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SAMI

Swedish enforcers burn down Sami ‘kåta’ teepee

Swedish government enforcement officers have been accused of "colonial abuse" after they burnt down a traditionally Sami ‘kåta’.

Published: 11 April 2018 16:11 CEST
Swedish enforcers burn down Sami 'kåta' teepee
Protesters raised a Sami flag in front of the burning structure. Photo: Hunting and Fishing Samis
Officers from Sweden’s Enforcement agency at lunchtime on Wednesday poured kerosene all over the structure, which is similar to a North American teepee, and then set it on fire.
 
“I feel miserable, sad and mortified all at the same time,” Anita Gimvall, the owner of the dwelling told Swedish Radio. “It's completely crazy. I’m surprised how many police have come here to get rid of me.” 
 
The destruction of the dwelling could mark the end of Gimvall’s six-year battle with the local Västerbotten County Council, who since 2010 had maintained that the kåta was an illegal new building. 
 
She claims that even though she erected a new structure in 2010, a similar dwelling had been on the site for 120 years. 
 
“I consider that I have a right to that place. My family have been there for generations,” she said, adding that she intended to return to the site one day to build a new kåta. 
 
Håkan Jonsson, chairman of the Hunting and Fishing Samis, the largest party in the Sami parliament, came to protest the destruction of the dwelling. 
 
“It's very sad and horrible for Anita, but I think this can be something good in the future,” he told The Local. “Every newspaper in Sweden and a lot of TV channels were there. So I think the Swedish government have had a pyrrhic victory. I hope so anyway.” 
 
Jonsson said that Sweden had only granted land rights to the roughly 5,000 Sami who own reindeer, and that the destruction was intended to prevent the other 15,000 staking historic claims. 
 
“They know the reindeer herders are a small group and they can give them money. But if all Sami people had the right to have their ancient places it will be 20,000 Sami people they have to negotiate with,” he said. 
 
“The Swedish government want to make an example of her, that if you try to restore Sami buildings, you will not be allowed to,” he said. I thought that in the end they would take a step back and say to Anita 'you can have your kåta'. It's unbelievable.” 
 
“A shameful day for Sweden!” the party wrote in a post showing the blaze on their Facebook page. 

SAMI

Swedish museum to return Sami remains to village

Uppsala's university museum is to return a Sami skeleton to ethnic Sami living in Arctic Lapland, following a campaign by the Sami parliament, Amnesty, and the Bishop of Luleå.

Published: 17 June 2022 08:26 CEST
Swedish museum to return Sami remains to village

The skeleton came from a Sami from the village of Arjeplog in Sweden’s northernmost Norrbotten county, who was serving a life sentence at Stockholm’s Långholmen prison when he died. The skeleton had been on display at Gustavianum, Uppsala University’s Museum. 

“The government has today decided that Uppsala University should be able to return human remains, in the form of a mounted skeleton, to the Arjeplog Sami association,” the government said in a press release.

“The university’s request has been prompted by a request from the Arjeplog Sami association requesting the repatriation of the remains. Uppsala University has determined that Arjeplog’s Sami association has a legitimate claim on the remains and that the association will be able to ensure a dignified reception.” 

Sweden’s universities and museums have been gradually returning the Sami remains and artefacts collected in the 19th and early 20th century when research institutes such as Uppsala’s State Institute for Race Biology, sought to place Sami below ethnic Swedes through studying eugenics and human genetics. 

Lund University returned Sami remains earlier this year, and in 2019, the remains of more than 25 individuals were returned by Västerbotten Museum to Gammplatsen, an old Sami meeting place on the Umeå River in southern Lapland. 

Mikael Ahlund, chief of the Uppsala University Museum, said that the skeleton was one of “about 20 to 25” that the museum had been given responsibility for in about 2010, when the university’s medical faculty was clearing out its old collections, and had never been put on display. 

He said it was “a bit unclear how these remains were collected and how they were used”. 

“It’s a complex history at the end of the 19th century, with teaching anatomy. They also had a connection to the ideology of the period, the idea of races and the different anatomy of races, so that’s the dark shadow of that period.” 

In a press release last November, Margaretha Andersson, the head of Uppsala’s Museums, said that in 1892, when the man died, there was nothing strange about prisons donating the bodies of dead prisoners to university medical departments.

“In the old days, it was not unusual that the bodies from people who died in prison were passed to the university’s medical and research departments,” she said. 

Ahlund said that the museum had always been willing to return the skeleton to the Sami association, but that there had been bureaucratic hurdles to doing so. 

“What you need to know is that we are Swedish government institution, so we can’t just repatriate them as we would like ourselves, it needs to be a decision from the government, which is what happened today.” 

He said that the skeleton would be delivered to Arjeplog “as soon as possible”. “We expect it to happen early autumn, or something like that.”

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