It is currently a visible movement, and
has recently been officially certified as a religion, implying, among other
things, that it can offer and perform rites of passage (see Fonneland,
 Shamanism and Indigenous Soundscapes 253

this volume). Shamanism as cultural heritage, similarly, can hardly com-

pete with the position of Christianity as cultural heritage in Norwegian
discourse—backed up by state-church traditions and defined in the con-
stitution as the foundation of “our values.” But it has, over a relatively
short period of time, become an established part of nation-building
endeavors.
Thomassen has noted regarding the political potential of music that
the very qualities that make it effective—its communicative polysemy
and emotional impact—undermine its suitability for the “dissemination
of one-dimensional political messages” (2010: 21). In the case of Boine’s
music, this same combination would seem to constitute an asset, an
allowance for different interpretations and thus for sense-making poten-
tial among a religiously diverse and pluralistic population.49 Shamanism
can be many things, according to the perspectives performed and articu-
lated by Boine, along different tracks, with different degrees of involve-
ment and intensity, and in combination with various religious, political,
and artistic issues.

Notes
1. There have been, to my knowledge, no studies of Boine by historians of reli-
gion, or studies focusing primarily on the religious dimension of her music.
There exists, however, an extensive body of media interviews and documen-
taries covering her career, personal life, and views on religion. Additionally,
religion is an important theme in Per Lars Tonstad`s (authorized) biography,
Mari Boine: Fly med meg (Mari Boine: fly with me). Tonstad is a freelance
journalist originally from the south of Norway, who has worked as a journal-
ist in Northern Norway for the past 30 years, and has known Boine during
most of this time.
Interview-based sources by scholars include Ivar Thomassen’s master’s the-
sis, “Hør stammødrenes stemmer: En kontekstuell analyse av Mari Boines
album Gula Gula” (Hear the voices of the ancestral mothers: A contextual
analysis of Mari Boine’s album Gula Gula), from the Department of Music
Science at Nesna college (2010). Thomassen has a background as a musician
in Finnmark. My second, interview-based academic source is Thomas Richard
Hilder’s doctoral thesis, from the music department at Royal Holloway, at the
University of London, entitled “Sami Soundscapes: Music and the Politics of
Indigeneity in Arctic Europe” (2010). Hilder interviewed Boine and several
other Sami musicians during fieldwork in Northern Norway from May 2007
to December 2008.
2. To give only one example, Ivar Bjørklund in a study of the coastal area
Kvænangen, based on censuses, found that 1,200 were registered as Sami or
Kven (descendants of Finnish people) in 1930. In 1950, the number had been
reduced to 5 (Bjørklund 1985).
254 Siv Ellen Kraft

3. For studies of Læstadianism, see Olsen 2008, Hepokoski 2000.

4. Original citation in Norwegian: “Jeg nådde egentlig aldri min far. Bibelen og
dommedag. Det var noe som alltid lå der, som en mørk skygge.”
5. Birger Amundsen received an award for this documentary (Jævelsens verk),
as best radio documentary in Europe 2014.
6. For introductions to joik, see Hilder 2010, Gaski 2008, and Graff 1996. On
the so-called joik-renessaince, see Jones-Bamman 2006.
7. Citation in Norwegian: “Ifølge sjamanismen blir vi en del av naturen når vi
dør, så nå har vi en veldig bra kommunikasjon. Jeg går ut i naturen og snak-
ker med mine avdøde foreldre. Jeg merker at de er der.”
8. See Thomassen 2010: 24–25 for a further description of the concept of world
music, and the world music industry.
9. According to Thomassen 2010, the quena is a bamboo flute from the Andes.
“Quena breath” he interprets as a percussive effect in which the breath
sounds are more central than the tone. The “claypot” is a rhythm instru-
ment resembling a clay jar (ibid.).
10. Boine has performed regularly at the main Sami and indigenous festivals in
Norway such as Riddu Riddu and Markomeannu (both in Troms county),
and the Easter festivals in Kautokeino and Karasjok (Hilder 2010: 117).
11. The original citation in Norwegian: “Når hun følte frykt, kunne hun sende
ulven ut for å spise opp det som truet. Hun følte det hjalp henne, og ga henne
styrke.”
12. Rørelse denotes a condition characterized by violent emotional outbreaks
and expressions, such as crying, screaming, jumping, and shaking (Olsen
2008: 11), and is connected to the revival dimension of Læstadianism.
Historian of religion Torjer Olsen describes its inner logic as based on the
creation of sin remorse (syndeanger) connected to the strict teachings of
Læstadianism. Promises of salvation through correct repentance will, then,
lead to a will to confessions and rørelse—as a result of the joy at receiving
grace (ibid.).
13. The romantic version of the preservation thesis is today marginal in aca-
demic circles, but has been supported by a few publicly influential scholars,
among these—and probably the most important—Professor of Pedagogics
Jens Ivar Nergård (see, for instance, Nergård 2006), author of several arti-
cles and books on Sami culture and religiosity, and a frequent contribu-
tor to regional news- and popular media. Boine may have been introduced
to the preservation thesis through Nergård, through versions circulating
among neo-shamans and at indigenous festivals, or through the historian
of religion Brita Polland—who appears to favor similar views. Polland is a
close friend of Boine. The two women have also appeared together on stage,
through a series of 30 concerts in which music (by Boine) was accompa-
nied by recitation from historical texts concerning the Sami (by Polland).
Polland has a master’s degree in the history of religion, has been employed
temporarily at different scholarly departments in Norway, and has pub-
lished extensively on Sami religion, including editorial responsibility for
text collections and introductory chapters. See Polland 1993, 2002a and b,
2004, and 2005a and b.
 Shamanism and Indigenous Soundscapes 255

Critics of the preservation thesis have focused partly on the time gap
between the “end of drum time” and the rise of Læstadianism. The Læstadian
revival took place among people who had been Christians for a long time.
Second, Læstadianism was gradually Norwegianized, both through the
politics of Norwegianization and through ethnic Norwegian converts,
and third—it is far from clear—in the romantic version of the preservation
thesis—how continuity and religion are to be understood. For a more
detailed critique of this, see Kraft 2007.
14. Original citation in Norwegian: “Noe av det jeg likte best var det vi kalte
likhahuset, på norsk rørelse—men som jeg tror er en rest av sjamanistiske
ritualer. På slutten av samlingen sang og sang de til de kom i en slags transe.
Det var vel det nærmeste de kom dans. Bad hverandre om tilgivelse. Jeg har
snakket med andre som vokste opp med det—som syntes det var skrem-
mende, men jeg syntes det var høydepunktet.”
15. Original citation in Norwegian: “D’e rørelsen som ligger i bunnen av alt det
jeg har. Rørelsen, salmesangen og den forbudte joiken.”
16. The album Sterna paradisea (2009) includes a song titled Likhahusat, the
Sami term for what in Norwegian is known as rørelse (Thomassen 2010: 37,
the English title of the song is “Enchanted”).
17. Original citation in Norwegian: “Det har jo vært en del anmeldelser også,
at dette er forferdelig monotont. Og så har man etter hvert skjønt at det
fins—hvis man tør å la seg berøre av det, så fins det en annen dør, som går
mer på—ikke det intellektuelle, det tenkte. . . . —jeg hadde en lengsel etter
transen, som kom fra min barndom, og de rørelsene jeg vokste opp med.”
18. Original citation in Norwegian: “Det er denne følelsen fra barndommens
‘likhahusat’ hun søker på konsertene. En slags utenom-fysisk opplevelse, en
atmosfære der publikum åpner dørene til sitt innerste og er mottakelige for
ånd og reise.”
19. Original citation in Norwegian: “Dag etter dag, i mange timer, satt hun på
Tromsø Museum og lyttet til tradisjonell joik. Hun måtte nærme seg denne
brønnen, denne kilden til drømmer, fantasiens mor og samefolkets innerste
hemmelighet. Den var fordømt av kirken og misjonærene, trampet på og
utskjelt, men den var en livsnerve som ikke kunne slites over. Og det fantes
en nesten usynlig tråd—fra samenes førkristne religion og sjamanisme til
læstadianisme, salmesang og kristendom—den grep hun fatt i.”
20. Original citation in Norwegian: “Hun ble mer og mer klar over at joik er en
tilstedeværelse, et nærvær, hun kunne gå inn i joiken og bli der, gå i ett med
tonen. Joiken åpnet en dør inn til et rom med kraft og energy, hun følte hun
fløy på joikens vinger på scenen. Et folk som er i kontakt med denne kraften,
kan ikke være så lett å manipulere og styre.”
21. Original citation in Norwegian: “Magi lever i mange samers bevissthet.
Det uforklarlige har en status. Det er til stede som regel som en positiv
kraft som hjelper mennesker i ulike situasjoner. Sjamanen er på ingen måte
død. . . . Dagens sjamaner følger opp en lang samisk tradisjon som nesten ble
utryddet av kristne misjonærer.”
22. See Bergh 1990 and Flåten 2009. There is also an entry on Kaaven on
Wikipedia (wikipedia.or/wiki/johan_kaaven).
256 Siv Ellen Kraft

23. For a critical approach to such inclusiveness among scholars, see Sidky
2010.
24. Information from a research seminar at the Department of Religious Studies,
University of Tromsø, spring 2008.
25. The synonymization of Læstadian rørelse and trance is supported by older
traditions of translation. Johan Turi’s Muitalus sámiid birra (An account
of the Sami), originally published in Sami and Danish in 1910 and the
first secular work published by a Sami author in a Sami language, uses the
term rørelse (in Sami Likhahusat) to describe the state of the noaidi dur-
ing “noaidi acts” (noaidekunster). During the nineteenth century, noaidi
acts were described as hysterical or ecstatic attacks, followed by complete
exhaustion. “Arctic hysteria” or winter depression were diagnoses granted
to such behavior, along with the nervous and easily excitable moods of
nature people (Hagen 2002: 21). More recent scholarship has questioned
whether trance, ecstacy, and travels to other worlds were ever a widespread
part of Sami religious practices, or—rather—were fabricated by the priests
and missionaries who first put their religion into script, and did so in order
to eradicate it (ibid.).
26. There are no recent studies of the status of joik among Læstadians, but joik is
still formally forbidden in many north Sami churches (Nrk Sapmi December
31, 2013). During the past decades, moreover, high-profile examples of joik
used in Christian settings have been met with harsh criticism from these
same circles. In November 2013, to give a recent example, the performance
of what newspapers referred to as a “joik-like” song by the famous violin-
ist Ole Edvard Antonsen in the church in Kautokeino during a concert led
to a heated debate in national and local newspapers (Kveseth, Altaposten
October 15, 2013). I contributed to this debate, in the form of a piece in the
liberal Christian daily Vårt Land under the headline “striden om joik” (the
controversy over joik). The head of Kautokeino menighet in public inter-
views and in an email to me denied that their views on joik had anything
to do with the pre-Christian Sami religion, stating that it is not considered
as shameful or a sin, but merely does not belong in church and Christian
circumstances. Other members of the board claimed (publicly) that they had
nothing against joik, only against performing it in churches. It remained
unclear why other musical forms (like rock) are considered as acceptable in
concerts on church grounds, while joik is not. Secular critics, on the other
hand, claimed that Edvard Antonsen’s song had nothing to do with joik, and
that Sami musicians should stay away from a church that has never properly
made a settlement with the Sami.
27. Gaski considers this as a natural side effect of the festivals and conferences
organized since the late 1970s, “where groups have met and exchanged
experiences and created a new political and cultural platform” (2008: 347).
He adds that “most political conferences have also functioned as cultural
meeting places, with performances by musicians, dancers and poets. In that
way, one can say that culture and politics to a large extent have gone hand in
hand for indigenous groups in recent decades” (ibid.)
 Shamanism and Indigenous Soundscapes 257

28. In Boine’s song Du lahka (on Gula Gula), for instance, there are clear asso-
ciations to joik as well as to the powwow music of North American Indians.
Boine has also been compared to the Red Bull singer Buffy Sainte-Marie,
both in regard to so-called pentatone tonality, to sullabene such as “hey ja”
and “ho-ia-ha-ia,” and due to what Thomassen terms the “funk meets indig-
enous people” tone of vocal expressions (2010).
29. The reference to a primeval voice has been repeated in newspaper interviews.
In an interview in Aftenposten, for instance, in connection with the premier
of Joikefeber—a film about a young Sami woman who learns to joik, Boine
notes that she is pleased that more people are becoming interested in joik,
and “seek[ing] their own primal voice” (Rapp 2014).
30. Citation in Norwegian: “Du har brødre. Du har søstre. I Sør-Amerikas regn-
skoger. På Grønlands karrige kyst. Har du glemt hvor du kommer fra.”
31. Both Hilder and Thomassen emphasize the environmentalist theme of Gula
Gula.
32. On the prevalence of these themes, see Niezen 2012, Karlsson 2003, Pedersen
1995, Rønnow 2011.
33. Hilder discusses some of these same connections, including the ways in
which the lyrics not only draw on Sami mythology, “but tap into a pan-
indigenous rhetoric” (2010: 164).
34. The songs are called “White Thiefs” and Recipe for a Master Race. “Master
race” is the English term used by her in the English version of the text
(printed on the cover of Gula Gula. In the Norwegian version she uses the
term herrefolket.
35. The original citation in Norwegian: “Det er noe som jeg har skjønt etterpå.
Det e derfor man ser, intuisjonen er mye, mye klokere enn en sjøl, enn
hodet.”
36. The original citation in Norwegian: “Vi er jo oppdratt til å bli veldig norske
og veldig vestlige, og den teksten er mer sånn der at . . . når disse melodiene
begynte å komme, var det som en sånn stemme, en påminnelse fra de som
har vært før oss. Jeg så det ikke så veldig klart da, men etterpå når jeg ser på
teksten, så er det jo en slags sånn . . . akkurat som det er en påminnelse fra de
om at ikke . . . ikke glem den arven dokker har. Og også det her med at når
du blir veldig oppdratt av skolen og alt til å bli vestlig, så blir andre urfolk
veldig fremmede. Og en av de linjene er jo at, ikke sant, at vi har brødre og
søstre i Latin-Amerika og på Grønland.”
37. Citation in Norwegian: “At Mari Boine er en artist med røtter i sjamanisme
er tydelig for de fleste. Nils-Aslak Valkeapää, som var den store stjernen før
henne, dyrket kanskje i ennå større grad denne arven som sitt særpreg. Jeg
vet ikke om en samisk artist i dag som ikke er klar over denne forbindelsen
til sjamanismen og som henter inspirasjon i fra disse kildene.”
38. Original citation in Norwegian: “fornemmer hele den samiske historien
komprimert inn i en enkelt sang, og manifestert i én enkelt representant for
den samiske kulturen.”
39. Original citation in Norwegian: “Å være på en konsert med Mari Boine er
som å bli med på en reise til de ukjente sfærer.”
258 Siv Ellen Kraft

40. The term overjordisk means literally “above ground,” and usually in a reli-
gious sense, as in supernatural, ethereal, or celestial.
41. Original citation in Norwegian: “På en magisk måte trekker Mari Boine oss
med inn i sin verden der hun hyller det mektigste av alt, naturen. Men sin
overjordiske stemme får hun oss med i den mektige verden der ute. Og hun
har en helt spesiell måte å formidle sitt budskap på, en måte som får oss til å
lytte til å leve oss inn i hennes verden som hun vil fortelle oss om, selv om vi
ikke skjønner et eneste ord.”
42. Boine during the concert in Tromsø (which I attended) brought up this
review, noting that her father would have been thrilled to know that at least
one of his children had ended up as a preacher. She added that she had sent
the reviewer a message, thanking him for spreading her protests against the
mine industry.
43. The noaidi is frequently included in representations of Sami musical perfor-
mances in music exhibitions (Hilder 2010: 139).
44. Trude Fonneland is currently involved in a post doctoral study focusing on
the relationship between Sami neo-shamanism, tourism, and place market-
ing. See Fonneland, 2012, 2011. For studies of references to religion in Sami
institutions more broadly, see Kraft 2013, 2010, 2009 a and b.
45. For studies focusing on the relationship between Sami revitalization, film,
and indigenous spirituality, see Cato Christensen 2013, 2012 a and b, 2010,
and Christensen and Kraft 2011.
46. The runebomme is a membrane-covered oval or circular drum, made of
wood (the base) and reindeer hide, and decorated with various symbols.
47. See, for instance, Niezen 2012, Brosius 1997, Karlsson 2003, Beyer 1998,
2007, Pedersen 1995, Rønnow 2011.
48. On the intersection between music and nation-building, see Post 2006.
49. The authenticity of Sami neo-shamans may, broadly speaking, be more
acceptable in southern parts of Norway than in the Sami strongholds in the
north. References to plastic shamans and to New Age connections have been
fairly common among the latter, but remain rare in the former.

References
Beyer, Peter. 2007. “Globalization and Glocalization,” in James A. Beckford and
Nicholas J. Demerath (eds.). The Sage Handbook of the Sociology of Religion.
Los Angeles: Sage, 98–117.
———. 1998. “Globalisation and the Religion of Nature,” in J. Pearson, R.
H. Roberts, and G. Samuel (eds.). Nature Religion Today: Paganism in the
Modern World. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 11–22.
Bergh, Richard. 1990. Mannen som stoppet Hurtigruta: Historier og sagn om
Noaiden Johan Kaaven. Oslo: Grøndahl.
Bjørklund, Ivar. 1985. “Local History in a Multi-ethnic Context. The Case of
Kvænangen, Northern Norway. Some Remarks on the Relationship between
History and Social Anthropology.” Acta Borealia (1/2): 46–56.
 Shamanism and Indigenous Soundscapes 259

Brosius, J. P. 1997. “Endangered Forest, Endangered People: Environmentalist

Representations of Indigenous Knowledge.” Human Ecology, 25(1): 47–69.
Christensen, Cato. 2013. Religion som samisk identitetsmarkør. Fire studier
av film. PhD dissertation, Department of History and Religious studies,
University of Tromsø.
———. 2012a. “Reclaiming the Past: On the Historymaking Significance of the
Sámi film The Kautokeino Rebellion.” Acta Borealia 29(1): 56–76.
———. 2012b. “Overtroen er stor blant viddenes folk: Om religion og kolo-
niale relasjoner i samisk filmhistorie.” Tidsskrift for kulturforskning 11(2):
5–25.
Christensen, Cato, and Siv Ellen Kraft. 2011. “Religion i Kautokeino-opprøret:
en analyse av samisk urfolksspiritualitet.” Nytt norsk tidsskrift 1: 18–27.
Døving, Cora Alexa, and Siv Ellen Kraft. 2013. Religion i pressen. Oslo:
Universitetsforlaget.
Eidheim, H. 1998. “Ethno-Political Development among the Sami after World
War II: The Invention of Selfhood,” in Harald Gaski (ed.) Sami Culture in a
New Era: The Norwegian Sami Experience. Karasjok: Davvi Girji, 29–61.
Eidheim, Harald. 1971. Aspects of the Lappish Minority Situation. Oslo:
Universitetsforlaget.
———. 1999. Historie, minne og myte. Oslo: Pax Forlag.
———. 2009. “Kulturarv og kulturarvinger.” Nytt norsk tidsskrift 3: 4.
Flåten, Edith. 2009. Johan Kaaven: Fortellinger. Alta: Nordnorsk Forlag.
Fonneland, Trude. 2011. “Sami Tour: urfolksspiritualitet i ei samisk turist-
næring.” Chaos. Dansk-norsk tidsskrift for religionhistoriske studier (55):
153–172.
———. 2012. “Spiritual Entrepreneurship in a Northern Landscape: Spirituality,
Tourism and Politics.” Temenos 48(2): 155–178.
———. 2013. “Sami Tourism and the Signposting of Spirituality: The Case
of Sami Tour: A Spiritual Entrepreneur in the Contemporary Experience
Economy.” Acta Borealia 30: 190–208.
Fonneland, Trude, and Siv Ellen Kraft. 2013. “New Age, Sami Shamanism and
Indigenous Spirituality,” in Ingvild Sælid Gilhus and Steven J. Sutcliffe (eds.)
New Age Spirituality: Rethinking Religion. Durham: Acumen, 132–145.
Gaup, Ailo. 2005. Sjamansonen. Oslo: Tre Bjørners Forlag.
———. 2007. Inn i naturen: utsyn fra sjamansonen. Oslo: Tre Bjørners Forlag.
Gaski, Harald. 2008. “Yoik—Sami Music in a Global World,” in Henry Minde
(ed.) Indigenous Peoples: Self-determination, Knowledge, Indigeneity. Delft:
Eburon, pp. 347–360.
Graff, Ola. 1996. Joik og Runebomme. Hvilken betydning hadde joikinga i de
før-kristne seremoniene? Tromsø: Universitetsmuseet i Tromsø.
Hagen, Rune Blix. 2002. “Harmløs dissenter eller djevelsk trollmann?
Trolldomsprosessen mot samen Anders Poulsen i 1692.” Historisk tidsskrift
81(2–3): 319–346.
Hepokoski, Warren. 2000: The Laestadian Movement: Disputes and Divisions
1861–2000. Culpeper, VA:
260 Siv Ellen Kraft

Hilder, Thomas Richard. 2010. Sami Soundscapes: Music and the Politics of
Indigeneity in Arctic Europe. PhD thesis, Music Department at Royal
Holloway, University of London.
Johnson, Greg. 2007. Sacred Claims: Repatriation and Living Tradition.
Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press.
Jones-Bamman, Richard Wiren. 2006. “From ‘I’m a Lapp’ to I am Sami”: Popular
Music and Changing Images of Indigenous Ethnicity in Scandinavia,” in J. C.
Post (ed.) Ethnomusicology: A Contemporary Reader. New York: Routledge,
351–367.
Karlsson, Bengt G. 2003. “Anthropology and the ‘Indigenous Slot’: Claims to and
Debates about Indigenous Peoples’ Status in India.” Critique of Anthropology
23(4): 403–423.
Knott, Kim, Elisabeth Poole, and Teemu Taira. 2013. Media Portrayals of
Religion and the Secular Sacred. Representations and Change. Farnham:
Ashgate.
Kraft, Siv Ellen. 2007, “Natur, spiritualitet og tradisjon. Om akademisk roman-
tisering og feilslåtte primitivismeoppgjør, Review-artikkel om Jens Ivar
Nergårds Den levende erfaring. En studie i samisk kunnskapsproduksjon.”
Din. Tidsskrift for religion og kultur. 1: 53–62.
———. 2009a. “Sami Indigenous Spirituality. Religion and Nation Building in
Norwegian Sápmi,” Temenos. Nordic Journal of Comparative Religion 4:
179–206.
———. 2009b. ”Kristendom, sjamanisme og urfolksspiritualitet i norsk Sápmi.”
Chaos 51: 29–52.
———. 2010. “The Making of a Sacred Mountain. Meanings of ‘Nature’ and
‘Sacredness’ in Sápmi and Northern Norway.” Religion. An International
Journal 40: 53–61.
———. 2014 (in press). “Sami Neo-shamanism—Colonial Grounds, Ethnic
Revival and Pagan Pathways,” in Kathryn Rountree (ed.) Modern Pagan and
Native Faith Movements in Europe.
Kvifte, Tellef. 2001. “Hunting for the Gold at the end of the Rainbow: Identity
and Global Romanticism. On the Roots of Ethnic Music.” Popular Musicology
Online, accessed September 2013
Minde, H. 2008. “Constructing ‘Laestadianism’: a Case for Sami Survival?”.
Acta Borealia: A Nordic Journal of Circumpolar Societies 15(1): 5–25.
Nergård, Jens Ivar. 2006. Den Levende Erfaring: En Studie i Samisk
Kunnskapsproduksjon. Oslo: Cappelen.
Niezen, R. 2003. The Origins of Indigenism: Human Rights and the Politics of
Identity. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Niezen, Ronald. 2009. The Rediscovered Self. Indigenous Identity and Cultural
Justice. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen`s University Press.
———. 2010. “A New Global Phenomenon,” in Margaret M. Bruchac, Siobhan
M. Hart, H. Martin Wobst (eds.) Indigenous Archaeologies: A Reader on
Decolonialization. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 33–37.
———. 2012. “Indigenous Religion and Human Rights,” in John Witte and M.
Christian Green (eds.) Religion and Human Rights: An Introduction. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 119–134.
 Shamanism and Indigenous Soundscapes 261

Olsen, Torjer A. 2008. Kall, skaperordning og makt: en analyse av kjønn i lyn-

genlæstadianismen. PhD dissertation, Department of History and Religious
Studies, University of Tromsø.
Pedersen, Peder. 1995. “Nature, Religion and Cultural Identity—The Religious
Environmentalist Paradigme,” in O. Bruun and Arne Kalland (eds.) Asian
Perceptions of Nature: A Critical Approach. København: Nordic Institute of
Asian Studies, 258–273.
Polland, Brita 1993. Samiske sjamaner. Religion og helbredelse. Oslo: Gyldendal
2005.
———. 2002a. Noaidier: historier om samiske sjamaner. Utvalg, kommentarer
og innledende essay, i Verdens hellige skrifter, De norske bokklubbene.
———. 2005a (ed.). Samiske beretninger. Innledning og språklig bearbeidelse
ved Brita Polland. Oslo: Aschehoug.
———. 2005b. “Samisk religion i Norge,” in Arne Bugge Amundsen (ed.) Norsk
religionshistorie. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 414–456.
Polland, Brita, and Eirik Myrhaug. 2002b. “En nålevende samisk sjaman: møte
med Eirik Myrhaug,” in Brita Polland (ed.) Noaidier: historier om samiske
sjamaner. Utvalg, kommentarer og innledende essay, in Verdens hellige
skrifter, Oslo: De norske bokklubbene, 259–266.
Post, Jennifer. 2006 (ed.). Ethnomusicology: A Contemporary Reader. New
York: Routledge.
Rydving, Håkan. 1995. The End of Drum Time: Religious Change among the
Lule Saami, 1670’s–1740’s. Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell.
Rønnow, Tarjei. 2011. Saving Nature: Religion as Environmentalism,
Environmentalism as Religion. Münster: LIT Verlag.
Sidky, Homayun. 2010. “On the Antiquity of Shamanism and Its Role in Human
Religiosity,” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 22: 68–92.
Thomassen, Ivar. 2010. Hør stammødrenes stemmer. En kontekstuell anal-
yse av Mari Boines album Gula Gula. Masteroppgave i Musikkvitenskap,
Høgskolen i Nesna.
Tonstad, Per Lars. 2012. Mari Boine. Fly med meg. Oslo: Kagge Forlag.
Turi, Johan. 2011; 1910. Min bok om samene, Karasjok: Forfatternes Forlag.
———. 1931. (Turi’s) Book of Lappland. Translated by E. G. Nash. New York:
Harper & Collins.

Newspapers/home pages
Amundsen, Birger. 2003. “Jævelsens verk,” NRK radiodokumentaren.
Berg, Arne. 2012. “Maris magiske aften,” NRK Sápmi 29. March.
Cronshaw, Andrew. 2013. “Mari Boine—Not Waving, but Dancing.” Andrew
Cronshaw talks with the Sámi innovator. File:///Users/Siv/Documents/mari%
boine/M.Boine. Interview.webarchive, accessed by me September 2013.
Graff, Ola. 2007. “Music,” in Sapmi—Becoming a Nation—www.sapmi.uit.no
Kraft, Siv Ellen. 2014. ”Striden om joik,” Vårt land 5. January, available also at
www.forskning.no
Kveseth, Magne. 2013. “Utestenges etter joiking i kirka,” Altaposten
15.10.2013.
262 Siv Ellen Kraft

Larssen, Bjørn H. 2014. “Det er noe trolsk over henne når hun står på scenen,”
Nordlys February 9.
Larsen, Dan Robert. 2014. “Kalles yppersteprest og predikant,” February 1,
2014, NRK.no, accessed February 14, 2014.
Larsson, Carl-Göran and Marie Elise Nystad. 2013. ”Joikeforbud i disse
kirkene,” NRK Sápmi, December 31, 2013.
NN 2005. “En fri, samisk sangfugl,” TA (Telemarksavisa), July 19, 2005, http://
www.ta.no/pulsen/article1670038.ece, accessed February 2014.
NN 2014. “Mari Boines opplevelser,” gjengitt fra Norsk Ukeblad 2009, i http://
magic.no/magic-magasin/reportasjer/kjendisenes-overnaturlige-liv, accessed
by me January 20, 2014.
Oksnes, Jakob. 2006. “Boines demoner,” portrettintervju, Dagbladet Magasinet,
May 8, 2006, file:/// Users/siv/Documents/mari%20boine/Boines%20
demoner%20-%20Portrettet%20-%20Dagbladet.no.webarchive, accessed
September 2013.
Rapp, Ole Magnus. 2014. “På jakt etter urstemmen,” Aftenposten January 16,
2014.
Mari Boine homepage: www.mariboine.no.
Ailo gaup`s homepage: www.sjaman.com.
Isogaisa homepage: www.Isogaisa.org.
Riddu Riddu Festival homepage: www.riddu.no.
 Contributors

Bente Gullveig Alver (born in Denmark 1941) is Professor of Folklore in

the Department of Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion,
University of Bergen. Her research interests revolve around folk religion,
magic and sorcery, the use of rituals, cultural perspectives on health and
illness, and the cultural history of folk medicine. Alver’s latest publica-
tions include Mellem mennesker og magter: Magi i hekseforfølgelsernes
tid (2008) and the biography of Anna Elisabeth Westerlund: En fortelling
(2009). A particular field of interest is method development and ethical
challenges in social studies, in which she has published books together
with Tove Ingebjørg Fjell and Ørjar Øyen, as well as numerous articles.
Cato Christensen is currently Assistant Professor in the Department of
International Studies and Interpreting at Oslo and Akershus University
College of Applied Sciences. His research interests revolve around con-
temporary religion in Western societies, particularly New Age spiritu-
ality, indigenous spirituality, religion and popular culture, and religion
in professional discourse and practice. His dissertation focused on the
relationships among film, religion, and identity politics among the Sami
in Norway. His latest publications include “Reclaiming the Past: On the
History-making Significance of the Sámi film The Kautokeino Rebellion”
(Acta Borealia 2012), and “‘Superstition Is High among the People of
the Tundra’: On Religion and Colonial Relations in the Sami History of
Film” (Tidsskrift for kulturforskning 2012).
Trude Fonneland is currently postdoctoral fellow in the Department of
History and Religious studies at the University of Tromsø. Her research
interests revolve around contemporary religion in society, particularly
Sami shamanism, tourism, and popular culture. Her dissertation focused
on the developments of modern Sami shamanism in Norway. She is
also the author of several scholarly articles on the subject. Her latest
publications include “Spiritual Entrepreneurship: Tourism, Spirituality
and Politics” (Temenos 2012), “‘The Seven Coffee Stops’: Spiritual
264 Contributors

Entrepreneurship in a Sami landscape” (Tidsskrift for kulturforsking

2012), and “Isogaisa—Shamanism in Festival Clothing” (Aura 2013).
Olav Hammer, Professor of the Study of Religions at the University of
Southern Denmark, has published extensively in English and Swedish on
New Age, and on religious innovation from the nineteenth century to the
present. He is at present editor (with Henrik Bogdan) of an encyclopedic
work on Western esotericism in the Scandinavian countries.
Merete Demant Jakobsen has been researching shamanism for more
than 30 years, first for her master’s degree in Nordic literature and eth-
nography and later for her doctorate at Oxford University. Her book
Shamanism: Traditional and Contemporary Approaches to the Mastery
of Spirits and Healing describes the role of the shaman in Greenland in
the past centuries and how shamanism is presented to and experienced by
modern course participants. She has also published a study of the experi-
ence of evil: Negative Spiritual Experiences, Encounters with Evil. This
study looks at 4,000 letters describing spiritual experiences, which were
collected in England in the 1960s and ’70s by Professor Alister Hardy.
Presently she is researching narrative implications of patients’ first con-
sultation with an oncologist.
Anne Kalvig is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University
of Stavanger, Norway. She has published Spiritual Health: Views of Life
among Alternative Practitioners (2013 in Norwegian) and various arti-
cles and chapters on themes within the field of alternative spirituality,
such as alternative therapy, folk medicine, crop circles, spiritual tourism,
spiritism, religion and media, popular culture, and death.
Siv Ellen Kraft is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of
Tromsø, Norway’s Arctic University. Major research interests include
theosophy, New Age spiritualities, neo-paganism, and the increasing
indigenization of the Sami, particularly with regard to religion. She has
published four monographs (one of them with Cora Alexa Døving), sev-
eral articles and book chapters, and has coedited four anthologies.
James R. Lewis is currently Professor of Religious Studies at the University
of Tromsø. He is a highly published scholar of new religions and of the
New Age. He is the coeditor of three book series: the Brill Handbooks
on Contemporary Religion series, Ashgate’s New Religions series, and
Palgrave-Macmillan’s Palgrave Studies in New and Alternative Religions.
He is also general editor of the Alternative Spirituality and Religion
Review and, until recently, the Journal of Religion and Violence.
Stein R. Mathisen is a folklorist and Associate Professor of Culture
Studies at the Finnmark University College, Alta, Norway. Major
 Contributors 265

research interests include folk medicine and folk belief, the role of narra-
tives for the constitution of identity and ethnicity, questions of heritage
politics and ethno-politics, and the history of cultural research in the
northern areas. Recently published articles in English include “Narrated
Sámi Sieidis: Heritage and Ownership in Ambiguous Border Zones”
(2009), “Festivalising Heritage in the Borderlands: Constituting Ethnic
Histories and Heritages under the Rule of the Finn Forest Republic”
(2009); and “Indigenous Spirituality in the Touristic Borderzone: Virtual
Performances of Sámi Shamanism in Sápmi Park” (2010).
Henno Erikson Parks is originally from New York City, and lived in
Estonia for 16 years before moving to Turku, Finland, where he is a
doctoral student of Comparative Religion at Åbo Akademi. A combina-
tion of an ancestral background in Estonia and an interest in the field
of shamanism has led him to begin working on a dissertation entitled
“Contemporary Shamanic Practices in Estonia: An Examination of the
Reconstruction of Ancient Traditions within a Modern Context.” In addi-
tion to focusing on current practices and beliefs in the country, he will
also examine the broader influences from Russia, the Baltic States, and
Scandinavia. He has published an article in Báiki, the North American
Sami journal, as well as articles in the fields of developmental education,
and politics.
Torunn Selberg, folklorist, is Professor in Cultural Studies, Department
of Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion, University
of Bergen. Her research interests revolve around folk religion, magic,
ritualization, tourism, and cultural landscapes. Selberg is a prominent
scholar of new religions in contemporary society and has written numer-
ous chronicles, articles, and books focusing on contemporary religious
phenomena, pilgrimage, festivals, and place construction.
 Index

Alta conflict, 146, 152–5, 163, 170, drum journey, 14, 23, 24, 25, 27,
177, 181, 237 36, 234
Alta-Kautokeino River, 35–6, 134, Dunfjeld, Ellen Marit Gaup,
146, 153 141–71, 242, 248
alternative fair, 34, 37, 50, 82, 221, duodji, 206, 219, 224, 243
224, 225, 231
angakkut, 56, 61 Ebeltoft, Lone, 40, 43, 52, 80
appropriation, 108, 109, 130, Eidheim, Harald, 177, 179, 183,
131, 132 187, 236, 259
artic hysteria, 181, 256 Eliade, Mircea, 5, 6, 14, 14, 16, 17,
Ås, Berit, 163–4, 168, 171 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 27,
assimilated, 150, 175 28, 29, 52, 56, 66, 90, 100,
authenticity, 3, 37, 39, 44, 90, 94, 109, 122, 128, 131, 137, 139
96, 97, 100, 123, 134, 143, Eriksson, Jørgen I., 3, 37, 75–6, 86,
218, 247, 258 138, 17
ethnic revival, 1, 35, 68, 180, 203,
Bear Tribe, 129 244, 255, 260
Bendriss, Lilli, 73, 85 ethnopolitical, 36, 49, 175, 176,
180, 195, 203
Campbell, Joseph, 63, 66, 128
Castaneda, Carlos, 3, 15, 35, 68, fake, 205
119, 124, 139, 170, 183 foremother, 238, 244–5, 247
colonialism, 127, 138, 192, Foundation for Shamanic Studies
213, 251 (FSS), 1, 26, 36, 48, 57–8, 61,
commodification, 26, 193, 204, 76, 121, 124–5, 128
210–11 Franck, Kyrre Gram, 38, 41, 43, 44
contact zone, 194, 197, 251
cosmology, 15, 24, 63, 202 galdr, 67, 75–7, 254
cultic milieu, 13, 129 gand, 72, 81, 85, 123
cultural heritage, 4, 8, 51, 91, Gaup, Mikkel, 35, 78, 85, 142,
98–9, 123, 153, 184, 201, 145–7, 150, 157, 159, 176, 242
203, 217, 220, 223, 225, Gaup, Nils, 7, 175, 176, 177, 180,
236, 250, 253 184, 189, 190
268 Index

gender, 69, 71, 86, 88 Læstadianism, 233, 255, 261

Gjerstad, Joralf, 79 Leem, Knud, 199, 211–12
goddess, 75, 101, 136, 144, 157, leser, 239, 241–2
163–5, 167–9, 171 Lindquist, Galina, 3, 9, 16, 27, 29,
38, 39, 45, 46, 54, 75, 87
Harner, Michael, 1, 5–6, 8, 14, 22,
27–8, 35, 55, 60, 68, 103, 120, magic, 19, 47, 53, 56, 67, 72, 75,
127, 147, 170, 183, 220, 239 80–1, 83, 85–8, 104, 109–10,
healer, 6, 13, 38, 58–9, 72, 75, 114, 118, 135, 141, 143–4, 150,
77–80, 85, 91, 105, 118–21, 153, 155, 164, 167, 169, 171,
130, 141–2, 146, 163, 191, 192, 206–10, 213, 216, 223,
224, 226, 239, 241–2 241, 248–9, 262–3, 265
Healing Fox, 35, 78, 85, 142 medium, 67–74, 75–6, 77, 80–1,
holism, 184, 185, 224 84, 86, 105, 239
holistic, 42, 85, 78, 85, 142 Meri, Lennart, 103, 114, 115,
Horowitz, Jonathan, 28, 121, 126 123, 125
Høst, Annette, 3, 103, 105, 125 mission (Christian), 77, 94, 133,
180, 181, 200, 203, 208, 210,
indigenization, 176, 183, 184, 264 239, 240, 241, 250, 251, 256
indigenous people, 7, 13, 14, 15, 16, Mother Earth, 41–2, 44, 51, 53, 76,
21, 36, 48, 74, 91, 92, 96, 127, 80, 86, 130, 138–40, 164–8,
128, 130, 131, 132, 142, 154, 197, 244–6
155, 183, 184, 186, 188, 189, Myrhaug, Eirik, 37, 47, 52, 72, 85,
209, 213, 221, 223, 227, 229, 153, 233, 261
232, 236, 243, 244, 245, 247,
249, 250, 251, 252, 257, 259, 260 nation building, 5, 8, 53, 136–7,
indigenous spirituality, 7, 48, 127, 139, 188, 212, 233, 235,
129, 133, 136, 182–4, 209, 238–9, 243, 250, 252–3,
225, 252, 258, 209 258, 260
invented traditions, 45 near-death experiences, 76, 163
Isogaisa, 7, 34, 39, 50–1, 53, noaidevuohta, 7, 175, 180–2, 185,
215–34, 262, 264 191–3, 195–7, 199, 201, 203–5,
207, 209, 211, 213, 219
Jåks, Iver, 201, 202 noaidi, 7, 36, 47, 104, 127, 132–3,
joik, 81, 182, 185, 215, 225, 227–8, 135, 177–8, 181–2, 185,
231, 235, 237–44, 248, 250, 192–3, 196–7, 202, 204–5,
254–62 210, 261
Noble Savage, 2, 128, 130, 132,
Kaaven, Johan, 241, 255, 258–9 209, 210, 212
Kautokeino Rebellion, 7, 185, 187, Norse, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 33, 34, 44,
190, 251, 259, 263 46, 49, 50, 62, 67, 75, 77,
Kvernmo, Ronald, 37, 39, 46, 51, 80, 81, 107
53, 215, 216, 217, 218, 219, Norwegianization, 255
220, 222, 223, 224, 225, 226,
228, 229, 230, 231 Orenstein, Gloria, 164, 168, 171
 Index 269

paganism, 3, 9, 24, 34, 36, 52, 68, 145, 158, 163, 175, 177,
69, 74, 75, 85, 86, 87, 88, 90, 179–82, 184–5, 217, 235,
94, 98, 100, 101, 200, 232, 239–41, 250, 256
258, 264 Santa Claus Land, 82, 205
Pathfinder, 7, 175, 176, 177, 178, Sápmi, 207, 213, 256, 261
179, 181, 182, 184, 185, 186, Sápmi Magic Theatre, 206–7, 210,
187, 190 213
perennialism, 48 Scandinavian Centre for Shamanic
plastic shamans, 49, 69, 132, 138, Studies, 96
139, 258 seidr, 3, 75
Polland, Brita, 250, 254, 261 self-spirituality, 25, 224
Póllu, Kaljo, 113 Shaman in High Heels, 4, 71, 87, 91
Pouelsen, Anders, 191, 196–8 Shamanic Zone, The
power animal, 24, 60, 70, 73, 165, (Sjamansonen), 35, 48, 53, 97,
227, 238, 252 139, 143, 171, 232, 251
Pratt, Mary Louise, 194, 212 Shamanism
preservation thesis, 134, 239, Amazonian, 19, 23, 104
254, 255 core, 22–3, 35, 37, 43, 47, 49,
primeval, 27, 164, 244, 248–9, 257 55–62, 76–7, 79, 85, 104,
primitivist, 129, 183, 189, 195, 231 127–8, 133, 137, 147, 170
fusional, 108–9, 121
Religious Communities Act, The, Methro, 6, 103, 105, 107–9, 111,
33, 40–1, 108, 110, 177, 113, 115, 119, 121–3, 125
181–2, 251 Native American, 7, 25, 49, 72–4,
remote healing, 145 77–80, 109, 120, 127–30, 133,
repatriation, 195, 201, 247, 260 136
Riddu Riddu festival, 136, 226, Nordic, 1–6, 34, 37, 42–51, 57,
243, 254, 262 67–8, 71, 75, 80, 83–4, 264
rite de passage, 80, 179, 252 Norse, 1, 4, 5, 33–4, 43–4, 46,
rørelse, 239, 240–1, 254–6 49–50, 62, 75, 77, 80–1,
rune drum, 37, 94, 123, 191–204, 107, 171
206, 208–9, 211, 215, 223, Soviet-American, 120
239, 248, 250, 258 spiritist, 70, 71
rune magic, 53, 75, 86, 110, 114, urban, 105
192, 206, 209, 223, 248 world, 1, 210, 220
runebomme, 37, 94, 215, 223, 239, Shamanistic Association, The, 5,
248, 250, 258–9 38–9, 41, 49–51
Rydving, Håkan, 9, 133, 140, 200, shamanistic healing, 78
212, 239, 261 shame, 175, 181, 235–8, 251, 256
Siberia, 3, 14, 19, 22, 25, 27, 28,
Sainte-Marie, Buffy, 243, 257 48, 55, 58, 66, 89, 92, 93, 94,
Saivo shaman school, 48 97, 103, 104, 105, 113, 114,
Sami pre-Christian religion, 1, 7, 116, 117, 118, 119, 122, 126
35, 43, 47, 50, 94–5, 133–6, sitting out, 156
270 Index

Soviet, 89, 103, 105, 112–16, United Nations Declaration on the

118–21, 123–4, 126 Rights of Indigenous Peoples
spiritism, 70, 87, 264 (UNDRIP), 130
spiritual entrepreneur, 53, 139, 171, Utsi, Esther, 135, 170
187, 211, 217, 259, 263
spiritualism, 6, 67–72, 76, 84 Valkeapää, Nils-Aslak, 182, 203–4,
213, 243
The shaman society in Denmark, 61 Viking, 67–8, 75–7, 84, 86,
theme park, 193, 205–7, 110, 124
210, 226 Viking Culture, 75, 84, 110
Tormis, Veljo, 115, 126 vision Keeper, 38–40, 42, 43
Tørum, Gro-Helen, 71, 88, 91–2,
95, 97, 102 White Indian, 132, 139
tourism wilderness, 142, 152, 204
cultural, 204 wise woman, 91, 105, 118–19, 124,
heritage, 204 141, 150, 168, 170
spiritual, 96, 135, 264 World Drum Project, 38, 51
traditionalizing/traditionalization, world music, 8, 235, 238, 243,
95, 98, 142, 180 252, 254
trance journeys, 113, 181,
241, 248 Yakutia, 89, 98, 100