Description
Saami Snake pendant: The Snake is an ancient, an ancestral figure, which role and meaning in Saami shamanism it has dimmed in times, preserving itself in the remotest corners of the country and of the tradition. Nevertheless, the snake is omnipresent in ancient drums, with the same and important role, as a witness of an oldest cult. According to Finnish traditions and Estonia folklore, the snake is a guardian of the underworld, a messenger that helps to keep us in contact with our ancestors, it brings good luck and it is connected to the primitives fertility cults. Ambiguous animal, negative and positive, the snake is the symbol of primordial life, of the unknown forces of the earth, representative and witness of the oldest nature and centuries-old history of the world. Often associated with death and the underworld, the serpent is however also a symbol of regeneration and especially of rebirth, as well as the snake itself literally reborn after molting.
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.
