The Sami people are best known for their semi-nomadic reindeer herding lifestyle. Their life is organised around the reindeer migration – up into the mountains during winter and back to their community often near the coast during the summer..
Why are reindeer important to the Sami culture?
The reindeer have been a valuable resource for the Sami and it is difficult to imagine the Sami surviving without the reindeer. In traditional herding, reindeer were used for food, clothing, trade (reindeer as a form of money), and for labor. Even before reindeer herding began the Sami lived on wild reindeer..
Why are reindeer so important?
Reindeer is the only source of milk for Laplander populations in northern Scandinavia (eg, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Kola Peninsula in Russia) where no other dairy animals can survive in such cold conditions (Holand et al., 2002)..
Reindeer are thought to have first been domesticated by Arctic peoples at least 3,000 years ago (and perhaps as long as 7,000 years ago) in northern Eurasia (Lapland) and still remain the only deer species to be widely domesticated. They are used as beasts of burden and farmed for milk, meat, and their hides.
reindeer. / (ˈreɪnˌdɪə) / nounplural -deer or -deers. a large deer, Rangifer tarandus, having large branched antlers in the male and female and inhabiting the arctic regions of Greenland, Europe, and Asia.
Reindeer are an integral part of the culture in Lapland. For the indigenous Sámi people of this region, these animals have been the crux of their existence for centuries, providing transportation as well as warmth and nourishment in the challenging Arctic climate. Reindeer are well adapted to the Arctic climate.
Are reindeer antlers a symbol of regeneration?
The predominance of heads of large prime-age male individuals is probably related to the impressive antlers of these individuals, emphasizing the symbolic relationship between reindeer antlers and the regeneration of the reindeer species in the Sámi worldview (Olofsson 2010; Salmi et al
2015 )
What is the relationship between people and reindeer?
Working relationships between people and reindeer are indicative of domestication, but they are also embedded in interpersonal interspecies learning and cooperation processes and have important implications for human–reindeer relationships
What role did domesticated reindeer play in herding?
Domesticated reindeer were active participants in the constant creation of the herders’ lived-in worlds
This co-creation occurred in shared spaces and meeting places, and it constituted the daily tasks of reindeer herding
Reindeer are the only successfully semi-domesticated deer on a large scale in the world, and both wild and domestic reindeer have been an important source of food, clothing, and shelter for Arctic people throughout history and are still herded and hunted today.Reindeer are the only domesticated deer in the world. This domestication occurs in Russia, Norway, Finland, and Sweden. The animals are selectively bred for temperament, meat production, milk production, antler size, and more. They are commonly used to pull sleds or even to ride, and oftentimes become tourist attractions for this reason.Reindeer have had a long history with mankind. Dwelling in the boreal forests and tundra of the Arctic, these impressive animals have adapted to thrive in extreme cold. They are associated with Christmas legends and have pulled sleighs for nomadic peoples for thousands of years.Reindeer are perhaps most famous for their role in pulling Santa’s sleigh, but in reality, humans have been exploiting Reindeer for thousands of years. They are some of the last animals to be domesticated, and have hunted for meat and fur and used for riding and transport of goods.They are important to traditional herders such as the Sami (Lapps) of Scandinavia and Russia, who exploit them as pack and draft animals and for meat, milk, and hides; the antlers are carved into tools and totems. The herdsmen use boats to direct herds to offshore islands in summer.
Cultural significance of reindeer
Species of deer, also known as caribou
The reindeer or caribou is a species of deer with circumpolar distribution, native to Arctic, subarctic, tundra, boreal, and mountainous regions of Northern Europe, Siberia, and North America. This includes both sedentary and migratory populations. It is the only representative of the genus Rangifer. Herd size varies greatly in different geographic regions. More recent studies suggest the splitting of reindeer and caribou into six distinct species over their range.
