Inspired by Sámi feminist Jorunn Eikjok’s admonition that “we must carefully evaluate which of our traditions are worth basing our community upon” (2000, p. 41), this article focuses on two adaptations of traditional Sámi narratives, which, at their core, are stories of violence against women – Mary Ailonieida Sombán Mari/Marry Ailonieida Somby’s Uhcastáloš (1993), and Sissel Horndal’s Sølvmånen/Silbamánnu (2015). These books reveal an underlying corrosive gender ideology that performs the ideological work of patriarchy under the cover of tradition and contributes to the legacy of silence surrounding violence against women. At the same time, they resonate with the real social issues of violence against women circulating in the news. The organizing thread that runs through the books examined here is the well-worn plot between the male aggressor/abductor – in these stories, Stallo, the villainous fiend of Sámi folklore – and young Sámi girl(s), which, I will argue, reinscribes a normative masculinity enacted through violence and reiterates the patriarchal logic of colonialism, Christianity, and capitalism.
JoAnn Conrad (Thu,) studied this question.