Basso Rumblings

crankyduojar:

runicbasso:

annebeeche:

runicbasso:

annebeeche:

tuuli:

annebeeche:

thebirdking:

Scandinavia’s Sami Reindeer Herders

The Sami people, also spelled Sámi or Saami, are the Arctic indigenous people inhabiting Sápmi, which today encompasses parts of far northern Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Kola Peninsula of Russia, and the border area between south and middle Sweden and Norway. Sami herders call their work boazovázzi, which translates as “reindeer walker,” and that’s exactly what herders once did, following the fast-paced animals on foot or wooden skis as they sought out the best grazing grounds over hundreds of miles of terrain. Times have changed. Herders are now assigned to specific parcels of the reindeer’s traditional grazing territories at designated times of the year.

Oh my gosh they’re really cute!

I remember reading this very article in National Geographic.

Yeah, reindeer are cute. If you mean the people, you’re being a bit umm… What’s the word?

Condescending? Fetishizing? Infantilizing?

I do hope they’re referring to the reindeer.

I remember this article! 

Aesthetically-speaking, I really think the person in the lower left-hand photo is quite gorgeous. But it’d be a bad call to go as far as, say, calling an entire ethnic group ‘cute.’

In other news, the Saami are awesome, and ethnocentrism is at the very least abhorrent.

After all, Only a fraction of the Saami are or ever were reindeer herders. 

Facts: it’s what’s for dinner. 

All of that.

It’s been a long time since i read the article so I can’t remember if it was implying that reindeer herding was the occupation of Saami so I can only hope it wasn’t.

Here’s part of the non-print article in question (x).

Thankfully, no.

From what I could tell, it very tastefully detailed the life and times of Saami that still do legitimate Reindeer herding. It also touches upon the oppressive “Norwegianization” policies of compulsive boarding schools, where ethnic Saami were forbidden to use their native language, the irrevocable damage such movements caused, and their gradually fading traditional way of life.

LULZ. Witness the dying native trope hard at work.

But now I’m really interested what makes you think this is the “legitimate” reindeer herding, and what’s the difference between that and illegitimate reindeer herding?

Perhaps I need to educate myself better. If I made a gross generalisation, I apologise. 

I wouldn’t know what is and isn’t ‘legitimate’ reindeer herding. I do know, however, that more often than not, photo shoots like these are done in traditional garb for the sake of the cameras. But that was a mildly-related factoid, at best. 

And I do agree, NatGeo doesn’t do the best job at ethnographic work. Period. And that’s an understatement. 

Though I do appreciate you calling out the usage of ‘legitimate’ as a quantifier in my post. I’ll be sure to choose my words more carefully in the future. I do mean that.

(via crankyduojar-deactivated2012073)