53
Baltic loan of the name of the thunder god (~
Lit.
Perkūnas) (
SSA II,
s.v. ‘perkele’). Borrowing
the name of a positive god
from another group
and presenting it as the adversary of one’s own
sky-god is a strategy of mythic discourse that
is recurrently found in Uralic mythologies
(Ajkhenvald et al. 1989: 157). However, this
strategy was quite remote from the term’s
spread with Proto-Sámi, where it seems to have
been a common noun without a connection to
distinct belief traditions.
31
Another term for ‘luck’ can also be added
here, although it is etymologically problematic:
(13)
*vuorpē (§1463) (
vuorbi)
‘lot, luck’
Proto-Sámi
*vuorpē, equivalent to Fi.
arpa
[‘lot, luck’], appears to go back to Pre-Sámi.
The word has customarily been viewed as
belonging to a common Finno-Sámic language
period and would have been carried with
Proto-Sámi spread. The Sámi and Finnic terms
are phonologically and semantically equivalent.
They are commonly considered a loan from
Proto-Germanic, although the Germanic term
concerns especially material ‘shares’ of
inheritance rather than abstract or supernatural
‘luck’.
32
If the Germanic origin is accepted, the
semantic equivalence of the Sámi and Finnic
terms could be explained by the loan being
mediated to Pre-Sámi via Proto-Finnic. If both
terms are treated as independent borrowings
from Proto-Germanic, the implication would
be that the word’s meaning in the source
language was closer to these loans than to its
later Germanic cognates. In either case, this
word could reflect understandings of the
supernatural transmitted in conjunction with
Proto-Sámi language. In this case, however, it
becomes impossible to determine whether such
understandings would have merely been
encoded in the vocabulary or would reflect a
broader conceptual system.
(West) Uralic Vocabulary
Five of the terms linked to religion and belief
by Lehtiranta are identified as having cognates
in Finnic and other Uralic languages without
being identified as loans of one sort or another.
Three of these are clearly connected with
shamanism (problems of defining ‘shamanism’
and comparison of Sámi shamanism with
Central and Northern Eurasian or ‘classic’
shamanism will be left aside until the review of
Common Proto-Sámi vocabulary is completed):
(14)
*noajtē (§739)
(
noaidi)
‘shaman, sorcerer’
(15)
*koamtē (§473)
(
goavdi)
‘shaman drum; cover’
(16)
*keavrē (§398)
(
geavri)
‘hoop, ring, shaman drum’
Proto-Sámi
*noajtē is considered to have
cognates in Finnic (e.g. Fi.
noita [‘witch,
sorcerer, shaman’]) and Mansi languages
(Southern / Tavdin
näjt, Eastern / Konda
ńɔ
̈̄ jt,
Western / Pelym
näjt-kum, Northern / Soswa
ńājt [‘shaman’]); Mikhail Zhivlov (2014: 137)
has recently identified a potential cognate in
Ezra Mordvin:
nud’ńe- [‘to tell fortunes’]. The
word is generally believed to derive from
Proto-Uralic
*nojta, referring to a shaman who
uses a drum and ecstatic trance techniques
(Haavio 1967: 313–314; Rédei et al. 1986–
1988: 307–308; UEW #602 FU ‘nojta’). The
vowel in the Mansi terms is slightly irregular
and could thus be of independent origin
(Janhunen 1986: 109–110).
33
Terms for ritual
specialist roles can exhibit long-term historical
stability, but they identify social roles linked to
frameworks of practices and potentially with
religious identities. As a consequence, they are
salient for borrowing in contacts related to
religious change and confrontation (see also
Tadmor 2009). In his review of vocabulary
connected
with
shamanism
in
Uralic
languages, Juha Janhunen (1986: 113) found that
terms for ‘shaman’ are only reconstructable to
proto-languages within a few branches of the
Proto-Uralic family; he considers it improbable,
albeit not impossible, that a Proto-Uralic term
for ‘shaman’ would be preserved.
In Sámi languages, the word
noaidi’s
semantic field included different types of ritual
specialists. At least in later material, the
shaman who used a drum and went into trance-
states was considered the most powerful type
of
noaidi. The term
noaidi, however, seems to
have referred generally to the social role of
someone who ritually engages with supernatural
beings and powers rather than to a particular
technology for doing so; and its use was more
recently expanded to include a European
meaning of ‘witch’ (see Rydving 1987). The
mobile hunting cultures that underwent shifts
to Proto-Sámi can be assumed to have had
54
established ritual practices and specialists. The
semantic flexibility of later
noaidi and its
cognates suggests any comparable specialist
would be referred to as a
*noajtē in Proto-
Sámi. The term therefore cannot be considered
an indicator that a ritual specialist institution of
shamanism spread with Proto-Sámi.
Lehtiranta identifies two terms with
‘shaman drum’, but both appear to have had
other primary semantics. Proto-Sámi
*koamtē is
a term for a covering that has cognates in several
West Uralic languages (~ Fi.
kansi [‘cover,
lid’], Mordvin
kunda [‘id.’], Mari
komδə̑š
[‘id.’], ?Komi
śin-kud [‘eye-lid’]; UEW #1330,
PF ‘komta’). The meaning ‘drum’ appears to
be a metonymic derivative of reference to the
drum’s skin. Finno-Karelian languages used
kannus, a potential derivative of this term, for
‘shaman drum’ (
SKES I,
s.v. ‘kannus 2’;
Haavio 1967: 297–302), which could have
evolved through Sámi contacts. The term
*keavrē only exhibits cognates in North Finnic
(~ Fi.
käyrä [‘a curve, bend’]) and its use for
‘drum’ seems likely a corresponding metonymic
derivative of the drum’s frame.
34
The drum is
an emblematic feature of classic shamanism
(notably absent from Finno-Karelian practices,
which underwent a transformation of religious
technologies: see Frog 2013). However, the
words could have been transferred to local
material culture much as
*noajtē might have
been to an indigenous shaman. The metonyms
could also be calques of other vernaculars.
They cannot be considered indicators that either
a material culture or
technology of shamanism
spread with Proto-Sámi.
Lehtiranta lists one term describing a
performance behaviour that have been might
be connected with ritual or religious practice:
(17)
*vuolē
(§1433) (
vuollu)
‘song; to invoke, exorcise, curse’
Proto-Sámi
*vuolē has cognates in North
Finnic (~ Fi.
vala [‘oath, vow’]) and probably
Mordvin (~
val [‘word’]) (
SSA III,
s.v. ‘vala’).
It was inherited from Pre-Sámi, potentially as
a term for some (or any?) form
of ritual verbal
art with supernatural effects. However, it is
unclear whether or in what way its semantics
may have been affected during the spread and
evolution of Proto-Sámi. The cognates suggest
that
*vuolē was perceived as a type of speech
behaviour, and the North Finnic cognates
support the possibility of
some sort of ritual or
supernatural connotation already in Pre-Sámi,
but it is difficult to unravel the background of
Proto-Sámi words for vocal performance.
The Common Proto-Sámi word for ‘sun’ also
belongs to an earlier stratum of vocabulary:
(18)
*peajvē (§905)
(
beaivi)
‘day, sun’
The term
*peajvē is unambiguously related to
the corresponding Finnic term (~ Fi.
päivä
[‘day, sun’]); comparisons with possible
cognates in Komi and Khanty are ambiguous
(
SSA II:
s.v. ‘päivä’; UEW #715 FU ‘päjwä’,
and cf. #714 ‘päjä’). The sun was a central
cosmological symbol that was ascribed agency
in folklore and also linked to ritual (Karsten
1955: 30–33; Lundmark 1982: 13–56; Kulonen
et al. 2005: 32–33). However, the sun is a
prominent natural phenomenon connected with
mythologies almost universally (Eliade 1958,
Part III “The Sun and Sun-Worship”). Although
cognates of this word appear as a supernatural
agent, it is not clear that the word was
transmitted in this connection. The fact that
beaivi is a female being on the Scandinavian
Peninsula and a male being on the Kola
Peninsula (Lundmark 1982: 50; 1985; Kulonen
et al. 2005: 32–33) suggests that the same word
became identified with different conceptions
of the sun in each region. On the other hand,
Ernst Manker (1950: 62) observes that the sun
appears to be prominently represented on all
Sámi drum-types and there are regional
differences in its representation, yet it is never
presented with an anthropomorphic form
(1950: 62–68; Lundmark 1982: 39–46). There
are thus striking differences in traditions
related to the sun in different regions, but also
broad patterns that seem to extend across
different regions. A critical review of evidence
of the traditions related to the sun is needed
with attention to regional differences.
35
Nevertheless, the general impression of the
evidence is that the term
*peajvē spread with
Proto-Sámi but was no more connected to the
spread of associated religious concepts, beliefs
and
practices than *mānō.
Three additional terms warrant mention here
although they remain extremely ambiguous:
(19)
*pe
̮ sē (§866) (
básse)
‘sacred, holy’