Sample essay topic, essay writing: Normadic Herding-sami - 942 words

Normadic Herding-Sami In the Lands of the Midnight Sun lives the Sami, formerly called theLapps by the Scandinavians, are the indigenous people of the far north ofFinland, Sweden, Norway and Russia. Their language is Finno-Ugric, related toFinnish and Hungarian. The Sami people's traditional, semi-nomadic subsistenceways include reindeer herding and fishing and hunting. Their clothing, handicrafts and music are distinctive. The Sami are thought to descent from apeople who reached Finland after the end of the last Ice Age. When they got toFinland, at first they occupied the southern parts of Finland, and from there, started to migrate towards Lapland. Today there are more than 70,000 Sami, fromwhom over 40,000 live in Norway, Sweden up to 25,000, in Finland 6,000 and inRussia 2,000.

In Finland the birth-rate amongst Sami is slightly above theaverage for the country in general, while there are no marked differences in thedeath-rate. At the same time, the average size of family is very much higher inthe case of Sami, 5,7 persons as compared for 3,8 for the Finns, partly as aconsequence of the high birth-rate and partly due to the close ties prevailingbetween the members of the family. There is a Sami Parliament spanning theseborders, which participates in the global indigenous peoples' movement at UN. Reindeer has always been an important resource of food, clothing, toolsand other products to the Sami. They are milked at different stages of theirnomad's seasonal migration. The meat, fresh or preserved, is excellent, notleast because, so far as possible, it is obtained from selected animals whichare at their prime age (from 4 to 5 years) not, as with venison from wild deer, when the hunter is able to bag his quarry. It is comparatively lean andunusually rich in proteins and important vitamins

The tongue and marrowbonesare delicacies. The blood is used for gruel, pancakes and sausages. Other partsare eaten fresh or preserved. The animal's own stomach is cleaned and used tostore food. It's intestines serve as sausage casings.

One animal produces about40-65kg of meat. From the pelt they can get the finest natural cold-weather clothingavailable. It is still now a days widely used as such throughout the Arctic andis indispensable for bedding and groundsheet. The dressed hide is made intoother garments - leggings, tunic and boots. The bones are used to make knife-handles, sheaths, buttons and other small objects.

The sinews are traditionallyused in the construction of things like sledges or panniers, and for sewingleather objects. The traditional way of life for the Sami has been the same for centuries. Their economy based almost exclusively on hunting and fishing evolved into onedominated by reindeer husbandry, as reindeer herds were tamed. The Sami led anomadic lifestyle based around the seasonal migration of their reindeer. Insummer time, the animals were herded into the mountains in search of food andcooler temperatures, and in winter they were taken to the shelter of the lowlandforests. Until quite recently like many other peoples, had to make theirequipment themselves from local materials - wood, bone, leather and roots. Metalsfor blades, knives and tools came from the outside of their region, but only insmall quantities. Their most remarkable way of hunting was pitfalls.

Lines ofpitfalls were dug along the reindeers' migratory track in places such as narrowvalleys or tongues of firm land in lakes and marshes which limited their freedomof manoeuvre. These pits were oval and 2-3m long, 1-2m broad, 1-2m deep. Thehole at the top was carefully concealed by covering of twigs with peat, leavesand moss on top of it. On April 1986, when the reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant inRussia exploded, it released a plume of radioactive particles that floated north, then fell with the rain on Scandinavia. At the time when Chernobyl blew up, thereindeer herdes were in the mountains pasturing, marking calves. Later thatsummer when they brought the reindeer in for slaughtering, many carcassesregistered thousands becquerels per kilogram of meat.

The legal limit forcaesium-137 is 300 becquerels per kilogram. These slaughterhouses were closedimmediately. As a result of this, all the sudden, the Sami could not eat theirown meat. The slaughterhouses have re-opened since, but much of the meat is stillunfit for human consumption. Still the Sami fear most that the contaminationwill have long-term consequences for the reindeer. The peculiar ecology of theregion and the way the reindeer feed make them particularly vulnerable. The Samiway of life revolves around reindeer.

Many of the people fear that if they losethis focus they will lose their cultural identity. The immediate problems are solved. The fallout from Chernobyl did notfall evenly and some animals avoided contamination. Of 21,000 reindeerslaughtered in October, some 5,000 were below the 300 becquerel mark. So peoplehad enough reindeer meat to eat.

If contamination at current levels takes nineyears to halve, as some scientists suggest, it will be two generations beforemany of the reindeer will be clear. The classic reindeer nomadism is now largely a matter of history. Snowmobiles (Skidoos), cars, motorboats, even helicopters, controlled bytelephones and transceivers, are used to manage the reindeer and to carry theloads they formerly bore. The paid hand has taken over from the unpaid member ofthe family. Cabins have replaced tents at stages on the migration routes. TheSami's grazing and calving grounds are threatened, or destroyed, by vastdevelopments to provide raw materials, energy, or even holiday amusement, forother peoples.

Dams have been build, to get the most out of rivers, but the sideeffects of these dams are that salmons can not migrate upstream anymore. TherebySami can not fish anymore, because there is are more fishes. The economic, andthus the social, basis of the old life is under permanent attack. Butagriculture and forestry are still the most important sources of income for theSami, with about 50% dependent on it as their main livelihood.

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