Fine gáktis and everyday Sámi language

The last census where ethnicity and language were recorded was in 1950. It showed a clear Sámi majority population in Nesseby municipality.

In photographs from Nesseby school i 1947/48 we see that none of the children wear gákti, and it is obvious from photographs in this timeperiod that gákti was no longer the most common everyday garment. In pictures from celebratory occations, when people have dressed up in their finest clothing, we still see some persons wearing gákti. On the picture from a recess in the school yard in 1948, we can see that nobody is wearing gákti, but they all have homemade Sámi shoes. The fact that people had the skills to make their own footwear from local skin of seal, cow, sheep or reindeer, was one of the reasons people had managed so well during the war and after. Compared to the pictures from before the war, when many used gákti for both weekdays and Sundays, there is a clear change. But what was the reason?

It is easy to assume that it was caused by the stringent Norwegian assimilation policy, which proclaimed that people shouldn’t be able to by estates if they didn’t have Norwegian as a daily language, and the education was to take place in Norwegian only, even though the children only knew the Sámi language when they started school. But the elderly I have interviewed tell that most families still maintained Sámi as their daily language in the homes, which is affirmed by the 1950 census. The teacher from the Norwegian south-west, who took these pictures, tells that he had to use one of the pupils as an interpretor, even though it was forbidden. The girl had been deported during the burning in the fall of 1944, and had therefore learnt Norwegian before she returned to Nesseby .

Nesseby school break time 1948. F.l.: Maggi Teigen, Tormod Noste, Birgit Marie Nilsen, Klara Mosesen, Bergitte Hjelper, Inga Stina, Anna Siri, Ukjent, Ruth Teigen, Martha Dikkanen, Randi Utse, unknown. With spark: Laila Noste. Teachers: Hjørdis Nilssen and Dreng Skomedal. Photo: Halgrim Ulsaker (teacher in Nesseby 1947-49).

Liv Nilsen (born 1949): «I had gákti when I was little. It was old grandmothers and Sámi girls who wore them. I have never seen my great grandmother in other clothing than gákti. I was 10 years old when she died in 1959». Bertil Berg (born 1957): «I didn’t grow up with the gákti myself. It was old people who used gákti every day, others only in church». Marie Roska (born 1939): «I was confirmant in 1954. Gákti wasn’t so popular back then. We wanted coats in stead. Only old people wore gákti». Some people, like Henda Mathisen, continued using gákti as a work outfit also after the war.

The impression is that after the war most people in Nesseby had stopped wearing gákti on an everyday basis because they had other weekday garments. On Sundays and celebrations one could wear gákti, but we see from the pictures that not everybody had gáktis in those days. The explanation I got was that it was hard to get hold of good enough quality fabric after the war. They preferred English wool cloth, which was in shortage. If you couldn’t sew a good quality gákti, then you just let it be. Therefore it was only those who still had nice enough gáktis for Sunday use, who wore them.

The lack of people with gákti on the postwar pictures cannot thus be interpreted straightforward as a direct result of the Norwegian assimilation policy, as it is easy to assume. The pressure to learn Norwegian didn’t necessarily mean that people stopped wearing gákti in Nesseby. But many stories convey negative experiences from beeing looked down on if wearing gákti in Norwegian coastal communities.

The Norwegianization policy towards the Sámi people 1851-1959

The Norwegianization was a public assimilation policy led by the Norwegian state in the period from 1851 to 1959, but with consequences that are still experienced today. In 1851 the monetary fund “Finnefondet” was established by Stortinget, the Norwegian parliament. It was used among others to support vages for teachers who were exceptionally effective in the Norwegianization service. The Norwegianization policy was not officially abandoned until the Sámi commitee gave its resolution in 1959, which was amended by the Storting in 1963 .

The Norwegianization policy was built on two ideological foundations. One was the Social Darwinist idea that the Sámi were a primitive, inferior people, without the ability to lift themselves up to a superior, civilized level. Thus, they needed help to raise themselves out of their ignorance, and this should be done by making them acquire Norwegian language and culture. The other ideological background was the construction of Norway as an independent state, for which a prerequisite was that it was a nation consisting solely of Norwegians. This was especially important in respect to the ending of the Union with Sweden in 1905. There were law enforcements, like the Property Act of 1902, which proclaimed that all who wanted to acquire estates should have Norwegian as a daily language.

In school it was especially the use of the Wexelsen bill, which made it difficult for the Sámi speaking children. Churchminister Wexelsen made instructions in 1898, with an enhanced focus on the importance that the education in school should be given only in Norwegian. It stated that the Sámi or Finnish languages should be used only as a means to explane that which is otherwise incomprehensible for the children. Norwegian words should not be translated, but instead the method of visualizing should be used. This meant pointing, miming, drawing or in other ways showing the children what a word meant. This was often confusing for the children, and the language acquisition became slow compared to earlier teaching when Sámi language was used to explane Norwegian words.

The Wexelsen bill §4, which instructed the teachers to overlook that Sámi children didn’t use Sámi language more than what was unquestionably necessary, was in many school districts used to stop the children from speaking Sámi also in their spare time. Some school boards continued to instruct teachers in Sámi districts to make sure the children didn’t speak Sámi in breaks and in the boarding houses up until the Wexelsen bill was formally abolished by the Norwegian parliament in 1963 .

Even after the bill was abolished, there was a negative attitude that Sámi language should not be used in the education, not even as an aid. It takes a long time to change attitudes that are well established. After 60 years without using any Sámi in the schooling system most people were illiterates in Sámi language, including those growing up in Sámi speaking homes. There was little to build on in the attempt to turn around this attitude. For two generations almost the only available written sources in Sámi were the Bible, the hymn book and the Christian journal Nuorttanaste. Thus there was a great lack of teaching resources who could express themselves in Sámi.

Personal experiences with the Norwegian education

It is very individual how people in Nesseby have experienced the Norwegianization, and how different families have handled it. Some tried to switch to Norwegian in their homes, to help the children get an easier access to the society at large. Others considered the education in Norwegian to be the schools’ responsibility, and thus the family could continue speaking Sámi in their home.

Nils Einar Mathisen, 6.2.2020. Photo: Bjarne Riesto

Nils Einar Mathisen (born 1937): «You see that our children speak Norwegian. It was because we didn’t know Norwegian when we started school. And we wanted to make it easier for the kids and spoke Norwegian with them. That’s how it was in the Norwegianization age. I have regretted it later... that we made a mistake towards our kids».

Ingrid Iversen (born 1941): «There might have been some superiority in it to. Some people used to say: What is the point with that Sámi language! That was the politics after the war. That those who got married and had childrern tried to speak Norwegian. A teacher asked us: Why don’t you speak only Sámi a home? It is the school which is supposed to teach the children Norwegian. But many parents had unpleasant experiences, and didn’t want the children to be bothered like themselves for not speaking Norwegian when they started school».

Kjell Trane (born 1947): «I remember that they didn’t speak proper Norwegian nor Sámi. We learned only Sámi at home and Norwegian in school. Then the parents didn’t need to hussle with speaking Norwegian to us, because we learnt it in school. Then we could express ourselves when we started working. There was an expression: What are you going to do with the Sámi language, you won’t get far with that!»

Boarding school

For most children schooling meant that they periodically had to live away from their families. Ingrid Iversen (born 1941): «I was 7 years old when I started school. There was no bus or boarding house. The first years we had to live with relatives. In 1952 we moved into the new boarding school. I didn’t find it sad, other than the times when the kids were quarreling. There was a lack of food in many homes, and they were better off living in the boarding school. Most homes had many children, and people were poor. Those who lived far away got home only for Christmas and Easter» . She cannot remember that they were refused to speak Sámi in the boarding house. None of the pupils wore gákti, because in those days only old people used them on weekdays.

When the 9 grade school was established, the time of study was extended. This meant that young people from Nesseby went to the neighbouring municipality Tana until 1966. From the schoolyear 1959/60 only higher grade pupils were living in boarding schools, while the number of local schools and transportation made it possible for all pupils in the lower grades to live at home .

The effect of the language instruction, which limited the possibility to use Sámi in education, was enhanced when the teaching for youth level was extended after the war. This involved a large scale development of boarding schools, where young people were put together across municipality borders to fill up classes. There had been boarding schools before the war also, and because of the meager transportation it was usual that children from the first grade had to live away from their parents for longer time periods. The children could be accomodated in boarding schools or private homes for a total of 8 weeks before Christmas and 8 weeks in the spring.

In the 1950s the school became an even more efficient tool for Norwegianization than ever before. As the amount of time in school was extended and Sámi pupils got more education in Norwegian schools by Norwegian teachers and with Norwegian books. There was a lack of teachers after the war, and many small schools got people from the south of Norway, with no education in teaching . Many of these teachers had a derogatory attitude towards the Sámi pupils. It was also common that pupils from other municipalities along the Finnmark coast, who attended the vocational school in Karlebotn, took the advantage of being Norwegian and spoke negatively about the Sámi – even though they were a minority in a community where the majority were Sámi. For local pupils from the municipality this was a sore experience. That others could come to Nesseby and tell them that they had no value .

Karlebotn boarding school.

It is a paradox that when the authorities officially ended the Norwegianization paradigm, then there seems to be a boost in the Norwegianization in Nesseby. The 1960s generation is the first to know Norwegian when they started school. Why? Many parents talk about their own unpleasant experiences with not understanding the teachers. When they became parents, they wanted to spare their children from the discomfort of not understanding anything from the education the first years of school.

Another aspect is the fact that the population grew emensly after the war. The census in 1950 is the highest ever in Nesseby, with over 1500 persons . It was obvious that many would have to move from their home villages to get work, and then Norwegian was a prerequisite. The parents had little use of their own education and experienced a barrier towards the Norwegian society. They wanted to give their children a better starting point.

The Sámi vitalization blossoms

In the 1970s the Sámi selfconsciousness was wide awake, and the vitalization process could begin. It was permitted again to have Sámi education in school, where it had been banned since the end of the 19th century. But it would take 20 years before the school managed to offer Sámi language education for all pupils in Nesseby.

In the 1970s there are occationally gáktis on the pictures of confirmants. In 1970 there was one boy wearing gákti. In 1973 two confirmants wore gákti . For a period of time after the war the confirmants had preferred Norwegian dresses and suits. Irma Trane (born 1941): «We had gákti both for the Norwegian National Day and when we went to church for the confirmation ceremony. It had to be the type of fine wool cloth gákti. But those who were confirmed did not wear gákti. The boys had bought suits and the girls had homemade dresses. But the rest of the family wore gákti, if they had». The last comment is an important point, because with many children there were not always enough nice wool cloth gáktis for everybody to wear.

Sámi handicrafts exhibition in Karlebotn 15.12.1975. Photo: John Ole Nilsen.

In the 1970s there were differences running between the families, whether they used gákti to dress up or not. What is striking, is that this does not follow which families continue speaking Sámi in the homes or not. Many families changed to Norwegian language in their homes. But at the same time more people started wearing gákti again, for instance on celebrations like the Norwegian National Day. One of those who grew up in Nesseby in the 1970s tells that it was nice to dress up in gákti for the school parade. In her famility it was custom to take a trip to the closest town, Vadsø, afterwards. They then made sure first to go home and change to Norwegian clothes. Many people had unpleasant experiences and got negative comments if they wore gákti in the town. This is one of the destructive effects of the Norwegianization: Everybody were allowed to look down on and harass Sámi persons.

Siri Dikkanen, former head of school in Nesseby, writes that the school had a long and difficult road ahead to make room for Sámi language and culture. The most harsh and repressive period might have ended after the war. But mostly the school pretended that Sámi language and culture did not exist. Then came the change in attitude which meant that it became legal to offer teaching in Sámi. Among the parents who had children that were starting school in the fall 1970, there were several that wanted Sámi as teaching language for their children. But back then the municipality only had one teacher who was able to teach in Sámi, and it did not get started. Sámi beginner education was offered for the first time in 1977 at Stuorravuonna skuvla/Karlebotn school .

Between 1904 and 1953 there was no systematic education in Sámi for teachers in Norway. After a while there were some sporadic educational offers, but there were few resources to build on .

The 14th National meeting of the Norwegian Sámi Association, June 1982 in the gym at Nesseby school. Ole Henrik Magga is holding a speech. He was elected the first President of the Sámi Parliament in 1989. Photo: John Ole Nilsen.

Symbolic garment for the Sámi political movement

The 1970s was a decade of considerable political activity. For many it was important to wear gákti in such contexts. That is visible on the pictures form national meetings in the Sámi organizations. In such national political meetings it was important to show which region you represented, and gákti was an natural symbolic signal. For many the social aspect of meeting at an arena where Sámi issues were natural was just as important as the political discussions. Sámi parties and meetings that streched over several days (and nights), was a counterweight to the stigmatization Sámi people experienced on Norwegian dominatet arenas. As such, the Sámi political activity acted as «islands», where you knew that nobody would ridicule or make comments on your Sámi heritage and appearance. Unjárgga Sámiid searvi/Nesseby sameforening (Nesseby Sámi association) was founded in 1972.

Nils Einar Mathisen (born 1937): «Well, then came the Sámi association and everybody wanted gákti. The Sámi Association was popular here, not only here but in Tana, Kautokeino and Karasjok there were popular Sámi parties. Then everybody had gákti. But in other gatherings nobody wore gákti. Even the elderly wore Norwegian clothes then. There was a lot of harassment, especially if one was going to Vadsø. If one was going outside of Nesseby, then it was not easy to wear the gákti».

Gákti thus becomes a garment which is tied to something positive inside the rising Sámi society, but it was not mirrored in the society at large and especially not in the Norwegian fishing towns along the coast.

Delegates from Nesseby at the Norwegian Sámi Association 14th National meeting, 17.-19.6. 1982 in the gym at Nesseby school. F.l.: Nils Einar Mathisen, unknown, Iver Per Smuk, Einar Siiri, Olav M. Dikkanen and Ole Roska. Photo: John Ole Nilsen.

Uniform use of gákti

In the 1970s there were only a few ladies who sewed gáktis, and they chose to sew what they considered traditional: dark blue wool cloth, with red and yellow decorations. The edge of the sleeves and the skirt were standardized. This gave the impression that there was only one correct way to sew the Nesseby gákti. This was confirmed when courses in sewing gákti were held in the 1970s. Everybody sewed identical gáktis, with identical decorations.

Course in how to sew gákti in the gym at Nesseby school in 1977. In front f.l.: the teachers Duttá-Pier Mággá/Magga Andersen and Magga Bigga Johnsen. Behind f.l.: Birgit Siiri, Bigga Iversen, Ellen Marit Roska, Oline Nilsen, Marie Bergitte Utse, Anna Pettersen, Dagmar Trane, Torill Wigelius and Birgit Teigen. Photo: John Ole Nilsen.

In the picture we see the two teachers in one of the sewing courses in the 1970s: Dutta-Pier-Mággá/Magga Andersen and Magga Bigga Johnsen. Attending the course were several of those who later have continued the tradition, among others Marie Birgitte Utse and Birgit Teigen. Birgit Teigen used to sew gáktis to her family and would later teach courses herself. Her daughter Maggi tells that in her youth she was not so interested. But as an adult she has sewn both to children and grandchildren. Her sister Irma says that she sewed her first gákti in a course, and that her mother Birgit later assisted her when she was asked to sew a man’s gákti. It is not so easy to get all the decorations right. The Nesseby gentleman’s gákti is known to have so much decoration in the back, that it was called a mirror! When the gákti became popular again, many families had women with the knowledge in their hands, who used their knowledge to help others. Marie Birgitte used to sew for everyone who did not sew themselves nor had any family members that sewed. She has sewn for people in the whole municipality and has been an eager supplier.

Liv Nilsen has documented the historical variety in ways of decorating the hem on the sleeves and skirts of the Nesseby gákti. This is presented as a display at Varanger Sámi Museum. Photo: Anna-Kajsa Jernsletten.

Liv Ravna (now Nilsen) worked in the 1980s with documenting the Nesseby gákti. She experienced that it was much more diverse than she had thought. Especially the womens holbi, the lower edge of the skirt. The surprises were many as she discovered patterns she had not seen earlier. Before the war it was more common for women to weave and sew, and the gákti had a more personal look. It was their fantasy and economy that set the limits. In the 19th century they used both green and red gáktis .

Liv Nilsen has collected 150 different patterns for belts, holbis and shoebands in a book of patterns for weaving traditional bands. Earlier most villages and families had their own patterns, which made it possible to see where they belonged. After the war only a few women continued weaving, and the same pattern was used in the whole municipality of Nesseby . From old gáktis we can see that every seamstress had her own way of decorating the edge of the sleeve. Some wrinkled it, while others folded it. Some used 3 different colours. Also, on the edge of the skirt there could be a holbi without woven bands, but instead stripes of wool cloth in red, yellow, blue, green, and black. The seamstresses could play with the colours when they decorated the gákti.

Internal control «The gákti police»

The uniform use of the gákti in the 1970s resulted in rigid boundaries for what was acceptable. Liv Nilsen tells about when she sewed a green gákti and the neighbour woman commented: «Gosh, that is so ugly!» This was an undisguised reprimand. But Nilsen had seen that her grandmother’s gákti was green and felt confident that she was being true to the tradition, even though she had transgressed the common norm which was then established. The length of the skirt and the width of the decoration had varied since the war. But to use other main colours than blue was considered wrong in the 1970s.

Among seamstresses who were active in that time in a close to monopoly situation, several still today express their opinion that blue is the only right colour for Nesseby gákti. These carriers of tradition are often spoken of within the local community as «the gákti police». These are persons who are confident about their own knowledge and have an urge to reprimand others when they consider that someone has breached the rules of sewing or using the gákti. She who had sewn a green gákti was secure enough to continue using it. In this time period, when there was uniformity in the design of the gákti, it took a great deal of confidence in both sewing technique and cultural knowledge to challenge the established norm.

Nesseby 1920. F.l.: Marianne Lindseth, Sigrid Utse, Regine Tepsel. Photo: Henrik Nilssen. The use of details such as lace collars shows that people were following the Norwegian fashion trends, even though they continued wearing gákti. Such adjustments are by the authors of the book Unjárgga gákti (2005) presented as an example of how they “Norwegianized” the gákti. Norwegianization is today looked upon as a sign that the Sámi distinctiveness is lost.

Difference between public and private

In the 1970s some of the women started wearing gáktis made of patterned cotton fabrics in public, also on solemn occasions. Many of the elderly perceived this as a breach on the differentiation between solemn occasions and weekdays. They had grown up with the use of different types of gáktis for different kinds of occasions. Nils Roska (born 1921): «On weekdays we used a cheaper gákti. On Sundays, a different, more expensive gákti». Gunvor Dahl Rasmussen (born 1931): «Grandma always wore gákti. Inside the house, at home, she used simple cotton gáktis. When she went visiting, she wore a nicer gákti. In the barn and when doing other chores, she used old gáktis. The rest of us wore dresses».

For those who had grown up with a differentiation between staying at home and going away clothes, it was a degrading experience to see that what they considered private kitchen gáktis were used in public. While the younger generation made a statement with taking back some of the everyday use of the gákti, for instance in political meetings. The women often chose patterned cotton fabrics, while the men have been strikingly loyal to the blue wool fabric.

The picture is taken by the entrance to Nesseby school. The Norwegian Sámi Association is holding a National meeting for the 14th time, 17.-19.6.1982. We can see delegates who are having a coffee break and smoking at the staircase. Photo: John Ole Nilsen.