Sacred and Profane Livelihood: Animal Bones from Sieidi Sites in Northern Finland

In this paper, animal offerings at Sámi sacrificial sites, sieidi (SaaN), will be discussed from an archaeological and a zooarchaeological point of view. Offerings are seen as a part of daily subsistence activities where the border between sacred and profane was fuzzy and transient. We take the position that animal offerings cannot be interpreted as ritual actions clearly separated from everyday life, but, rather, we have to take into account that the relationship between offerings and livelihood was seen as a dynamic one in a holistic worldview. We discuss archaeological finds from three sieidi sites as examples and claim that the offerings taken to sieidi sites tell us about daily subsistence strategies but at the same time also about the relationship between people and animals in the worldview of the Sámi.