“The mountain Lapps are the nomads that form the very core of the Lapps. It is they that carry on the traditions of their ancestors and best preserve the unique features and character of the Lappish nation. The forest Lapps and the fisher Lapps are, to a greater or lesser degree, degenerate and decrepit Lapps.”
Society's view of who were Sami
The forest Sami, who were less-itinerant reindeer herders, were to be incorporated into the Lappish settler and farmer group. The fisher Sami did not engage in reindeer herding, they kept goats, and it was their fate to become part of the Swedish proletariat.
The words of Bishop Olof Bergqvist in Luleå in 1908 that were to etch themselves into the minds of the whole of society and influence views on 16 the general synod’s special service of worship 24 November 2021 which people were Sami.
As a shaper of public opinion, Olof Bergqvist helped put in place the division into categories that came to characterise the Swedish reindeer husbandry legislation.
The law cut razor-like through the Sami ranks
1928 saw the law that, according to Sami leader Israel Ruong, cut razor-like through the Sami ranks. The ideas mentioned above became law. Sami not involved in reindeer herding were deprived of Sami rights, mainly rights to the land and water they had worked.
Those Sami were assimilated in both society and the Church. The Church contributed by rendering Sami invisible, which makes it seem that they have been pushed aside into an existence that can be perceived as a non-Sami existence.
We were forced to live a double live
This division into categories has affected my own family. Regarded as Swedes and deprived of the right to fish in our ancestral fishing waters and snare ptarmigan on the mountain edge. Forced into a double life, in silence, and hiding as a Sami. Regarded and treated as Swedes in society and in the Church, denied identity. This was the outcome of the division into categories, for us.