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"the indigenous people over whose heads it would take place, the Saami of northern Scandinavia." It's never been clear to me why the Saami are "indigenous" but
by 015UUZn8aEvW 6y ago
"the indigenous people over whose heads it would take place, the Saami of northern Scandinavia."
It's never been clear to me why the Saami are "indigenous" but average Swedes, Finns, and Norwegians aren't.
- dragonwriter 6y ago> It's never been clear to me why the Saami are "indigenous" but average Swedes, Finns, and Norwegians aren't. Because while Scandinavians were in Southern Scandinavia before Saami were in Northern Scandinavia, the Saami were in Northern Scandinavia for millenia before the Scandinavians were, so, in terms of northern Scandinavia, the Saami and not the Scandinavians are indigenous.
- timonoko 6y agoNobody actually knows what people were in deep north 10000 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komsa_culture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komsa_culture But they were definitely not Saami. If they were ancestors they could be called Proto-Finnic, from which Saami arose 3000-5000 years ago. The 10000 year Saami story was mostly pushed by Norwegians, because stating that people of Finnmark were ancestors of Finns, it may cause land claims aka "Greater Finland". They even invented new ethnicity for Finns who moved to Norway in 1800's.
- tomdell 6y agoI think it more to do with the historical lifestyle and culture - Swedes, Finns and Norwegians have been integrated into the continental mainstream of settled agriculture and Christianity for centuries while Saami held out as a more nomadic, hunter-gatherer culture for most of modernity.