Abstract
The paper discusses three phases of scratched images from the Padjelanta site of Sámi rock art in Laponia, northern Sweden. Pre-dating the middle phase of Viking Age/Medieval period sailing boats is a set of stylised anthopomorphs. These early images resemble certain petroglyphs from Alta, goddess motifs on Sami drums, and the Earth Mother figure in the Manrlajsmyths. Possible ritual contexts for the Padjelanta images are discussed, including autumn reindeer hunting, human burials, and smallscale quarrying for asbestos and soapstone. As a tentative hypothesis, a link between the early anthropomorphs and the Sami goddess Máttaráhkká is proposed.
Highlights
The paper discusses three phases of scratched images from the Padjelanta site of Sami rock art in Laponia, northern Sweden
Lrrga-h4aria Mrrll ck Tinr Bar liss-Snririr general process discussed by Thomas DuBois, "a dynamic process of religious exchange operating in the Viking Age in which individual ritual elements —and sometimes even practitioners crossed cultural and economic lines, becoming reinscribed within the world-view of the recipient community" (DuBois 1999:137).Rituals carried out by the Sami at sacrificial sites in the 11'"-14'"centuries seem to reflect their adoption of the religious symbols of outsiders, in the context of intensive fur trade contacts (Zachrisson 1987).We have discussed elsewhere alternative ways in which the sailing boats can be interpreted, as new icons to convey old symbolic ideas connected to shamanism and the afterlife (Bayliss-Smith k Mulk 1999:21-25)
Vol 9, 2VOt was regarded as part of the body of Mother Earth, and where stone artefacts that were broken were returned to the earth, to a place given the same name as the domain of the ancestors (Eidlitz Kuoljok 1999:122f).Might the cross-hatched anthropomorphs at Padjelanta have been ritual images which commemorated episodes of soapstone or asbestos quarrying?
Summary
The paper discusses three phases of scratched images from the Padjelanta site of Sami rock art in Laponia, northern Sweden. Pre-dating the middle phase of Viking Age/Medieval period sailing boats is a set of stylised anthopomorphs. These early images resemble certain petroglyphs from Alta, goddess motifs on Sami drums, and the Earth Mother figure in the Manrlajsmyths. Possible ritual contexts for the Padjelanta images are discussed, including autumn reindeer hunting, human burials, and smallscale quarrying for asbestos and soapstone. A link between the early anthropomorphs and the Sami goddess Mattarahl. Aj tte Snedislt Monntain and Sdmi Mnsetmt, Bor I I6, SE-962 23 Joklnnokl&, Sn:eden.
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