Little is known of any indigenous martial arts traditions of Scandinavia, and while the Icelandic tales, Konungs Skuggsjá and Olaus Magnus give us some clues and Glima still remains both in its modern sport form and, to a lesser degree, in its older combat form, very little else can be found that doesn’t find its roots in Germanic, Italian, French or Asian traditions.
Sami, ca 1900-20.
Swedish missionary priest Petrus Laestadius
However, just going back about 180 years we find a still living staff fighting tradition in the North of Sweden, among the Sami, called “Skalastet“. Below are two stories told by the priest Petrus Laestadius who served as a missionary in the north of Sweden between 1827 and 1832. The chaped staves are similar to those carried all over Europe, not least in the still living Portuguese staff fighting tradition Jogo do Pau, if a fair bit longer.
These anecdotes should of course be read with the fact in mind that they are written by an outsider, a missionary Christian priest among what he regards as uncultivated, uneducated heathens, but they provide at least anecdotal evidence of a Sami tradition of practicing staff fencing in gatherings.
The “Skalok” Anders Enarsson was born in 1779 in Låkteo Raappen, Arjeplog, Sweden. He married the widow Kerstin Larsdotter in 1809 and they had two children; Nils who was born and died in 1810 and Kerstin Andersdotter, born in 1811. The first story is about him.
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Nils Pålsson “without means”, 36 years. Sami from Tuorponen, Norway. From Lotten von Düben’s photos from ethnological expedition to Samiland, 1868.
“On the Thursday, September 13, I headed for a Goahti (“tipi”) camp on the southern side of Barturte [A mountain in Norrbotten, in the North of Sweden]. Here too were three goahti. These Sami still held their reindeer somewhat together and I first met the reindeer herd which two persons followed. These two were middle-aged men, but of a harsh appearance. The one was a fairly tall man, with yellowish hair and an unusually large nose, and was son of the previously mentioned “Bear-nose” and as his father notoriously known for thieving. His name was Anders Thoresson. The other was called Anders Enarsson and was called Skalok, which one can translate to “Fencing Master” or “Fighter“.
The Sami used to carry long wandering staves out of birch and in some places practice fighting with these, which through a kind of harmonia imitativa was called skalastet. But occassionally one skalastet in earnest, and this the fencing master once had done with such fierceness that he had killed a man. For this accomplishment he had been sentenced to 40 whippings with a cane and life time imprisonment.
A “sjösame” (lake/sea sami). Photo from 1884, by Prince Roland Bonaparte
The first punishment he had endured, but after spending 10 years at the fortress, he had been pardoned and came home a couple of years ago. He had then come to Arjeplog, just at prayer day and had at once gone to the priest house. Plenty of Sami were there who at the sight of Skaloken stood as frozen and hardly knew if they saw a real man or a ghost, but Fjellström, who didn’t know the man, for it was under Sundelin’s time he had been taken away, asked: Wherefrom do you come? “From the Southern Lands” was the answer. He was dressed in Swedish clothes; but the face revealed nevertheless that he was Sami, wherefore Fjellström so much more wondered about the wandering man and asked: Have you been at sea? Onto this he replied: No, I come from Carlsten’s Fortress, and showed his passports.
Nothing is however more inappropriate, at least here, than such kind of punishments that involve a kind of deportation for a certain time. For, not only do such arrestants, or if one pleases, correction servants, commonly return more corrupted and hardened than before, and make an honour out of having traveled the world thus gaining respect, as they have been far in foreign land, which among ignorant people always mean a lot, fooling their remaining countrymen all kinds of foolishness or guide into misdeeds and show, at least with own example, that one by such do not suffer any, as what should be a punishment for them is a reward. Thus was also this Skalok said to have described “how it was nothing bad being at fortress labour, it was only ‘as being in service of a somewhat stricter master’. He had done a foolish thing when he had slayed the previously mentioned man, when he had with his staff struck him dead. He should have stomped him in the chest, as then he would have walked free as no one could have proven against him about the slaying.”
– From the journal of Petrus Laestadius for his first year of serving as Missionary in Samiland, 1831, retelling his experiences among the Sami of northern Sweden in 1827-1832.
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The second story speaks more of the construction of the spear-staff, but also briefly recounts a serious accident that happened in a fight using it.
Swedish bear hunting spears with #20-21 being Sami spear & spear staves
“One waited daily for the provincial doctor, not just for this patient, but also for another, of whose hope there was little. This was a Swedish man, who had gotten into some form of trouble with a Sami, and therewith had been struck by the latter with the spear-staff. The Sami use in wintertime, to assist them when ski walking, a thick birch staff, 4-5 ells [2.4-2.97m] long or more. This has in the end a chaped end with a spear, partially as a weapon when fighting wild beasts such as wolves and bears, but also as a means to punch through the ice to get water. For when the ice is thick, sometimes as much as 2-3 ells, it is impossible to make a hole with the axe.
From Lotten von Düben’s photos from ethnological expedition to Samiland, 1868.
This weapon is still at times dangerous, as it happens in times of anger that one uses this even against one’s wrong-doers, to give a powerful strike. The spear itself is provided with a sort of chape or sheath out of reindeer horn, also used for the skaer-skis. Some reindeer have in their foreheads a horn that extends forwards and expands, becomes wide and flat almost like a human hand. This is used as chape for the spear-staff, in the manner that the narrow end which is the closest to the reindeer’s head is hollowed as a sheath for the spear, and the flat part is cut square so that the chape becomes a small shovel which one uses to thrust loose snow that is gathered and packed under the foot as one skis and from which one has much trouble. This chape sits no tighter than that he flies loose with a strike to a tree or anything other that is hard. Then the spear comes bare. This can happen by accident, when one fights in earnest (skalastet) with these skiing staves, whereupon the weapon becomes so much more dangerous. Such an accident had happened to the Sami which is spoken hereof. He had with the spear given his wrong-doer, which laid straight forwards on the ground, a hard strike in the back of the neck, but said he had not known that the spear was bare.
– From the Continuation of Journal over Missionary Travels in Samiland, including the years 1828-1832, 1833, by the missionary priest Petrus Laestadius, retelling his experiences among the Sami of northern Sweden.
References
Laestadius Petrus (1831): Journal af Petrus Laestadius: för första året af hans tjenstgöring såsom missionaier i Lappmarken (Journal of Petrus Laestadius for his first year of serving as Missionary in Samiland), Zacharias Häggström, Stockholm. Translation by Roger Norling <http://books.google.se/books?id=B9oRAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA453>
Laestadius Petrus ( 1833): Fortsättning af Journalen öfver missions-resor i Lappmarken: Infattende även åren 1828-1832 (Continuation of Journal over Missionary Travels in Samiland, including the years 1828-1832), Henr.Gust. Nordström, Stockholm. Translation by Roger Norling <http://books.google.se/books?id=FydBAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA115&>
Photo album of Lotten von Düben, from ethnological expedition to Samiland, led by her husband Gustaf von Düben, 1868, provided by Nordiska Muséet. <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Lotten_von_D%C3%BCben>
Another later report from 1910 by Sami Johan Turi speaks of an incident that Petrus Laestadius older brother Lars Levi indirectly caused in the 1852, called the Kautokeino rebellion.
L.L Laestadius was a preacher inclined to speak of the dangers of sin and the horrors of Hell, trying to convert the heathens to Christianity. However, while he also in person could speak more of the other sides;
“And he was a harsh and dedicated preacher. He preached a harsh law and judgment and the Gospel, preaching, as it is said in the Bible, like a man fighting with a double-edged sword. And if one is not careful to strike in the same way with both edges, or at least to do so as much as one is able, then it can lead to dangers. ”
…not all his followers picked up on this and some formed their own cult that gradually became harsher and harsher “losing their minds even more” beginning to force people to joining them, travelling around the region even using violence, condemning those who didn’t join to hell, cursing, striking and mocking them, reportedly saying ““If we cannot win in any other way, then we will wage war, and we will defeat the entire world”.
It all came to a violent cataclysm with following sentences of long term imprisonment and two death sentences with executions:
“They had already threatened to start a war, but people had not believed them. But the Sámi became frightened, because they saw how they pestered those who would not join their movement. And it finally went so far in this way that some people had to pledge themselves to this movement against their wills in order to get free from their pestering. And then they had to start condemning and cursing at those unconverted people who did not go along with them
And they were lost in this fog for many years and their following grew larger and larger. And then the movement grew bigger and bigger to some fifty in number and so their leaders got into an even greater fog, so much so that they began to take upon themselves the role of executioner. And this deed of darkness occurred because the law had gone to their heads. And they started to kill the high class people first. And then it was war for real. But there were some Sámi who began to battle against them.
It was in the church village of Guovdageaidnu that they started to burn and kill people. They managed to kill a storekeeper and a constable. But a Sámi got away from them and set off for another little village named Ávži. And they started to gather together people from the nearby siiddat. And when they had gotten some people together, they all set off at once, women too. And they set out on this journey during the night. And one can well imagine that it was not pleasant to be driving toward that church village. And they arrived in the morning just as it was getting light. They tied their geldings to the outside of a fence. And they had staffs as their weapons of war.
They were the smaller contingent, yet they feared nothing except that the others might have found the shopkeeper’s rifle. And they had found it indeed, but that didn’t matter: they had to go on, regardless of whether they would be killed or not. But the question remained: who dared be the first to go in? And then the two toughest and biggest men went in. One of these men was named O.O. Thuuri, and the other was named Juffu.
And when they came in sight, the guards saw them and called out: “Here comes the army: let us set forth and we shall surely win!” And they set off running and shouting as hard as they could. And when came forward, they started clubbing their adversaries. And then the people who had sense saw that they needed to defend their lives. And so they too began clubbing in the battle. And they beat them like wolves. And they fought so that they were doing well. But they shot O.O. Thuuri. But they didn’t have any shot for the gun, only powder. He said that it had only made his coat black where they shot him. I have heard this from him many times; I am his son, and he has told all about these events countless times. And this war was war for real.
They beat some senseless, and others they tied up. And when the war was over, and they had tied the people up, they set off running to see if the minister was still alive. And when they came to the parsonage, they saw that all the windows were broken and that there was a guard at every window and that much firewood had already been gathered [for burning the place down]. And when O. Thuuri came up there, he called out in a loud voice—he had this voice that was like thunder—it startled people when he yelled suddenly. He called out:
“Is the minister still alive?”
They answered:
“He is alive, but he is tied up.”
And then he roared even more menacingly:
“Let him go, and fast, if you want things to go well with you!”
And they let him go. And then he [Thuuri] ran all over the place checking whether there was danger anywhere. And when the minister had gotten free he ran up to Thuuri and hugged him and cried out in a loud voice, thanking him for coming to save his life.
And so they had won.
Indeed one of the crazed people was killed in that battle, but the law did not hold them accountable for that.”
“A Further Account of how the Guovdageaidnu Gentry were Unable to Resist those Crazed Sámi, who Beat them and Eventually Killed them.
It had been going this way for many years with the crazed people: they would make these same threats to defeat the entire world. And the highclass people knew that they would never defeat anyone except for a few of the craziest Sámi, as indeed happened. Yet they were dangerous after all. But the Guovdageaidnu gentry didn’t believe that they would act so harshly or show them such hatred. If they had believed their threats then they would have gotten weapons ready and perhaps even had some soldiers on hand, who could have dispersed the entire mob. But they didn’t believe it in the least. And when they heard that these people had begun the war for real, and people told them to get some help, they replied that they had heard this all before, and that nothing worse or more dangerous was afoot this time. And disbelief is something that makes things come out otherwise than they might.
And when the crazed ones came to the church village called Guovdageaidnu, they were overbearing and domineering toward everyone, and toward the upper class in particular. They beat them like they were thieving dogs. And they chased the late Rude up into a hayloft and stabbed him in the shoulder and killed him there. And his blood ran down through the loft slats. And then they burned his whole house down. And then there was the other that they killed and burned! And in this way they committed these tragic deeds. And the minister they tortured so piteously that it cannot be told. They bound him and beat him so hard that he lost consciousness at times.
And when these crazed ones returned from their prison terms, they were very poor and had no reindeer at all. So they had to start working for other Sámi, although they had almost forgotten how to do Sámi work. But they had no alternative but to start again with the same work that they had learned when they were young. That came back to them the fastest. And their relatives helped, too, giving them a little something—some clothes and some food—until they could start to work and earn their own living. And some of them got married.
That minister became such a friend of Thuuri’s, that he wished to be godfather to his son. And so he did, and he was this writer’s godfather, that minister by the name of Foslet [Hvoslef].”
From Johan Turi’s “Muitalus sámiid birra” (Account of the Sami), 1910
Traditional Sami grappling similar to melee Glima and other medieval grappling.
“Their custom is to separate themselves into two companies, and attack one another by wrestling. First each company stands like a file of soldiers all along in order to confront the adverse company: then each man catches his adversary by the girdle, wherewith all Laplanders are always girt, as is elsewhere shown, (their girdle goes six times round their body, and so is fast and fits for their purpose.) so each man having caught hold, endeavors to fling the other down, which they are not allowed to attempt by craft or deceit, as by any lock or the like; Anyone that is found delinquent in this kind, is branded for a foul player, and excluded the lifts.”
– from History of Lapland, 1674
About Bure Lávra and the Stállu
When the old man called Bure Lávra was migrating with his siida east across Boldnu, there was a stállu that was living along that route. And as Lávra was migrating, that stállu tied a belled reindeer cow to some trees [to attract Lávra’s reindeer]. And when Bure Lávra heard what the stállu had done, he headed over to that place and the two of them started to wrestle. And at first, Bure Lávra broke one of the stállu’s fingers. And when the stállu wasn’t doing well, he started to bite. And Lávra forbade him, saying: “Don’t try those doggy ways with me!”
From Johan Turi’s “Muitalus sámiid birra” (Account of the Sami), 1910
More about the Kautokeino Rebellion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kautokeino_rebellion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lars_H%C3%A6tta
Also made into a movie quite recently: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0479937/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
In Kvikkjokk it happened 30 or 40 years ago that two brothers of Sirkas-Village or tribe, named Lammah, had driven a whole herd of reindeer that belonged to a rich Sami of Tuorpen Tribe called Kouno-Pannats, up into the mountain gorge and they likely intended to butcher them. Kouno missed his reindeer soon though and realized the reason for their disappearance. He gathered some men of the Tuorpen Tribe. They followed the trail and found the reindeer. But they weren’t satisfied with this: They also wanted reveng. And thus they headed for Lammah’s village.
The two Lammahs fled hastily and the others pursued them. The Lammahs separated from each other and the pursuers did the same. One of the latter, named Pettar, one of my informants, was just about to capture one of the Lammah, when he quickly turned around and struck him with his spearstaff. This blow with exposed spear, aimed at the forehead, had maybe been his death blow, had he not quickly evaded it so that only his clothes were caught and the spear went to the ground with all its force. But now came the turn to Husi. And he struck his opponent to the ground. And he didn’t finish him off because there was little life left in him. Then he went searching after Kouno. He found him dead on the ground. His head was crushed. The other Lammah had, with greater success, against him used the same grip that the first Lammah had used against Husi: Ha had struck him fully dead.
When Husi saw this, he went back to his man. He wanted to extinguish the last spark of life in him as a sacrifice to the shadow of the fallen. But the Lammah had come to his senses and had fled.
They now carried Kouno’s dead body to a Goahti (Sami tent) in a lonely place. And Husi stayed there overnight, to sort of stand guard over the body. One thought, namely, that one could hear the heart beating still, and one thought, that perhaps Kouno might live again.
That night was however a dreadful night for Husi. For he could hear people come to the Goahti and walk around it. He imagined that it was the foreigners and therefore stood up and placed himself in the middle of the Goahti at the fireplace. As I recall, he said, that they both here and there thrust their spears through the tent however without hitting him. For he stood in the middle of the space. No one, however, dared inside. When one considers Husi’s dangerous position and his quick thinking, it would likely also have cost the first that looked inside his life. – This much is certain and commonly known, that Kouno was slain in this manner, and that his slayer for a few years kept away, partly in Norway, partly in remote mountain areas, inside of the Swedish borders, but that he then turned back, but stayed among other Sami. He had also just practiced self defense, and it was thus in the interest of both parties that the thing was forgotten.
It happens even now many things in these wild and remote areas, that the Law never can find out.
– From the Last Nomads of the North, by Hans S Kaarsber, 1897, translated into English by Roger Norling (Originally told in Petri Laestadius “Fortsättning af journalen öfver missions-resor i Lappmarken”, 1833)
The fortune didn’t last in their house, those who came after being poor. But the murderous temper seemed inherited. The oldest brother’s daughter the Sami spoke of as fearful in brawls, and which she often fought with men. She was however dead, before I came to Arjeplog. Perhaps the “pot had carried water for so long that it was broken to pieces”. Her wild temper also gave cause to a manslaughter.
She came in the company of another young Sami, to Anders Enarsson Skalok’s (Fencing Master) village to separate some reindeer. There she started, per her custom, to make noise and fuss.
Skalok’s wife, who earlier had been married with her deceased uncle, incited her husband, who wasn’t really meek himself, to hit her, saying to him:
“He well has iron claws to handle us with for daily use, but to give the one who comes here barking a punch in the mouth, – that he can not!”
Thus began the game. The foreign man, to whom the blow seemed too hard, felt himself obligated to defend the woman. That cost him his life. Some blows were exchanged in the Goahti, but they had little consequence. But Skalok went out into the grounds and grabbed his staff; and when the other, who likely considered it better to fight in open ground, looked out of the Goahti, he received a blow that was partially averted by the Goahti poles, of which three were broken. But he was soon struck to the ground and although he begged for his life, he kept not a spark of life.
A yet not fully grown maid who were at the place, the murderer also wanted to strike dead. Since she was dangerous, as she had seen what had happened. She fell on here knees and prayed for her self. She wasn’t a valid witness, as she hadn’t made her [Christian] confession. This reasoning worked. The other woman lay helpless in her blood in the Goahti and she was considered unconscious, when the slaying happened, wherefore she also escaped with her life.
– From the Last Nomads of the North, by Hans S Kaarsber, 1897, translated from Norwegian into English by Roger Norling (Originally told in Petri Laestadius “Fortsättning af journalen öfver missions-resor i Lappmarken”, 1833)
Not only did the Sami tribes of northern Scandinavia use to practice the use of spear-staff and knife against man and beast, as well as grappling, but they also used to keep a red-hot rod of iron, called “Dållåbåhttså”, in their fireplace at all times, for the protection against invaders of their Goahti (“tipi”). This rod was so hot that no one could handle it with their hands and consequently magic was used to make it fly off against the enemy, to burn and strike them.
Like with so many other domestic weapons it was connected to women, as was the magic for handling them. This weapon was a highly precious heirloom, much more so than the magical drums and were never given away, unlike the drums. The knowledge of the handling of the Dållåbåhttså however, disappeared with Christianity in the 19th century.