[Gandur] fyrirlestur kl. fjögur í dag

[Eva Þórdís Ebenezersdóttir]

sæl verið þið 

kl fjögur í dag  í stofu 202 í Odda heldur Maths Bertell erindið:

 Trials of Lappmarken at the end of drumtime 
	
Trolldomsrannsakningarna i Lappmarken (The scrutinization for sorcery in Lappmarken) occured between 1649-1739 and led to the downfall of the indigenous religion of the Saami. During the court processes the authorities collected drums, wooden idols and charged Saamis with accusation on sorcery and murder. The courts of the period (ting) assembled 32 times during the period. 6 death sentences were delivered and sent on to the high court in Stockholm, where all but one was revised to prison or corporal punishment. One of the Saami were executed and burnt at the stake with his idols. Interestingly enough, the scrutinization was carried out during the same period as the witch hunts of Sweden, where more than 400 people were executed. But the trials differ in many aspects: the accused in Lappmarken were mostly men, while in the witchhunt they were mostly women. In the witchhunt, the accusations relied to a large extent on child witnesses and the accused had taken them to Blåkulla to festivities of the Devil. This is nonexisting in the Lappmarken material. The court material tells us a lot about the indigenous religion of the Saami during the period, but also about the spiritual climate among Swedes in general. I will give an over view of the material, but also look into with more detail of some of the cases presented in the material and try to contextualize them.


Maths Bertell received his PhD at Stockholm University in 2003 and has since been teaching at Stockholm University, Uppsala University and Södertörn University College. He is currently Senior Lecturer at the department of Humanities at Mid Sweden University, Härnösand. In 2008 he spent a Post doc period at Harvard University and has also lectured at New York University, University of Texas at Austin and University of Aberdeen. His main research interests are Old Norse religion, Saami preChristian religion and the Conversion of Scandinavia.

The lecture will be held in Oddi 202