Description
Wolf Saami pendant: The wolf is a gosthly, norcturnal, silent but deadly animal. Even among the Saami, as among many other cultures, were rooted beliefs that tied the animal to lycanthropy, a temporary or lasting transformation of man into a wild beast; this made the wolf the symbol of the other face of reality, the dark, wild, uncontrollable face, dominated by unknown powers, opposed to the civilized, humane and rational world created by men.
Saami shamanism (or Sami): The Saami (also knows as Laps) live in the most extreme lands of Scandinavian peninsula, occupying the northern part of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. Because of their geographic isolation, they kept their ancient magical and shamanic traditions intact, traditions that are deeply connected to a naturalistic and animistic conception of religion. They believed that gods lived in nature, specially in its great and particular forms, and into the nature they established their sacred places. The Shaman, Noaide The Saami (also knows as Laps) live in the most extreme lands of Scandinavian peninsula, occupying the northern part of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. Because of their geographic isolation, they kept their ancient magical and shamanic traditions intact, traditions that are deeply connected to a naturalistic and animistic conception of religion. They believed that gods lived in nature, specially in its great and particular forms, and into the nature they established their sacred places. The Shaman, Noaide (Noai'de) crucial figure, feared and respected, as well as being a healer had the task to contact and to put humans in contact with the divine, natural, magical entities. Through the noitarumpu (O Goavddis in Sami language), his drum, ritual instrument par excellence of all antiquity, and its loud, repeated and obsessive sounds, the shaman reached a state of trance in which the soul could leave the body, in which it could then return always continuing to follow the guidance of his drum sounds.
The protector animal spirits, even painted on the shaman's drum skin, were invoked by the shaman to assist him in his spiritual functions, in his travels among the unearthly worlds and in its role as a healer.
