Practices of perseverance: conflicts over Sámi hunting rights in early modern central Sweden. A historical archaeological perspective

The seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries saw a growing conflict between the crown, landowners, and nomadic Sámi in central Sweden. Laws and regulations stipulated that non-sedentary Sámi be banished to inland northern Sweden, the ‘lappmarker’, or take up indentured service under the control of the freeholders of the parishes. Reindeer pasture was an economic corner stone for many Sámi in central Sweden, but equally important was the hunt. Hunt for wild game and forest birds had a profound cultural and socio-economic role for the Sámi. It was also a fundamental reason to the conflict. In this paper we analyse material traces of Sámi hunt and the archival sources of the conflicts over the hunt between Sámi, the landowners and the authorities. With archaeological methods we examine the existence of bird-hunting devices in central Sweden and their connections through oral traditions to Sámi use. With historical methods we analyse the archival sources related to these conflicts over the hunt. In both the material and the written sources, Sámi agency, Sámi resistance, and Sámi perseverance are visible through a multitude of means of struggle against the authorities in a process related to an extensive transfer of land.