Sami Fisheries in the Pre-modern Era: Household Sustenance and Market Relations

Abstract

This article tries to assess the importance of fisheries within the traditional Sami household economy, where market orientation and participation in commercial fishing activities directed at selling stockfish to external partners formed an integral, strategic factor. After an introductory overview of the traditional fishing methods of the Sami, their most common types of fishing gear and the most preferred species, the article focuses on the sources that might highlight Sami fisheries from the Middle Ages and on through Early Modern times. Accounts and tax registers from the late sixteenth century show that the groups of coastal and inland Sami displayed highly different trading profiles. The coastal Sami were heavily dependent on institutionalized forms of trade, not only connected to the Hanseatic trade network with its regional centre in Bergen, but also to other merchant groups, in a way that made them able to take advantage of competition among the merchants. However, in comparison with their Norwegian cohabitants, the Sami showed a greater adaptability and capability of switching between various resource niches, and were not so fundamentally dependent on provisions from outside as the Norwegians.