A Sami cultural landscape – cultural history research in Vattme
At the same time as the forest in Vattme is one of Sweden's most valuable natural forests, it is also a many-thousand-year-old Sami cultural landscape. The forest is full of traces of Sami landscape exploitation that has accumulated over a very long time. The area consists of Sami Lapland tax lands where different families have paid taxes to the Swedish state for the right to use a certain area. Within Vattme there are hearths (characteristic Sami fireplaces), old trees with traces of bark extraction (where the pine's inner bark was harvested as food) as well as wood engravings. There are also lichen stumps (trees felled to give pure hanging lichen), roosts with birch forest, fishing rafts in ponds and lakes, hunting trails marked in the block fields and harvesting areas for Båssko (angelica). There are also very old reindeer fences built from dead trees that run for kilometres through the area. There are also trees with carvings that likely had a magical or religious meaning. Some of these traces, such as the characteristic bark harvestings, are easy to see and understand, while others, such as the mysterious tree carvings, are more open for interpretation.
Although it may sound contradictory that an ecologically valuable natural forest is also a cultural landscape, it isn’t really strange. The Sami have lived here and used various natural resources for a very long time. The number of people who lived within Vattme has been few and the imprint of their landscape utilization has been limited, but over time the traces and tracks left behind have gradually accumulated in the forest. Because natural resources have been used but never exploited or overexploited, the natural forest has special features that remain today.
Here you can read more about
The Sami Lapland tax lands and the sami settlements in Vattme
Liedgren, L, Östlund, L & Josefsson, T (2009) Samisk byggnadskultur: timrade kåtor och exemplet Bläckajaur. Arkeologi i Norr 11:115-143. https://res.slu.se/id/publ/27113
Josefsson, T., Bergman, I., Östlund, L. (2010). Quantifying Sami Settlement and Movement Patterns in Northern Sweden 1700–1900. Arctic, 63(2), 141–154. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27821959
Östlund, L., Liedgren, L., & Josefsson, T. (2013). Surviving the Winter in Northern Forests: An Experimental Study of Fuelwood Consumption and Living Space in a Sami Tent Hut. Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research, 45(3), 372–382. https://doi.org/10.1657/1938-4246-45.3.372
The Sami practice of bark extraction in Vattme
Rautio, A-M., Josefsson, T, Östlund, L (2014) Sami Mobility Patterns and Resource Utilization: Harvesting Inner-Bark in northern Sweden. Human Ecology, 42 (1):137-147
Josefsson, T., Gunnarson, B., Liedgren, L.G., Bergman, I. & Östlund, L. (2010) Historical human influence on forest composition and structure in boreal Fennoscandia. Canadian Journal of Forest Research. 40(5): 872-884. https://doi.org/10.1139/X10-033
Rautio, Anna-Maria (2014) People-plant interrelationships. Diss. (sammanfattning/summary) Umeå : Sveriges lantbruksuniv., Acta Universitatis Agriculturae Sueciae, 1652-6880. https://res.slu.se/id/publ/61767
Bark extraction and cultural traces on trees in northern Scandinavia and North America
Östlund, L, Bergman, I. & Zackrisson. O. (2007) Träd som föda – samiskt skogsutnyttjande och kulturspår i träd under 3000 år. Forskning & Framsteg 5:52-55. https://res.slu.se/id/publ/17193
Östlund, L., Ahlberg, L., Zackrisson, O., Bergman, I., & Arno, S. (2009). Bark-peeling, Food Stress and Tree Spirits – the Use of Pine Inner Bark for Food in Scandinavia and North America. Journal of Ethnobiology, 29(1), 94–112. https://doi.org/10.2993/0278-0771-29.1.94
Östlund L, Bergman I, Zackrisson O. Trees for food – a 3000 year record of subarctic plant use. Antiquity. 2004;78(300):278-286. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003598X00112943
Bergman, I., Östlund, L., & Zackrisson, O. (2004). The Use of Plants as Regular Food in Ancient Subarctic Economies: A Case Study Based on Sami Use of Scots Pine Innerbark. Arctic Anthropology, 41(1), 1–13. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40316604
Östlund, L., Ericsson, T. S., Zackrisson, O., & Andersson, R. (2003). Traces of Past Sami Forest Use: An Ecological Study of Culturally Modified Trees and Earlier Land Use Within a Boreal Forest Reserve. Scandinavian Journal of Forest Research, 18(1), 78–89. https://doi.org/10.1080/0891060310002363
Östlund, L., Zackrisson, O., & Hörnberg, G. (2002). Trees on the Border between Nature and Culture: Culturally Modified Trees in Boreal Sweden. Environmental History, 7(1), 48–68. https://doi.org/10.2307/3985452
Rautio, A.-M., Norstedt, G., & Östlund, L. (2013). Nutritional Content of Scots Pine Inner Bark in Northern Fennoscandia: Nutritional Content of Scots Pine Inner Bark and Ethnographic Context of its Use in Northern Fennoscandia. Economic Botany, 67(4), 363–377. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12231-013-9254-3
Lichen stumps in Vattme
Berg, A., Josefsson, T., & Östlund, L. (2011). Cutting of lichen trees: a survival strategy used before the 20th century in northern Sweden. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany, 20(2), 125–133. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00334-010-0275-x
The reindeer fences found in Vattme
Norstedt, G., Rautio, A.-M., & Östlund, L. (2017). Fencing the forest: early use of barrier fences in Sami reindeer husbandry. Rangifer, 37(1), 69–92. https://doi.org/10.7557/2.37.1.4222
The Sami peoples use of angelica/wild celery
Rautio, A.-M., Linkowski, W. A., & Östlund, L. (2016). “They Followed the Power of the Plant”: Historical Sami Harvest and Traditional Ecological Knowledge (Tek) of Angelica archangelica in Northern Fennoscandia. Journal of Ethnobiology, 36(3), 617–636. https://doi.org/10.2993/0278-0771-36.3.617
The Sami peoples pre-christian religion and the important role of trees
Bergman, I., & Östlund, L. (2022). A Sacred Tree in the Boreal forest: A Narrative About a Sámi Shaman, her Tree, and the Forest Landscape. Human Ecology : An Interdisciplinary Journal, 50(6), 1023–1033. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-022-00365-x
Bergman, I., Östlund, L., Zackrisson, O. & Liedgren, L. (2008) Värro mourra – the landscape significance of Sami sacred wooden objects and sacrificial altars. Journal of Ethnohistory, 55 (1)1-28. https://doi.org/10.1215/00141801-2007-044