Ten Perspectives of the Gáppte: Materializing Different Ways of Being Sámi

Abstract

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork among the Lulesámi, a subgroup of the indigenous Sámi of northern Fennoscandia, this article explores the relationship between indigenous identity and dress. The gáppte, traditional dress, is a central visual marker of the Sámi, yet on a personal and everyday basis this symbolism enters into dialogue, and sometimes conflict, with people’s life experiences, emotions, interests and expectations. Understandings and experiences of the gáppte are placed within a context in which the Sámi community at times is experienced as fragmented and where a history of colonialism and discrimination has left lasting imprints. As shown in the article, narrations of dress unfold how relationships that for long have been marked by oppression and discrimination raise specific forms of awareness as well as questions around what constitutes the self, and how such self can or should be expressed. Through ten different perspectives of the gáppte, the article reveals how different ways of being Sámi become negotiated and materialized through dress.

Keywords:

• dress
• Sámi
• circumpolar North
• indigenous identity
• postcolonial context

Introduction

The Sámi, indigenous population of northern Fennoscandia, is known for their colorful traditional dress; the gáppte. Once an everyday item of clothing, it is nowadays mainly worn on special occasions, such as weddings, funerals, school graduations, political meetings and music festivals. While the garment is primarily only worn on these occasions, it is, nevertheless, one of the main visual elements through which the Sámi’s distinct sociocultural identity is created, questioned and challenged. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork among the Lulesámi, a subgroup of the Sámi, in Norway, this article explores the intricate, complex and diverse ways in which clothing connects to how indigenous identity becomes understood and constructed today in light of a history marked by colonialism, discrimination and marginalization, and the more recent Sámi ‘revival’. More precisely, it demonstrates how the gáppte becomes a site in which different ways of being Sámi become negotiated and materialized.

While it is recognized that indigenous clothing practices are not bound to a static tradition (e.g., Ewart and O’Hanlon 2007), assumptions still exist around who should wear what and when. Conklin (1997), for instance, argues that the change from indigenous clothes to other articles of wear is not always considered a form of acculturation and loss of one’s distinct identity, yet it is often seen as a sign of strength or cultural pride when indigenous dress is worn. Through her work among indigenous groups in the Amazonian region, Conklin shows how people frame themselves in accordance to common stereotypes of what it means to be indigenous by wearing distinct garments in demonstrations against exploitation of their lands, to gain media attention, and to create solidarity within the group and with other indigenous groups. Although Conklin wrote her article two decades ago, there are many parallells between her work and the more contemporary situation of the Sámi. Bearing in mind that the Sámi have no state of their own, for them to assert their entitlements to speak the Lulesámi language in school or to participate in decisions regarding the land, they are, in many instances influenced, or even forced, to build upon popular ideas of indigneity. To illustrate, during my fieldwork in 2011, protests emerged when a bilingual road sign, in the Norwegian and Lulesámi languages, for the city of Bodø/Båddådjå was erected. A non-Sámi person that I spoke with, and who was against the road sign, meant that it was unnecessary as “there are barely no Sámi here anymore.” I was urged to “look around and see for myself.” What became evident through this conversation was how the road sign depended on the presence of Sámi in the area, and that presence depended, in turn, on their visibility.

Due to a garment’s visual impact and closeness to the human body—like a ‘second skin’ (Turner 2007)—it has the capacity to both include and exclude a person from a social position or group. During fieldwork, the gáppte figured centrally in personal narratives about boundaries between self and others. According to the person who was against the bilingual road sign, the Sámi were invisible, partly due to the fact that “they dress in Western clothes.” For the Lulesámi themselves narrations about the relationship between identity and dress were numerous, diverse and messy. In a conversation about why the gáppte was abandoned as an everyday item of clothing during the 1900s, Marit¹, an older woman, explained how she felt that she had to bli norsk (“become Norwegian”) by dressing in vestlige klær (“Western clothes”) in order to participate in society without fear of discrimination. At the same time, however, Marit had happily bought and worn “Western clothes” as a way of experimenting with fashion without it necessarily making her feel “less Sámi” and “more Norwegian.” Today she never wore the gáppte for reasons of comfort, yet she was sometimes criticized by other Sámi for not being “Sami enough” when, for example, attending Church service dressed in “Western clothes.” On the other hand, I heard Marit reprimand a teenager once for not having tied the belt of the gáppte in a “correct manner for the Lulesámi.” Marit’s narratives unfold various and, at times, contradictory, ways in which she experienced and negotiated dress in relation to factors such as personal life experiences, emotions, governmental policies, fashion trends, sensory experiences, and definitions of what it means to be Lulesámi.

The gáppte is an important visual symbol for the Sámi, both for creating belonging to a group and for manifesting a unique identity in relation to others. On an everyday basis, however, this symbolic use enters into dialogue, and sometimes conflict, with people’s subjectivities, life experiences, emotions, interests and expectations. Åhren (2008) writes, in her study “Am I a real Sámi?”, that debates and anxieties emerge among some Sámi when the Sámi community is experienced as fragmented and aspects or boundaries of what constitutes the self in relation to others are intangible, multiple and/or unstable. This instability seems to become further heightened as it is placed in the context of lasting imprints and present traces of the Sámi’s colonial past. As shown in the ethnographic material below, narrations of dress unfold how relationships that for long have been marked by oppression and discrimination raise specific forms of awareness and questions around what constitutes the self, and how such self can or should be expressed today.

The pages that follow are organized as a collage of ten overlapping perspectives, or snapshots, through which I explore the changes and continuities of the gáppte, how the garment has been complemented and replaced by other items of clothing, and a range of different experiences related to clothing. The narratives address the salience of clothes in the lives of some Lulesámi women and men, and its role for negotiating and defining contemporary Sámi identity. Happenings from other Sámi areas and a poem are also included amongst these voices to further show different ways of being Sámi today in relation to dress. First, I provide an overview and discussion of the gáppte, a brief note on the colonial history in the north and my methodology.

The gáppte

The Lulesámi gáppte consists of a dress sewn from woolen cloth; sliehppa (a “dickey” and gahper (a hat sewn from woolen cloth and decorated with pewter embroidery); avve (a woven belt); låhtåt (finger-woven) vuoddaga (shoe bands); and gábmaga (leather shoes). Originally, the gáppte was an everyday item of summer clothing and it was made to fit the Sámi’s way of life and the climatic conditions of the circumpolar north. As an example, the dress was made with a loose fit around the torso and wide-cut armpits. This kind of tailoring allows air to circulate inside the garment and helps regulate the body temperature of the dressed person. Looseness also facilitates flexibility and ease of movement, which were important aspects of the dress when it was worn on a daily basis and used to work in (cf. Svensson 1992; Guttorm 2006). Today, the gáppte is no longer worn in daily life, but on special occasions such as weddings, concerts and political meetings. As a consequence of its changing use, the garment is sometimes made with a tighter fit, yet its basic pieces, cut and design have remained relatively similar over time.

Apart from being functional clothing, the gáppte is also a “non-verbal form of communication” (Svensson 1992, 62; cf. Barnes and Eicher 1992). The visual aspects of the dress have the ability to display gender differences, economic wealth, religious beliefs as well as long-term and durational belonging to a specific community that is strongly tied to geographical location and kinship. While the gáppte has come to bear resemblances across Sápmi -the land of the Sámi- through people’s movements over the land, trade and intermarriages, each region also has its own, or several, distinguishing garments². These regional dissimilarities are seen in the differences of the gáppte’s tailoring, types of belts, decorations, designs of hats and additional accessories³. Skills of the garment’s making have been reproduced between generations, mainly among women who have made the gáppte for their family members and more distant kin. Consequently, the gáppte also strengthens family bonds and work as a key social fabric (Gustafsson 2019).

Although the gáppte’s use has transformed over time, it is continuously pictured in images of the Sámi and one of the main visual markers associated with their self-identification and distinct way of life in relation to other people. The colorful dress is portrayed in watercolor portraits by, for instance, the Scottish author and folklorist John Francis Campbell (1821–1885) and in chiaroscuro oil paintings by the Swedish artist Johan Fredrik Höckert (1826–1866). It is also captured by the camera lenses of Prince Roland Bonaparte (1858–1924), a honary fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute, and by the Swedish photographer Borg Mesch (1869–1956). Nowadays, the garment is seen in photographs taken at political meetings in the Sámi Parliament as well as on postcards. It is also the dress of souvenir dolls and illustrated in tourist brochures.

Looking at the literature, the gáppte is mentioned in the earliest scholarly works on the Sámi by the German-Swedish humanist Schefferus (1673) and the Norwegian priest and linguist Leem (1767) as a defining element of the Sámi lifestyle. This view is reproduced in the many monographs written in the Sámi, Scandinavian and English languages from the end of the 1800s and up until today (e.g., Düben 1873; Turi 1917 [1910]; Vorren and Manker 1957; Kjellström 2000). During the last few decades, several authors have also made important contributions to the understanding of the gáppte by concentrating on documenting its regional variations and transformations over time (e.g., Ågren 1977; Nilsson 1981; Svensson 1992; Jannok-Porsbo 1988; Aira et al. 1995; Guttorm 2006). Hjortfors (1999) and Mikkelsen (2006) focus exclusively on describing the changes and continuities of the gáppte worn in the Norwegian Lulesámi area. While much is written about the dress, such as its symbolic aspects, regional variations and changes through time, less is known of the diverse and contemporary personal and everyday experiences of the garment.

A brief note of the colonial history

In order to contextualize the ethnographic material below it is important to have an understanding of the colonial history in northern Norway. The Sámi have throughout history been subjected to various forms of oppression and control by the State and Church (see e.g., Eidheim 1971; Gaski 1997). This governing intensified from the mid-1800s with the growth of nationalism in Norway⁴. Influenced by Social Darwinism, Norwegian authorities viewed the Sámi as an inferior and backward people and considered them and their ways of living to ill fit the building of a “modern” nation. Little by little, the Sámi’s existence was undermined. Between 1889 and 1959 Norwegian law stated that all school education should be held in Norwegian and prohibited the use of Sámi languages in the classroom (Gjessing 1973, 104). Sámi history was also expunged from the school curriculum. The state’s assimilation policy, called fornorskning (“Norwegianisation”), was employed from around the mid-1800s up until late-1900s.

Today the Sámi are recognized as a minority population of Norway and they have a certain degree of political autonomy, which is articulated through the publicly elected Sámi Parliament, an institution that was established in 1989. Nevertheless, they still struggle for their rights and presence after years of Norwegianisation; something that, for instance, becomes illustrated in discussions around the bilingual road sign for Bodø/Båddådjå.

Method

This article draws on ethnographic fieldwork among Lulesámi villagers in Drag/Ájluokta, a North Norwegian village. The fieldwork was done as part of my doctoral studies in which I aimed to explore the significance of women’s unpaid craft production. The Lulesámi women that I came to know predominantly made the gáppte, and the everyday experiences of both making and wearing the dress became central to my research. While I have written about the making of the gáppte elsewhere (Gustafsson 2019), this article focuses on various attitudes toward the garment and ways in which identity and belonging is understood and negotiated through the dress. Fieldwork was primarily carried out for 12 months between 2010 and 2011, and the ethnographic material of this paper was generated during this time period.

Ájluokta has around 900 inhabitants, and around half of them consider themselves to be Lulesámi. The village is located on the outer shores of a fjord that stretches almost all the way to the Swedish border. In contrast to popular perceptions of the Sámi as reindeer-herders, the Lulesámi in Ájluokta have, historically, sustained themselves on fishing, hunting, gathering, forestry, small-scale farming and seasonal labor. Today, the large majority have taken up waged labor as, for instance, teachers, engineers, researchers and janitors.

I agree with Hendrickson (1995) who writes, in a study of Mayan dress, that it is not easy to gain an understanding of how people perceive clothing or choose to dress through formal interviews and surveys. As Hendrickson (1995: 29) writes, information [about clothing] does not exist in an institutionalized, codified form and does not present itself as neat, prepared ‘facts’.” During fieldwork, narratives of the gáppte emerged in everyday conversations and through stories about past experiences and relationships. The narratives emerged, for the most part, spontaneously while drinking coffee, making handicraft, walking in the mountains or cooking. At other times, I asked more explicitly about its designs and uses. Importantly, narratives about the gáppte or a person’s life history did not exist “out there” (Hoskins 1998, 1). They were told in dialogues that were influenced by the tellers as well as my own interests, questions and expectations. Of significance is also that I was a non-Sámi researcher in an environment where research to a large extent is associated with colonialism. However, it was also a place where people wished for more research to be made about issues around their craftsmanship and, as such, my work was welcomed as well as, at times, questioned in parallell. Although it has been my aim to foreground the research participants’ own perspectives, it is important to keep in mind the context of how they have been collected, selected and edited. It is also worth mentioning that the stories presented here do not provide an exclusive view of the Lulesámi’s choices about what to wear, but glimpses of the multifaceted ways in which such decisions are made, the factors that influence them and their emotional, social and political consequences.

To the the Factory

One day during fieldwork I went to visit Jonas, a middle-aged man, in his house to chat over a cup of coffee. I had just returned from Gásluokta, a village across the fjord from Ájluokta, where I had gone with a woman to visit her elderly mother. When I told Jonas about the trip, it prompted him to recount that many Lulesámi moved from their original settlements around the inner fjords to take up employment in Gásluokta’s cement factory during the postwar years. After the end of the Second World War, the demand for cement increased and, as a consequence, the cement factory, which had been established in 1918, expanded their business.

Jonas recollected how his uncle had taken a job at the factory in the 1960s. “It was a job that guaranteed an income, but it also required a change of lifestyle,” he said. When I asked what he meant, Jonas explained:

Well, even if it was not self-evident for people to always have food on the table in the past, they lived more freely. It was of course hard to sustain a family, but everyone was their own boss and could decide over their own work much more than they could at the factory. To work at the factory was a 9 to 5 job, under the supervision of a manger, and you had to speak the Norwegian language and wear ‘Western clothes’. For sure people wouldn’t have been allowed to enter the factory dressed in the gáppte!

“Was it first when people moved to the villages around the outer fjords that they stopped making and wearing the gáppte?” I asked when Jonas stopped. In response, he smiled and said that people had experienced discrimination also when they lived in the inner fjord settlements from tourists and at school. “I didn’t have so many problems in school myself,” Jonas said, “my mother sewed trousers and knitted jumpers for us and she had always spoken both the Lulesámi and Norwegian languages with my siblings and me.” Jonas quieted and looked sad. When he continued, it was with a lowered voice:

Other children came to school dressed in the gáppte without understanding a word of Norwegian… and the majority of teachers came from southern Norway and they didn’t know anything about the Sámi. Now afterwards many Sámi say that they felt stupid at school as they looked different and didn’t understand what the teachers said. Sometimes they also received jeering comments from their peers. Not all teachers were so understanding either… and for other teachers it was probably hard, what could they do when the children didn’t understand them?

Jonas highlighted that it was not always the case that people would actually say negative things about the Sámi out loud, but that the Sámi realized that they had to wear clothes other than the gáppte and to speak Norwegian to get a job and manage to go through the educational system.

Briggs (1997, 228) argues, in a study among the Utku of Canada, that previous ways of doing things for “living comfortably” became, with the growing contact with non-Utku, “emblems,” or emotionally charged markers, that were used as “mirrors” to understand and distinguish oneself from others. Likewise, Jonas emphasized that the Lulesámi became aware of what the differentiating elements were between them and the non-Sámi population through which projections of inferiority could be channeled. Phrased differently, people became attentive to their positions within the world and of how they were perceived by others. The gáppte, which had been a practical daily garment, became an evident visual indication of the difference between Sámi and non-Sámi people. Jonas described how many Lulesámi started feeling sartorial alienation and, as a result, strategically stopped wearing the gáppte⁵.

As we continued talking, Jonas said that the Lulesámi stopped wearing the gáppte to avoid emotional distress, but that, in the process, they also experienced a loss of autonomy; of being able to choose how to live without fear of discrimination. Jonas explained that many Lulesámi started feeling ashamed and lost self-confidence in who they were and from where they came.

A Poem

«gáppte l nav vasste» tjullá rivggo gáptev la njágadam vuossaj gå ittjiij ielve slippsa ja låtteappte tjáppa båvså gehtja lik skuovajt rivggo jávlla l tjáppak gå la laden

«the gáppte is so ugly» says his non-Sámi woman he hid the gáppte in the bag when she did not like it tie and suit nice trousers his non-Sámi woman says he’s handsome when he dresses like a Norwegian man

Written by the Lulesámi poet Stig Gælok (1988, author’s translation into English)

The Sámi Who “Vanished”

Once as I was out walking with Petra, a Lulesámi woman approaching her mid-40s, and as we passed a house in the village, she whispered, even though no one was around and could hear us, “The people who live there are fornorskade samer (Norwegianised Sámi).” “What do you mean?” I asked, whispering back. Petra explained:

Elders have told me that the woman’s parents dressed in the gáppte, but then they laddeluvvat (Norwegianised) themselves, like many did after the war. The woman grew up as a ‘Norwegian’. To the contrary of many people who became Sámi again, she and her husband never did. I told her once that she’s Sámi, but she denied it and said that I didn’t know what I was talking about.

After a while Petra added “The gábmaga (traditional Sámi shoes for the gáppte) were thrown in the sea and when people did that, they became Norwegians.”

Apart from using dress as a marker for how identity can be constructed, Petra also said that ‘Norwegianised Sámi’ are “the ones who are most critical of the Sámi presence here in Ájluokta.” When I curiously asked why this might be the case, she shrugged her shoulders and answered, “They are scared I guess… and they still suffer from a minority complex and are ashamed of their past. That’s why they don’t want to see anything around them that reminds them of their Sámi background.”

At the same time as Petra remarked on the fact that the “Norwegianised Sámi” were critical of the Sámi, she herself seemed resentful toward those who rejected their Sámi identity. This resentful attitude toward those who Norwegianised themselves emerged in several conversations with Petra. It was as if she felt a kind of betrayal as they criticized and rejected the Sámi community.

“They are full of shame and don’t stand up for who they are” she added as we continued to walk along the road.

In Front of the Mirror

Inger, a woman in her early 40s, was born and brought up in Ájluokta. She rarely spoke at great length of her upbringing, but I knew that, although she regularly makes the gáppte nowadays, she had not worn or learnt to make the garment as a child. On one occasion toward the end of summer I was, however, rather surprised as she suddenly opened up and spoke of some memories from her teenage years. Her recollection was prompted by the confession of May-Britt, a woman of the same age, who now had decided she wanted to wear the gáppte for the first time. May-Britt said that she had never been allowed to wear the gáppte by her parents as they had worried she might be bullied by her non-Sámi peers in school. May-Britt uttered a short and rather sad laugh and said that she instead had been teased by some of the Lulesámi children who had worn the gáppte. “They shouted at me a few times that I wasn’t an ekte same (‘real Sámi’) because I never wore the gáppte and couldn’t speak the Lulesámi language,” May-Britt recounted. She went on to describe how she had felt uncomfortable with the thought of wearing the garment even as an adult as she still wanted to live up to the wishes of her parents, who until they died only a few years back had not wanted her to wear it. On the other hand, she also felt uneasy about not wearing the gáppte as she felt that some Lulesámi villagers expected that she should wear it.

However, now, May-Britt felt that she wanted to wear the garment at her son’s confirmation ceremony the following year to manifest a tie between him and herself. Inger, who seemed to identify with May-Britt’s story, said:

It was the same for me and my sister. We were not allowed to wear the gáppte by our parents. I remember that we used to sneak in to the neighbour’s house to look at the gáppte that hung in her wardrobe. She was a very kind woman and sometimes she let us try it on. The dress was much too big for us of course, but we stood in front of the mirror and thought that we looked so beautiful! I can’t remember that we ever thought about if the garment was Sámi or not, or why we weren’t allowed to wear it… for us it was just a beautiful dress. Then as we got older we decided to attend a course in making the gáppte. At first my parents were not so happy about it, but they accepted our decision and after a while my mother became interested as well. Today she and I sit and make the garment together!

At another occasion, when I asked Inger’s mother if her children had worn the gáppte when they were small she said:

No, they didn’t. At that time everyone wore ‘Western’ clothes. They also didn’t learn how to make handicraft. There wasn’t any need for them to learn. My children were busy, when they finished school in the afternoon they had to do their homework and after they graduated all of them went into further education. Today they all have good jobs! I learnt to make handicraft when I grew up because I had to for running the family and my children had to learn other things so they got jobs. It’s as simple as that!

She stopped and looked out the window on the light snowfall. Then she turned to me and said, with a somewhat saddened voice:

Sometimes my children have been angry and questioned me why they didn’t learn to make the gáppte. I tell them that the times were different then. We Sámi thought that we had to become Norwegians to come up and forwards in the world.

A moment of silence passed and we both looked out at the snow. Then, she said, with a sense of pride, “But when my children became adults they learnt to make the gáppte and all my children wear the garment nowadays on special occasions. Who would have thought that thirty or forty years ago?”

The Áltá-affair

From the 1980s there was a renewed interest in wearing the gáppte among the Lulesámi. When I asked villagers how this renewed interest came about, they often referred to the Sámi political movement and, especially, the Áltá-affair. As a reaction toward the increasing state discrimination against the Sámi, an ethno-political movement progressively grew throughout Sápmi from the 1960s. Several Sámi organizations were established and, at the center stage, a few Sámi vanguards claimed that they had been disposed of their heritage. Previous to this time, Eidheim (1997) argues, there had been little organized political unity among the Sámi across the north. Instead, people had mainly identified themselves with smaller kinship grops. However, after the end of the Second World War, the belonging to a family became complemented and extended with a Sámi national identity (Eidheim 1997)⁶.

In relation to the unification that took place, Eidheim argues that “the appropriation of an ethnic collective identity, selfhood or people, implies a collectivization of conceptions and images which makes it possible continually to reinvent this selfhood in a more complex life-world” (Eidheim (1997, 42). According to Eidheim, this “collectivization” was created through a repertoire of symbols and specific practices that distinguished the Sámi as having a distinct “culture” in relation to the majority population⁷. The defining markers of such culture were adopted from a combination of previous scholarly works on the Sámi, nationalist ideas and other elements that are of specific salience for the Sámi people themselves. In 1986 at the Nordic Sámi Conference, a Sámi national anthem, day (6/2) and flag were inaugurated. Some scholars call this Sámi movement the “Sámi Renaissance” (e.g., Lehtola 2004, 9).

The gáppte also saw its revival at the time of “Sámi Renaissance” and it was frequently worn by political activists to display unity among the Sámi and distinctiveness to other people. From having been regarded as a marker of the Sámi’s inferiority within the state, the garment became invested with pride and indicated a rejection of the colonial power’s enforcing values.

An important landmark in the Sámi political struggle is the demonstrations that took place throughout Norway between 1968 and 1982 in relation to the state’s planning and construction of a dam in the Áltá-Kautokeino waterways (see Paine 1982 for a detailed analysis). During these protests, Eidheim (1997) writes that the gáppte-dressed body became a common sight in national and international media. The garment was visible during the Sámi activists’ hunger strike outside the Norwegian Parliament building in Oslo in 1979 and when the police forcefully removed peaceful demonstrators around the dam’s building site in 1981. The stream of images from these events raised awareness of the Sámi people’s marginal position within the state. Many people who had grown up or raised their children as “Norwegians” became conscious of their Sámi background and started questioning their sense of self. The famous Sámi musician Mari Boine was unwilling to recognize her Sámi background as a young adult. In an interview uploaded on youtube by Freemuse⁸ from 2008, Boine says that the information in the media during the time of the Áltá-affair made her “realize that I and many other Sámis were like brainwashed to hate our own background, our own language… (sic).”

Although the dam was built, the conflict marked an important political step and turning-point for the Sámi. In the 1980s the Sámi were recognized as an indigenous people of Norway and the government declared to treat Sámi and non-Sámi citizens equally. Many Lulesámi villagers recounted that they felt a sense of pride and growing self-confidence in being Sámi at this time. One female elder said that it was first after the Áltá-affair that she could wear the gáppte again without feeling any shame.

Nylon Tights and the Peaked Cap

On another occasion when I met Jonas, and we started talking about my research, he said that I should be aware that the Lulesámi did not only replace the gáppte with “Western clothes” as a form of acculturation due to the Norwegianisation. Other kinds of clothing were also adopted, according to Jonas, for practical, economic and esthetic reasons.

One such example was nylon tights. Jonas shook his head and said, tongue in cheek, that he never understood the value of the tights himself, but that he remembered that his mother had told him how much she appreciated them when they were introduced in the north. Similarly, Ellen once amusingly described, “When the nylon tights came all women around the fjords ran over the mountains to get hold of them! No longer did we have to wear wool all the time and the tights covered our legs so that the men did not have to see all our blemishes, bruises and cellulites!” I took a liking to the surreal picture of seeing numerous women running over the high mountains just to buy tights to look beautiful for the men, and joined Ellen in a joyful laughter.

Returning back to Jonas’s house, he said, in relation to our conversation of decisions of what to wear, “I’ve also read somewhere about this… I’ll see if I can find it and make a copy for you.” The next time we met, a couple of days later, Jonas handed me a copy of a few pages from the Swedish writer Forsslund’s ethnographic work Som gäst hos fjällfolket (Guest of the mountain people) (1911 [1914]). Jonas had underlined a paragraph in the copy and I read with interest how Forsslund, during his travels within the Norwegian and Swedish Lulesámi area, noticed that some men had replaced the gahper with a peaked cap. When Forsslund asked a man why he had changed his headwear, the man pragmatically answered, “the peak protects well against the sun in spring” (1911 [1914]: 24; cf. Svensson 1992, 65).

The “Sámi Suit” and the Norwegian Crown Prince

Although new kinds of clothing were introduced and worn among the Lulesámi throughout the 1900s, people did not merely start dressing like the non-Sámi population. Rather, the villagers selected some new garments and appropriated them into their lives in their own ways. One kind of clothing that was adopted by the men throughout the 1900s was the suit, which they wore on special occasions like church mass, weddings and funerals. The Lulesámi men who started wearing the suit asserted their own philosophy in the garment by rejecting the tie, which many non-Sámi men wore. This elimination was associated by the villagers with Laestadianism, the main religion in the area⁹. The religion emphasizes and distinguishes between verden (world) and the andelige (spiritual) spheres of life. At the religious gatherings, the preachers often stressed that a good Christian should seek to avoid verdslige fristelser (worldly temptations) that can disturb peaceful and egalitarian social relations. This includes keeping a distance from alcohol, rhythmic music and dance. The congregation also stressed equality among its members by not visibly displaying wealth or vanity through excessive bodily decorations, like jewelry or the tie.

Andersen (2007) writes that the distinction between the world and the spiritual realm, in Laestadius’s preaching, originally indicated a difference between a Christian and a non-Christian way of living. However, in Ájluokta, Andersen says that the distinction also came to manifest a difference between the Sámi and non-Sámi at the turn of the century and up to around the 1970s. The sinful world became synonymous with the non-Christian and non-Sámi, while the spiritual realm was associated with a Sámi and Christian way of life. Although the suit was adopted from the non-Sámi population, it also came to reinforce and express a difference between the Lulesámi and non-Sámi, and the Sámi people’s resistance against mainstream society.

It is not only Lulesámi who adopt and transform new types of clothing. The Lulesámi’s ways of dressing also influence others. One story that can illustrate such a statement was told to me numerous times by the villagers. The story is about when the Norwegian Crown Prince Haakon visited Måsske a few years ago. For the occasion a lávvu (temporary tent-like dwelling) had been raised and inside the Crown Prince was offered food and coffee while listening to stories told by the residents about their lives. Among the narrations, the Crown Prince was told that the Lulesámi do not wear a tie with their suits as they associate this with vanity. Upon hearing this, the Crown Prince had asked if it was appropriate for him to take off his tie. The residents had answered that this was ok and when the Prince stepped out of the lávvu, his tie lay in the pocket of his suit jacket. According to the hamlet’s numerous storytellers, the Crown Prince’s asking for permission to follow their local practices and then appropriating his own way of dressing to such practices were acts of respect toward the Lulesámi.

The Kiwi-gáppte

Although the Norwegian Crown Prince’s act of putting his tie in the pocket of the suit was considered respectful, as he followed the residents’ ways of dressing, it is not generally seen deferential for a non-Sámi person to wear the gáppte. According to the majority of the villagers, a person only has the moral right to wear the gáppte of her or his mother, father and spouse. The reason for this is that the garment manifests a person’s sense of self as Sámi and her or his relations to others.

One event through which I came to learn about what the Lulesámi thought and felt about when non-Sámi persons wore the gáppte took place on an early September day when I was sitting eating lunch in the staff room at Árran; a cultural center. On the front pages of two North-Norwegian newspapers that lay on the table were photographs of a crowd of people wearing neon-green garments resembling the gáppte worn in Kauotokeino/Guodageaidnu. I read that over 600 staff members from the Norwegian discount supermarket chain Kiwi had gathered from all over the country just outside Tromsø/Romsa for a company party. For the occasion, which had a Sámi theme, the management team had provided each employee with a neon-green version of the gáppte. The outfit, which the managers argue was a “funny and innocent” element of the festivity, met, however, with strong reactions. During the following days the event topped the headlines of newspapers and radio broadcastings in the north. Public comments on online newspaper websites and Facebook reached thousands.

That day at Árran, I was interrupted in my reading by Maria, a middle-aged woman. She stated with an angry and also sad voice that the neon-green gáppte was a disgrace and that this happening was something I had to add to my research. According to her, the garment was a tulle-kofte (masquerade dress). What became known as the “Kiwi-gáppte” had, from Maria’s point of view, an ugly color that was not typical for the Sámi. It was also wrongly gendered as both women and men wore a garment tailored for men. More so, it had been cheaply manufactured in China. Maria said that the gáppte should only be made and worn by the Sámi. In her opinion, it was an offense that the garment had been transformed into a masquerade dress, made and worn by non-Sámi people, as it for her creates and displays ties of belonging and affiliation to the Sámi community.

Maria’s critique of the Kiwi-gáppte agreed with the reaction of the Sámi music band Ádjágas that had been booked to play at the party, but canceled upon seeing how the staff members were dressed. Ádjágas lead singer explained their cancelation to a newspaper as follows: “We feel this (the Kiwi-gáppte) is an insult to us personally and also a mockery toward the entire Sámi population” (Pellicer 2010, author’s translation).

Unlike Maria and Ádjágas, the Sámi designer Anne Berit Anti was positive about the Kiwi-gáppte. In an interview with NRK Sápmi, she says, “The color was really cool and I see great potential in this garment. I’m a proud Sámi.” (Manndal and Somby 2010, author’s translation). Maria read out a similar comment made by Anti aloud from one of the newspapers, turned to Ole, a man in his mid-20s who sat opposite her at the table, and asked, “Don’t you think it’s awful?” Ole shrugged his shoulders and said that he did not really care about how they had dressed. “It might be inappropriate,” he said, “but everyone is free to do what they want and we (Sámi) also need to have some self-irony and not take these things too seriously.” I could sense Maria’s anger intensifying as she responded, “Imagine if we Sámi were to travel down to South Africa and see some traditional clothing there that we ask some industry in China to produce cheaply for us! Then we wear it, sing their songs and dance their dances!” She took a deep breath before furiously adding, “We just wouldn’t do that! It’s about respect!” She then looked over at Ole, who I saw just shrugged his shoulders again and did not seem very interested in discussing the topic any further.

A Tourist Attraction

Ingrid, one of Ájluokta’s skillful craft-makers, frequently wore the gáppte on special occasions such as confirmation, school graduations and weddings. However, she avoided wearing the garment in places with a lot of non-Sámi people outside the village. One such occasion was the annual winter market in Jåhkåmåhkke/Jokkmokk. Although many Sámi wear the gáppte on this occasion, Ingrid said that she does not feel comfortable wearing it there. She described how she had worn the garment a couple of times at the market, but that she always felt a great ubehag (discomfort) when tourists wanted to photograph her. “It makes me feel like I’m some kind of turistattraksjon (tourist attraction)!” she said. To avoid such feelings and being the object of the camera lens, Ingrid now seldom wears the gáppte when going to Jåhkåmåhkke during the market days. She knows that wearing jeans and a down jacket will not attract any unwanted attention and, consequently, she feels more at ease. I responded by saying that it is unfortunate that she cannot dress the way she wants without feeling uncomfortable. Ingrid nodded in agreement, but also sympathetically highlighted, “Well I guess we Sámi also think other people’s ways of living is eksotisk (exotic) when we go on holidays.”

Contemporary Complementary Clothing

Once, in November 2010, I visited Elise, a Lulesámi woman living in Båddådjå, to attend a concert with a well-known Sámi musician. As we got dressed and ready to go out, Elise combined a purple dress with her gábmaga. The vuoddaga that she wrapped around their shafts had the main colors of red, yellow and purple, and as such they fitted in well with the color of her dress. As Elise tied the vuoddaga, she wryly said, “Other people have to see that I’m Sámi when we go out, don’t they?”

Anja, who is from Ájluokta, but now lives in Båddådjå was also at the concert. She wore a black top and a skirt made with a woolen fabric in the same kind of royal blue that the gáppte often is. Close to the bottom edge of the skirt were two thin parallel bands of cloth, one in red and one in green. The next day, over breakfast, when Elise and I spoke of the last night’s happenings, I said that I liked Anja’s skirt. Elise told me that the skirt was what they call skirtto (Sámi-inspired clothing). “It’s the kind of clothing we wear in our daily life when we don’t want to wear the gáppte, but we still want to look Sámi.” Elise said that Sámi-inspired clothing has become popular during the last years. It can be any kind of garments, from skirts, dresses and jackets, that are made to resemble the gáppte, but with simpler tailoring and different decorations. Elise showed me a Sámi-inspired jacket that she had and added that also non-Sámi persons can wear skirtto.

In addition to combining pieces of the gáppte with other kinds of clothing or wearing skirtto, Elise’s wardrobe offered a wide variety of sartorial possibilities and sometimes playful options for visually expressing, manifesting or contesting her sense of self and relationships to others. She often wore accessories associated with the Sámi with “Western clothes.” This included putting a pin of the Sámi flag on her coat or slinging handbag made with reindeer skin and decorated with pewter-embroidery over her shoulder. Sometimes Elise also enjoyed creating comic impressions and challenging common stereotypes of the Sámi through her clothes. A few years back she had bought a black t-shirt with a reindeer print at the market in Jåhkåmåhkke. Elise told me that she had worn the t-shirt once when a brusque and know-all non-Sámi woman had asked her how many reindeer she, as a Sámi, had. Elise smiled when recounting the incident and said that she had provocatively answered by pointing to the print on her t-shirt and remarked that these were the only reindeer that she owned. She said that many non-Sámi people think all Sámi tend reindeer, but highlighted with a sense of irony that she barely can tell the difference between the front and the back of the animal. “How did the woman react?” I curiously asked. “My answer silenced her,” Elise proudly said. After this incident, Elise had started wearing the t-shirt more regularly and she often employed the allegory that these were her reindeer in conversations with non-Sámi people62. Elise was fond of the t-shirt and said it had come to express a level of self-irony while also being thought-provoking and challenging one of the most common stereotypes of the Sámi.

Dress and Identity: Different Ways of Being Sámi

This article explores how Lulesámi identity is created through dress. It moves beyond stereotypes and singular images of Sámi identity by demonstrating how multiple ways of being Sámi are rendered visible and negotiated through narratives about the gáppte. Although the state’s assimilation policies officially are said to be over, narratives of the gáppte shows how past experiences of colonialism, discrimination and marginalization are ever-present and materially manifested in a complex relationship between dress and identity. The narratives also show how the gáppte is used to create belonging to a community, as a way of self-expression, to define oneself and others, to feel comfortable and beautiful, and to challenge stereotypes. During fieldwork, the dress stood out as a key material site for introspection and reflection.

Jonas describes how many Lulesámi stopped wearing the gáppte in favor of “Western clothes” when moving to the areas around the outer fjords and with the increasing contact with non-Sámi and governmental authorities during the years following the Second World War. At this time, many associated the gáppte with the Sámi’s inferior position in relation to the majority of the population. Consequently, the gáppte was by and large rejected as an everyday item of clothing. As shown in the narratives, this change of daily clothing was experienced in various ways among the villagers. Some perceived themselves as becoming “Norwegians,” or what Petra calls “Norwegianised Sámi,” when ceasing to wear the garment. Others viewed the change of clothing as a strategic choice to manage relations with others and to avoid hostility. Jonas highlights, however, that many experienced a loss of confidence in themselves and their background when they could no longer choose what to wear without the risk of feeling discriminated.

The pressures around what to wear have not only originated from non-Sámi people. In the case of May-Britt it is revealed that Lulesámi people also have certain expectations of what it means to be and look Sámi. Although May-Britt’s rejection of the gáppte might have prevented her from not being bullied by non-Sámi people, she was made to feel that she was not a “real Sámi” by some of the Lulesámi who considered the garment to be an integral element of their identity.

However, as much as it gives too simplified a picture to regard the pressure of what to wear only to be a result of the Lulesámi’s relationships with non-Sámi, not everyone perceives the change of clothing as being influenced by other people’s perceptions and expectations. While Gælok writes about how a Sámi man ceases to wear the gáppte in order to meet his non-Sámi woman’s idea of beauty, Ellen, on the other hand, says that she adopted nylon tights with great enthusiasm to look beautiful for the men as well as for reasons of practicality and comfort. Many exogenous items of clothing have also been incorporated in the Lulesámi’s wardrobes on their own terms, such as the rejection of wearing a tie with the suit.

At the same time as the Lulesámi are influenced by non-Sámi clothing, their means of dressing also influence others in diverse ways and with different reactions. Prince Haakon’s decision to take off his tie during a visit in Måsske was seen as a sign of respect toward the local practices by the villagers. However, if a non-Sámi person wore the gáppte this would be considered disrespectful by the majority of the Lulesámi, as the garment manifests a particular sense of self and belonging within the Sámi community.

On many occasions, the gáppte became like a double-edged sword with the capacity for both constructive and destructive impacts on, and consequences, for people’s lives and well-being. Today the gáppte is one significant visual element for establishing and maintaining relations among people. It is also important in the Sámi’s struggle for political recognition within the state. While the garment has played a significant role within the Sámi people’s movement and helped restore a sense of pride and confidence in their distinct way of life, it can also risk reproducing certain stereotypes and cause anxieties of what it means to be Sámi.

Nowadays, people might no longer reject the gáppte to avoid hostility, yet Ingrid strategically chooses not to wear the garment among non-Sámi in order to escape unwanted attention. Elise, on the other hand, often chooses to wear the gáppte, skirtto or to combining specific “Sámi accessories” with “Western clothes” among Sámi and non-Sámi people to express and display her Sámi sense of self. Elise also enjoyed challenging and offsetting the common assumption of viewing the Sámi as reindeer-tenders through her clothing. By pointing to the printed reindeer on her t-shirt, Elise explained to the non-Sámi people who she met that those were the only reindeer that she owned.

Through the Lulesámi’s narrations, clothing transformations cannot be considered as mere acculturation nor can they be interpreted only as a strategic tool for shifting perspective or asserting specific political claims. Rather, the villagers oscillate their perceptions in relation to changing life conditions and their emotional states of being, in which Norwegianisation is one important factor among others, such as playful, beautifying and practical transformations.

Concluding Remarks

Specific emblems are salient for local identities, and dress is particularly powerful due to its immediate visual impact. In the context of the influence of majority societies and nation-states, dress are used to define, create and negotiate boundaries between self and others. At the same time as clothing practices are changing, its strong visual symbolism creates expectations around who can or should wear what. As Conklin (1997) shows, indigenous clothing is often considered a marker of strength and cultural pride while its loss is seen as acculturation or loss of one’s identity. Indigenous people who wear traditional clothing are, according to Conklin, seen to represent their communities more than others.

In the beginning of this paper I recounted a conversation with a non-Sámi person who was against the erection of a bilingual road sign and argued that “no Sámi persons live in the area” due to their “invisibility.” On the one hand the person’s attitude demonstrated the lasting discrimination against the Sámi in Norway, which is one factor that, in turn, has influenced their current “invisibility.” Many of the Lulesámi who I met argued that the Norwegianisation is not over. It still exists through attitudes such as that of the non-Sámi person mentioned who expressed stereotypical views of what it means to be Sámi and who wish to undermine the Sámi’s presence in Norway. It also exists for those Sámi who choose not to wear the gáppte as a consequence of the colonial past. And it manifests itself when the Sámi are too narrowly associated with certain fixed and stable markers, such as the gáppte. The Sámi case raise some important points on a wider scale; namely how a history of oppression as well as more recent local and indigenous revivals intersect with personal biographies, emotions, sensory experiences and fashion trends, and affect a person’s sense of self and how such self can or should be expressed.

The article shows the complex and multidimensional impact that clothes have on their wearer as well as the surrounding. As such clothing is, as widely established, not mere material objects, but lived garments. In the paper I have focused on personal narratives and I argue that it is necessary to pay attention to such stories as well as to everyday conversations in order to understand the significances and power of clothes among indigenous people like the Lulesámi. Although individuals make different choices of what to wear, their stories show the power of clothes to define, challenge, reveal, express or conceal a particular sense of self in relation to others and their capacity to trigger strong emotional responses. In conclusion, the article shows that in order to fully understand the various experiences of clothing we have to look at the relational, temporal and spatial contexts in which they are worn and understood rather than simply seeing them as a sign of a particular and fixed identity.

Acknowledgements

The author thanks all who participate in this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anna Gustafsson

Dr. Anna Gustafsson is a researcher in Social Anthropology at Stockholm University. She is also an academic associate of the Center of Cosmopolitan Studies at the University of St Andrews. In 2014 she completed her doctor studies at the Department of Social Anthropology, University of St Andrews. Her research interests include craft, gender, old age, rural living conditions, the everyday, social change and ethnographic writing. [email protected]

Notes

1 All personal names are fictional. As the research was done in a small community I have further edited personal details in order to protect people’s anonymity. More precisely I have used a similar method to that set out by Banjerjee and Miller, in their anthropological work on the Indian sari, by often quoting dialogues and statements verbatim, but at other times drawing “together shared comments and perspectives into a single notional spokeswoman or dialogue” (2008, 4).

2 The regional differences of the gáppte roughly correlate with the different Sámi language groups.

3 See Haugen (2006) for an overview of the different regional garments.

4 The rise of nationalism correlated with Norway’s independence from Denmark, with which it had been unified between 1389 and 1814. Although Norway joined a union with Sweden in 1814 it was more or less autonomous. In 1905 Norway became a state in its own right after a large Norwegian majority voted for independence in a referendum, thereafter Norway and Sweden negotiated and signed the dissolution of their previous union.

5 Many also ceased to speak the Lulesámi language and changed their personal names and surnames to become less Sámi and more “Norwegian-sounding” (e.g. from Gælok or Gintal to Andersen and Johnsen) in order to manage their relations with others and avoid discrimination.

6 Gaski (1997) argues that the Sámi never aimed to establishing their own nation, but that their goal has been to gain constitutional recognition and rights to self-determination within the Fennoscandian states.

7 Gaski (1997, 10) writes there was no term for “culture” in the Sámi language prior to the political movement. The Lulesámi word kultura derives, quite evidently, from the Norwegian word kultur.

8 A non-profit organisation that advocates freedom of expression for musicians worldwide.

9 Laestadianism is a revival movement that swept across the north from the mid-1800s. Its founder, Lars Levi Laestadius (1800–1861), worked as a priest in Swedish Sápmi during the 1800s. Laestadius, who had Sámi ancestry on his mother’s side, employed the Sámi language in combination with Christian teachings. His religious doctrine created strict guidelines for what it meant to be a good Christian and emphasised confession and absolution.