Description
Saami Bear pendant: The bear is one of the most important totemic animals of the north lands: mighty, intelligent animal and with infinite resources, the bear is an animal revered and respected since prehistoric times in Lapp lands. The bear was also considered the material incarnation of the homonymus constellations, the Great and the Little Bear, heavenly abode of its spirit. The Bear spirit was often ivoked by nordic shamans in their magical practice, it was venerated in hunting rituals and it was an important symbol of rebirth: his awakening in spring after a long winter hibernatio, was the concrete proof that there is a rebirth after the death, a proof of the cyclicality of nature, so the animal became a symbol of regeneration, healing, rebirth.
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.
