Essam hereby tradition reindeer herders
that have lived as nomads everything
revolved around the reindeer the food
the children the the stories of
everything herders were working so in
handling nature that they could
interpret the Arctic to the rest of the
world the Sami people had their own
voice and their own way to tell the
world who they were
I’m gonna open tonight with a journal
entry November 2010 reindeer herd
separation this at Autzen Norway I’m not
ready to leave this place the longer I
stay the more it suits me the land is
like a magnet a person can either repel
or connect to this landscape I woke up
this morning and the Lavo closest to
ours revealed it it snowed all night it
was covered like a white sugar almond
that one might have received as a
wedding favor but as this world becomes
more real to me the other fades away I
came here to find people if when the
land speaks could interpret its language
I came here in search of silence so that
I could begin to hear again I am now
more stranger in my own home than here
so tonight I want to take you to the
Scandinavian Arctic where I encountered
the Sami people the sami are by
tradition reindeer herders that have
lived his nomads today they’re
considered the indigenous group of
Europe to create this body of work I
lived there for four years and worked as
a biga obiga is a woman in Sami culture
that would go and live with a family of
reindeer herders she would help with the
children she would help cook and clean
she would also travel with the herders
when they were with the reindeer she
would help slaughter the reindeer and
basically anything that needed to be
done but first let’s watch a small video
this ran with my article in 2011
Oh
Oh Oh
Oh
Oh
Cooper acaba to convict Maharashtra
Hooft LaRocca last one kookaburra caste
tea mara the lavas are Wow
you’re a Moondoggie – shallow and put
let’s do a job wait mister so the family
homeland is called salt me but maybe
many people here have heard it referred
to as Lapland
it ranges today in four countries Norway
Sweden Finland and Russia but the
majority of my work was done in Norway
and Sweden where you see the grey dots
yolk macchiato very hard oh and gold
again Oh today there’s approximately
between 80,000 to 100,000 Sami but only
10% of them are actively involved in
reindeer herding so my journey began in
2007 I had a few email correspondence
with the Sami woman I wrote her letter
and said I was interested in learning
about traditional medicine in the Arctic
landscape and she invited me to come and
stay with her for several weeks and so I
did and when I got there she needed a
few things really clear to me one was
that the Sami people had their own voice
and their own way to tell the world who
they were they didn’t need someone
coming from the outside and telling them
who they were and the other was but if
you want to learn who we are then you
need to stay here for a long time and I
said well you know I’ve worked on my
last project over eight years and she
said well that’s great so kind of set
the scene for this so she said why don’t
you go visit my husband he’s a reindeer
herder and she does but I think he’s
hunting moose right now and she drew a
map on a napkin and she said just follow
this map and you’ll find him okay so I
drove about an hour to a railroad tracks
that was like the main marker on the map
it drove to the railroad tracks and put
on my backpack and parked the car put on
the backpack and I walked another three
miles until I found this house and to me
this house was the middle of nowhere and
this is our old and he’s slicing dried
reindeer meat at the table but this was
the first thing I noticed on the wall it
was just this picture and I really had
no idea what it was and what was happy
and I would truly have no idea of the
deep significance of this event for
another year and a half but it was the
only thing on the wall so I figured
intuitively it must be important and
it’s a reindeer calf that’s being marked
in the ear the ear mark shows the
ownership and in Scandinavia today the
majority of reindeer are owned and at
that time I didn’t speak Sami language
and RL didn’t speak English so we had to
find ways to communicate and the first
thing he did was come up to me and he
had me smell his watchband he kind of
put it up to my nose and I said ah and
it’s smell like you just slaughtered an
animal and that was his way of saying
well you know we actually do two moose
why don’t you come out and we’ll show it
to you is that okay so we walked up and
I followed in this is what I saw and I
said oh finally like I feel really
comfortable this is this is what I came
to look for um and instantly just made
some gestures and he was with his nephew
and they were telling me to collect some
wood to see if I could build a fire and
so that’s again set the stage that not
only would I be here for an extended
period of time but that I would be
needing to make myself useful it wasn’t
that the Sami people needed my help by
any means but they really also didn’t
need someone standing around doing
nothing about a year later I follow our
‘old to his summer grounds and this is
the calf marking and this is one of the
most important times in the Sami herding
year as it projects the prosperity of
the herd for the families for the years
to come and what’s happening here is you
see the female Rangers running in
circles the herders are watching their
ear marks and they’ll watch as the cops
following and then the last of those
calves and mark the ears and that’s how
this continues this tradition and that
fall I follow darls daughter suna this
is during the fall slaughter and I took
notice of a few of the women were
collecting the blood after the reindeers
were slaughtered and they’d sit there
and stir it for about an hour and I
asked her what they were doing she said
we collect the blood we can either dry
it or we’ll freeze it and this will be
later used
in cooking and when I began to work as a
biga this is one of the first things I
did was learn how to cook I cooked many
dishes with blood but my favorite was
blood pancakes um the first year and a
half the way I went back and forth from
New York to stop me trying to find ways
to to stay there get visas how I could
live in one person’s home just
logistically how this was going to work
and I would go back and forth I thought
of the images I was making that as
impressions my impressions of what I was
seeing there and this this reindeer skin
hanging on the side this is a site of a
shed but there would be houses every
kind of Sami village has had skins and
skins on houses after house after house
and I’d later find out that these skins
could be sold but also they could be
used on the snowmobiles to kind of keep
warm they’d wrap around the snowmobiles
or they put them on the floor of the
lava which was that first structure you
saw in the in the first slide that I
showed and this is Lila the woman that
invited me with suna her daughter and of
course I was taken by the visual beauty
of their traditional dress which is
called a goth II but in time I learned
that had deeper significance the goth D
would tell an outsider exactly where
they were coming from what village they
were coming from but even more so I
could tell you what family they belong
to and if you really knew what you were
doing and you looked close enough you
could tell who sold the goth D I later
learned that if a minor Asami miner got
in trouble if a picture went in the
newspaper no part of the golf D could be
shown as well as the face it would be
like identifying the person and this is
Ella Lee she’s the niece of our Eldon
Lila she’s from yok muck and she’s a
reindeer herder I was struck by this
luminescent quality she had but I was
also taken by her scarf and I had no
idea if it was Swedish or saw me and she
said to me oh of course it saw me
and she said you know we wear it on our
traditional goth d but when we’re in our
street clothes and I call it street
clothes she didn’t call him that but you
know we wear it in our everyday clothes
it’s called Sami inspired and finally I
made my way to go to gain oh go to gain
was considered a it’s just if you want
to say sort of the Sami capital 90% of
the people speaks on the language and
Lila took me there to meet her extended
relatives and this is where I ended up
meeting Niels Pater and Ingrid gulp and
it was them that I worked for as the
Vita and no Spader comes from a long
lineage of reindeer herders and it was
from him that I could finally begin to
get answers about my initial question
were there people that could interpret
nature’s landscape and not only did the
Sami language itself have deep deep and
rich vocabulary to describe the natural
world but herders and we’re working so
in tandem with nature that in fact they
could interpret the Arctic to the rest
of the world another thing in this image
I think it was the first time I had
experienced where I could see no horizon
line I just kept looking around and it
was like you couldn’t the focal point
was this and this is Neil stator and
Ingrid’s main house and I say a main
house because many herders have house in
their summer grounds and house in their
winter grounds where the reindeer are in
the summer with a reindeer on the winter
and then they have a main house this is
where I mostly lived and worked and one
day I had been out all day most likely
with the herd and with Neil’s Pater and
I came in and I saw this sitting on the
table and I thought okay and um they
told me it did you know so cold outside
that they couldn’t cut the meat up
outside it was freezing so they had to
bring it in so of course I run
downstairs and I get my camera come back
off into everyone laughing they’re like
oh my gosh again she’s taking pictures
every day this is what is she thinking a
picture of
and so I was like I have to get this
picture they okay and then about a year
later um I came across the same scene I
had been out all day probably with the
reader and I came in and the calf was
sitting on the table and I thought to
myself oh my gosh I’ve got to get some
food
I’ve been out all day and I made myself
some soup and I sat down and I started
eating and Ingrid raced and got her
camera and she came back and she took
this picture and she said well now
you’re a part of the everyday and if it
you know I I think it felt really good
but at the same time it made me think
wow what’s my perspective now what does
that mean and then I realized that I
could make pictures like this that’s
what it meant
this is Niels Peter and his herding dog
video and for them this is what would be
considered the ultimate herders
perspective you can see the entire herd
in the background you can see what
weather is coming in if there’s reindeer
missing if there’s predators if there’s
food but you know three years before I
wanted to be as close as possible to the
reindeer I wanted to be as close as
possible I wanted to capture their face
I would never have taken a picture like
this and also probably I wouldn’t have
been in a position to be here to see
this
and as I studied more and learn more
about Sami artwork when a herder would
paint a hurting scene it would always be
from this vantage point and the Lavo
again many herders today use the lava
when they’re actually out with the
reindeer and by this time I decided I
had to learn Sami language and in code
okay like I said 98% of the people speak
Sami so I was surrounded with it all the
time but there’s also something called
Sami Allah schools or Sami University
and I took a 7 month immersion course
and Sami were put in boarding schools
and many generations lost their language
so this school kind of gives this back
to the generations that have lost it but
I also took it
finally I could sit in a lava like this
and this is when I began to understand
the history and learn about the culture
because grandparents extended family
aunts uncles children were all sitting
this lava and telling stories and Sami
and drinking coffee and eating dried
reindeer meat and they weren’t being
translated into English and if they were
they really lost the significance so
finally I could hear and feel these
stories and this is not a scalp it’s a
nose Peter’s brother and they work with
their herds together and for me pictures
like this are important because I didn’t
take very many of them a lot of my work
is kind of silent and stealing more
reflections on the moments but it would
be a real disservice to take away hot
what hard work reindeer herding is it’s
all year long there’s no vacations if a
herder takes vacations it’s usually to
visit extended family members and help
them with their herd they’re often
working in minus 30 minus 40 minus 50
it’s not a lot of money this is a
lifestyle um
one side note I was at a family party
and this guy not this walks in his
entire face is frost it’s just brown and
kind of peeling away and nobody believed
it just me I was like wow it was just
just caiman he’d been out with the
reindeer for a few weeks so and one
spring I got to follow the gulps on
their spring migration the spring
migration is probably about 200 250
kilometer trap from the winter grazing
grounds north to the summer grazing
grounds I can take anywhere from a few
days or a few weeks depending on the
weather and in this situation the
weather would you know get a little bit
bad so they would stop sometimes they
would pitch the lava and we could sit
for 15 or 20 hours or sometimes they’d
just take a break like this for an hour
and go to sleep
and this is how I saw the hurt on that
migration and again I just remember it
was a the migration itself is very
meditative just kind of going and going
and you don’t see very much you just see
the herd and I saw this and I realized
wow my only focal point are reindeer and
in that extended to many years it wasn’t
just today in this time and in that
moment I realized I had been living in a
bubble of reindeer for like years and in
in the best way I mean everything
revolved but the hurting families that I
lived with everything revolved around me
reindeer the food the children the the
stories of everything had to do with
reindeer and this picture is really
important to me because this is Niels
Pater sitting with his herd and actually
today the herds are a lot more wild than
they used to be because of things like
snowmobiles and helicopters which a lot
of herders use they’re not physically
with the herds the way they used to be
they used to ski with the herds or walk
with the herd so the herd was more tame
so for him to sit and have the herd kind
of circling with it around him it means
he’s been with us hurt every single day
and then he sat there and he began to
yike and you like is that sort of throw
each ant you heard in the video I showed
at the beginning and the wake is it’s
very special to the Sami it’s a way to
pay reverence to a person place or thing
and he sat down and he began to you like
his wife which means he’s a Vulcan her
presence in the herd and this is his
wife Ingrid and she took me under her
wing when I was there and she showed me
what a woman’s role was in a reindeer
herding family and their role is to be
the heart and soul of the family and
that’s what she was um and just like our
load in the very beginning that had me
build a fire Ingrid did the same thing
she had me cook she if she went out to
cut grass what she’s doing here I would
go out and cut grass and she’s cutting
grass it’ll later be dried it’ll be put
in shoes in the wintertime and she
swears this is
than synthetic material and this is skin
her and her skin and Ingrid taught me
how to work with skin how to take the
hair off how to dry it how to lead later
make a bark concoction which would
preserve the skin and then also how to
sew with it when I was six months
pregnant
I went back and we so choose for my son
which is a tradition and these are not
my son shoes but these are reindeer
shoes with these how this has the hair
on it so these would be shoes that are
used in the winter these are for female
and these would be for a fancy very
dressy occasion it would be used with
the goth tea but this style of the toe
being curled up would be on men or women
shoes and it comes from the old days
when they used to lock into the skis
with it this is Elin Inger this is the
granddaughter of Niels Pater and Ingrid
and it would be like similar to a Native
American cradle board and you can see
here the woods being covered with this
skin that’s finally been preserved by
the bark a lot of the women today use
these for the children and this is
Ingrid and her youngest daughter Sarah
in olavo and this is during their calf
marking and I followed them we were here
for a couple weeks we set up the Lavo
and we went inside and you can see those
skins that I showed you in the beginning
on the shed there on the ground there
sitting they set up the fireplace and
she cooked coffee and she sat down and
all she said to me she said this is home
this is what home is
this is Johan he’s a young herder from
Sweden and I spent a couple weeks with
him and I asked him what is hurting to
you what are you going to do what are
you going to be and he said hurting is
everything I’ve learned this from my
uncles I’ve learned it from my aunts
I’ve learned it from my mother I am a
reindeer herder but to be a reindeer
herder today it’s very very difficult I
won’t be able to just be a reindeer
herder I will have to take another job
just the cost of of the gas and then the
equipment reindeer reindeer herding is
an economic way of life it’s regulated
by the EU but what he was telling me is
that young reindeer herders they can
continue but they will have to take
other work and this is Sven I spent a
lot of time as when he came to visit me
in New York he’s 70 he’s been reindeer
herding his entire life and I’m gonna
end on another journal entry today we
came across two women reindeer that
while fighting locked horns unable to
unlock they starved to death
I watched van as he approached the scene
he seemed forlán and lost in thought I
only took a few pictures it struck me
how a man close to 70 that had been a
reindeer hurt or his entire life could
be so sad I could only imagine how many
reindeer he had slaughtered in his
lifetime and that this cycle of life and
death would seem so natural when I asked
him he said that they had suffered he
estimated it took them three days or so
to die of starvation and cold and this
is what bothered him he looked at the
earmark to see him they belong to one
was his and one was his cousin he
separated their locked horns cut them
off and brought them home to give as a
keepsake thank you
you
that have lived as nomads everything
revolved around the reindeer the food
the children the the stories of
everything herders were working so in
handling nature that they could
interpret the Arctic to the rest of the
world the Sami people had their own
voice and their own way to tell the
world who they were
I’m gonna open tonight with a journal
entry November 2010 reindeer herd
separation this at Autzen Norway I’m not
ready to leave this place the longer I
stay the more it suits me the land is
like a magnet a person can either repel
or connect to this landscape I woke up
this morning and the Lavo closest to
ours revealed it it snowed all night it
was covered like a white sugar almond
that one might have received as a
wedding favor but as this world becomes
more real to me the other fades away I
came here to find people if when the
land speaks could interpret its language
I came here in search of silence so that
I could begin to hear again I am now
more stranger in my own home than here
so tonight I want to take you to the
Scandinavian Arctic where I encountered
the Sami people the sami are by
tradition reindeer herders that have
lived his nomads today they’re
considered the indigenous group of
Europe to create this body of work I
lived there for four years and worked as
a biga obiga is a woman in Sami culture
that would go and live with a family of
reindeer herders she would help with the
children she would help cook and clean
she would also travel with the herders
when they were with the reindeer she
would help slaughter the reindeer and
basically anything that needed to be
done but first let’s watch a small video
this ran with my article in 2011
Oh
Oh Oh
Oh
Oh
Cooper acaba to convict Maharashtra
Hooft LaRocca last one kookaburra caste
tea mara the lavas are Wow
you’re a Moondoggie – shallow and put
let’s do a job wait mister so the family
homeland is called salt me but maybe
many people here have heard it referred
to as Lapland
it ranges today in four countries Norway
Sweden Finland and Russia but the
majority of my work was done in Norway
and Sweden where you see the grey dots
yolk macchiato very hard oh and gold
again Oh today there’s approximately
between 80,000 to 100,000 Sami but only
10% of them are actively involved in
reindeer herding so my journey began in
2007 I had a few email correspondence
with the Sami woman I wrote her letter
and said I was interested in learning
about traditional medicine in the Arctic
landscape and she invited me to come and
stay with her for several weeks and so I
did and when I got there she needed a
few things really clear to me one was
that the Sami people had their own voice
and their own way to tell the world who
they were they didn’t need someone
coming from the outside and telling them
who they were and the other was but if
you want to learn who we are then you
need to stay here for a long time and I
said well you know I’ve worked on my
last project over eight years and she
said well that’s great so kind of set
the scene for this so she said why don’t
you go visit my husband he’s a reindeer
herder and she does but I think he’s
hunting moose right now and she drew a
map on a napkin and she said just follow
this map and you’ll find him okay so I
drove about an hour to a railroad tracks
that was like the main marker on the map
it drove to the railroad tracks and put
on my backpack and parked the car put on
the backpack and I walked another three
miles until I found this house and to me
this house was the middle of nowhere and
this is our old and he’s slicing dried
reindeer meat at the table but this was
the first thing I noticed on the wall it
was just this picture and I really had
no idea what it was and what was happy
and I would truly have no idea of the
deep significance of this event for
another year and a half but it was the
only thing on the wall so I figured
intuitively it must be important and
it’s a reindeer calf that’s being marked
in the ear the ear mark shows the
ownership and in Scandinavia today the
majority of reindeer are owned and at
that time I didn’t speak Sami language
and RL didn’t speak English so we had to
find ways to communicate and the first
thing he did was come up to me and he
had me smell his watchband he kind of
put it up to my nose and I said ah and
it’s smell like you just slaughtered an
animal and that was his way of saying
well you know we actually do two moose
why don’t you come out and we’ll show it
to you is that okay so we walked up and
I followed in this is what I saw and I
said oh finally like I feel really
comfortable this is this is what I came
to look for um and instantly just made
some gestures and he was with his nephew
and they were telling me to collect some
wood to see if I could build a fire and
so that’s again set the stage that not
only would I be here for an extended
period of time but that I would be
needing to make myself useful it wasn’t
that the Sami people needed my help by
any means but they really also didn’t
need someone standing around doing
nothing about a year later I follow our
‘old to his summer grounds and this is
the calf marking and this is one of the
most important times in the Sami herding
year as it projects the prosperity of
the herd for the families for the years
to come and what’s happening here is you
see the female Rangers running in
circles the herders are watching their
ear marks and they’ll watch as the cops
following and then the last of those
calves and mark the ears and that’s how
this continues this tradition and that
fall I follow darls daughter suna this
is during the fall slaughter and I took
notice of a few of the women were
collecting the blood after the reindeers
were slaughtered and they’d sit there
and stir it for about an hour and I
asked her what they were doing she said
we collect the blood we can either dry
it or we’ll freeze it and this will be
later used
in cooking and when I began to work as a
biga this is one of the first things I
did was learn how to cook I cooked many
dishes with blood but my favorite was
blood pancakes um the first year and a
half the way I went back and forth from
New York to stop me trying to find ways
to to stay there get visas how I could
live in one person’s home just
logistically how this was going to work
and I would go back and forth I thought
of the images I was making that as
impressions my impressions of what I was
seeing there and this this reindeer skin
hanging on the side this is a site of a
shed but there would be houses every
kind of Sami village has had skins and
skins on houses after house after house
and I’d later find out that these skins
could be sold but also they could be
used on the snowmobiles to kind of keep
warm they’d wrap around the snowmobiles
or they put them on the floor of the
lava which was that first structure you
saw in the in the first slide that I
showed and this is Lila the woman that
invited me with suna her daughter and of
course I was taken by the visual beauty
of their traditional dress which is
called a goth II but in time I learned
that had deeper significance the goth D
would tell an outsider exactly where
they were coming from what village they
were coming from but even more so I
could tell you what family they belong
to and if you really knew what you were
doing and you looked close enough you
could tell who sold the goth D I later
learned that if a minor Asami miner got
in trouble if a picture went in the
newspaper no part of the golf D could be
shown as well as the face it would be
like identifying the person and this is
Ella Lee she’s the niece of our Eldon
Lila she’s from yok muck and she’s a
reindeer herder I was struck by this
luminescent quality she had but I was
also taken by her scarf and I had no
idea if it was Swedish or saw me and she
said to me oh of course it saw me
and she said you know we wear it on our
traditional goth d but when we’re in our
street clothes and I call it street
clothes she didn’t call him that but you
know we wear it in our everyday clothes
it’s called Sami inspired and finally I
made my way to go to gain oh go to gain
was considered a it’s just if you want
to say sort of the Sami capital 90% of
the people speaks on the language and
Lila took me there to meet her extended
relatives and this is where I ended up
meeting Niels Pater and Ingrid gulp and
it was them that I worked for as the
Vita and no Spader comes from a long
lineage of reindeer herders and it was
from him that I could finally begin to
get answers about my initial question
were there people that could interpret
nature’s landscape and not only did the
Sami language itself have deep deep and
rich vocabulary to describe the natural
world but herders and we’re working so
in tandem with nature that in fact they
could interpret the Arctic to the rest
of the world another thing in this image
I think it was the first time I had
experienced where I could see no horizon
line I just kept looking around and it
was like you couldn’t the focal point
was this and this is Neil stator and
Ingrid’s main house and I say a main
house because many herders have house in
their summer grounds and house in their
winter grounds where the reindeer are in
the summer with a reindeer on the winter
and then they have a main house this is
where I mostly lived and worked and one
day I had been out all day most likely
with the herd and with Neil’s Pater and
I came in and I saw this sitting on the
table and I thought okay and um they
told me it did you know so cold outside
that they couldn’t cut the meat up
outside it was freezing so they had to
bring it in so of course I run
downstairs and I get my camera come back
off into everyone laughing they’re like
oh my gosh again she’s taking pictures
every day this is what is she thinking a
picture of
and so I was like I have to get this
picture they okay and then about a year
later um I came across the same scene I
had been out all day probably with the
reader and I came in and the calf was
sitting on the table and I thought to
myself oh my gosh I’ve got to get some
food
I’ve been out all day and I made myself
some soup and I sat down and I started
eating and Ingrid raced and got her
camera and she came back and she took
this picture and she said well now
you’re a part of the everyday and if it
you know I I think it felt really good
but at the same time it made me think
wow what’s my perspective now what does
that mean and then I realized that I
could make pictures like this that’s
what it meant
this is Niels Peter and his herding dog
video and for them this is what would be
considered the ultimate herders
perspective you can see the entire herd
in the background you can see what
weather is coming in if there’s reindeer
missing if there’s predators if there’s
food but you know three years before I
wanted to be as close as possible to the
reindeer I wanted to be as close as
possible I wanted to capture their face
I would never have taken a picture like
this and also probably I wouldn’t have
been in a position to be here to see
this
and as I studied more and learn more
about Sami artwork when a herder would
paint a hurting scene it would always be
from this vantage point and the Lavo
again many herders today use the lava
when they’re actually out with the
reindeer and by this time I decided I
had to learn Sami language and in code
okay like I said 98% of the people speak
Sami so I was surrounded with it all the
time but there’s also something called
Sami Allah schools or Sami University
and I took a 7 month immersion course
and Sami were put in boarding schools
and many generations lost their language
so this school kind of gives this back
to the generations that have lost it but
I also took it
finally I could sit in a lava like this
and this is when I began to understand
the history and learn about the culture
because grandparents extended family
aunts uncles children were all sitting
this lava and telling stories and Sami
and drinking coffee and eating dried
reindeer meat and they weren’t being
translated into English and if they were
they really lost the significance so
finally I could hear and feel these
stories and this is not a scalp it’s a
nose Peter’s brother and they work with
their herds together and for me pictures
like this are important because I didn’t
take very many of them a lot of my work
is kind of silent and stealing more
reflections on the moments but it would
be a real disservice to take away hot
what hard work reindeer herding is it’s
all year long there’s no vacations if a
herder takes vacations it’s usually to
visit extended family members and help
them with their herd they’re often
working in minus 30 minus 40 minus 50
it’s not a lot of money this is a
lifestyle um
one side note I was at a family party
and this guy not this walks in his
entire face is frost it’s just brown and
kind of peeling away and nobody believed
it just me I was like wow it was just
just caiman he’d been out with the
reindeer for a few weeks so and one
spring I got to follow the gulps on
their spring migration the spring
migration is probably about 200 250
kilometer trap from the winter grazing
grounds north to the summer grazing
grounds I can take anywhere from a few
days or a few weeks depending on the
weather and in this situation the
weather would you know get a little bit
bad so they would stop sometimes they
would pitch the lava and we could sit
for 15 or 20 hours or sometimes they’d
just take a break like this for an hour
and go to sleep
and this is how I saw the hurt on that
migration and again I just remember it
was a the migration itself is very
meditative just kind of going and going
and you don’t see very much you just see
the herd and I saw this and I realized
wow my only focal point are reindeer and
in that extended to many years it wasn’t
just today in this time and in that
moment I realized I had been living in a
bubble of reindeer for like years and in
in the best way I mean everything
revolved but the hurting families that I
lived with everything revolved around me
reindeer the food the children the the
stories of everything had to do with
reindeer and this picture is really
important to me because this is Niels
Pater sitting with his herd and actually
today the herds are a lot more wild than
they used to be because of things like
snowmobiles and helicopters which a lot
of herders use they’re not physically
with the herds the way they used to be
they used to ski with the herds or walk
with the herd so the herd was more tame
so for him to sit and have the herd kind
of circling with it around him it means
he’s been with us hurt every single day
and then he sat there and he began to
yike and you like is that sort of throw
each ant you heard in the video I showed
at the beginning and the wake is it’s
very special to the Sami it’s a way to
pay reverence to a person place or thing
and he sat down and he began to you like
his wife which means he’s a Vulcan her
presence in the herd and this is his
wife Ingrid and she took me under her
wing when I was there and she showed me
what a woman’s role was in a reindeer
herding family and their role is to be
the heart and soul of the family and
that’s what she was um and just like our
load in the very beginning that had me
build a fire Ingrid did the same thing
she had me cook she if she went out to
cut grass what she’s doing here I would
go out and cut grass and she’s cutting
grass it’ll later be dried it’ll be put
in shoes in the wintertime and she
swears this is
than synthetic material and this is skin
her and her skin and Ingrid taught me
how to work with skin how to take the
hair off how to dry it how to lead later
make a bark concoction which would
preserve the skin and then also how to
sew with it when I was six months
pregnant
I went back and we so choose for my son
which is a tradition and these are not
my son shoes but these are reindeer
shoes with these how this has the hair
on it so these would be shoes that are
used in the winter these are for female
and these would be for a fancy very
dressy occasion it would be used with
the goth tea but this style of the toe
being curled up would be on men or women
shoes and it comes from the old days
when they used to lock into the skis
with it this is Elin Inger this is the
granddaughter of Niels Pater and Ingrid
and it would be like similar to a Native
American cradle board and you can see
here the woods being covered with this
skin that’s finally been preserved by
the bark a lot of the women today use
these for the children and this is
Ingrid and her youngest daughter Sarah
in olavo and this is during their calf
marking and I followed them we were here
for a couple weeks we set up the Lavo
and we went inside and you can see those
skins that I showed you in the beginning
on the shed there on the ground there
sitting they set up the fireplace and
she cooked coffee and she sat down and
all she said to me she said this is home
this is what home is
this is Johan he’s a young herder from
Sweden and I spent a couple weeks with
him and I asked him what is hurting to
you what are you going to do what are
you going to be and he said hurting is
everything I’ve learned this from my
uncles I’ve learned it from my aunts
I’ve learned it from my mother I am a
reindeer herder but to be a reindeer
herder today it’s very very difficult I
won’t be able to just be a reindeer
herder I will have to take another job
just the cost of of the gas and then the
equipment reindeer reindeer herding is
an economic way of life it’s regulated
by the EU but what he was telling me is
that young reindeer herders they can
continue but they will have to take
other work and this is Sven I spent a
lot of time as when he came to visit me
in New York he’s 70 he’s been reindeer
herding his entire life and I’m gonna
end on another journal entry today we
came across two women reindeer that
while fighting locked horns unable to
unlock they starved to death
I watched van as he approached the scene
he seemed forlán and lost in thought I
only took a few pictures it struck me
how a man close to 70 that had been a
reindeer hurt or his entire life could
be so sad I could only imagine how many
reindeer he had slaughtered in his
lifetime and that this cycle of life and
death would seem so natural when I asked
him he said that they had suffered he
estimated it took them three days or so
to die of starvation and cold and this
is what bothered him he looked at the
earmark to see him they belong to one
was his and one was his cousin he
separated their locked horns cut them
off and brought them home to give as a
keepsake thank you
you
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