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into the 20th century, Christian missionaries and state-sponsored biologists have meticulously documented Sami customs and dress, even if they try to suppress them. Church and State even Conspiracy to excavate and desecrate Sami shrines and tombs, measuring their skulls and bones for evidence of “uncivilized” primitive Aryan races.
Recently, the Sami have appeared in blockbusters such as Claus and Frozen 2, they are often supporting characters assisting settler missions. In these depictions, the Sami are almost always historical, wear formal traditional dress, and are nomadic.
The actual Sami identity is much more complicated. First, their traditional territories were divided by the four colonial powers (Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia), nine extant indigenous languages, and four non-indigenous languages. forced assimilation program in those countries further division, between nomadic reindeer herders and settled “forests” or Sami villages, more aggressively stripped of their traditions.
By choosing a historical context, Skábma: Snowfall These influences can be hinted at without being fully depicted—for example, a sinister French naturalist overstaying in the village of Áilu. But even depicting the historical Sami can be fraught with problems.
“Defining what’s traditional and what’s not also narrows the profile of Sáminess,” Sami game researcher and designer Outi Laiti wrote in an email to WIRED. Reindeer herding, traditional crafts and nature worship are all part of the Sami cultural heritage. But most of the Sami are Christians, many don’t understand traditional crafts, and few know how to deal with reindeer herds. Calling these things traditional may mean that these people are not Sami in some way.
This leaves a daunting task for Sami artists like Oranen. “There’s a fine line between negative stereotypes and needed stereotypes,” she said. “People don’t understand Sami culture. They don’t know who we are. In that sense, stereotypes come in handy.”
“But … we’re fighting these stereotypes while we own them,” she said. “People were expecting us to be in this display at the museum, and they were disappointed … we weren’t as exotic as they had hoped.”
But one benefit of having a Sami like Oranen drive game development about the Sami is that creators are free to shape the design according to their own perspective. Auranen knows she’s not offering an exclusive version of Sáminess – instead, she’s offering her own interpretation, derived from her own experiences of growing up and discovering.
Cultural Heritage Crash Course
Auranen says the central theme of Áilu’s journey is “lost and regained,” a theme that is close at hand. Auranen’s father was one of the “lost generation” where the Sami grew up without access to their traditional language or culture. As a result, Oranen himself was deprived of this education. “All these little details, they never passed on to me,” she said.
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