[Gandur] Maths Bertell: Trials of Lappmarken at the end of Drumtime

[Félag þjóðfræðinga á Íslandi]

Maths Bertell‘s lecture will be held in Oddi 202 at 16.00 on Wednesday
February 6th.

 

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.