Sailing boats in Padjelanta: Sámi rock engravings from the mountains in Laponia, northern Sweden

Abstract

Six figures of boats, four of them large sailing boats, have been found scratched on an outcrop of soapstone at a site in a mountain valley at about 700m altitude in Padjelanta, northern Sweden. In addition some human figures and a harnessed reindeer are depicted. An iconic resemblance exists between aspects of the Padjelanta sailing boats (e.g. hull shape, side rudders, anchor, sails) and the larger boats used by farmers or traders in the fjords of north Norway, c. 800–1300 AD. In the Iron Age and Medieval periods, the Padjelanta region was used by the Mountain Sámi for wild reindeer hunting within an economy that became increasingly focused on the fur trade. The consequent interaction between Mountain Sámi, Coastal Sámi and the Nordic population in the outer fjords provides one context for the depiction by Sámi of these sailing boats. However, the boat figures may also have served a symbolic purpose in connection with Sámi shamanism and beliefs connected to the spirits of the dead.