Farmer-fishermen: interior lake fishing and inter-cultural and intra-cultural relations among coastal and interior Sámi communities in northern Sweden AD 1200–1600

Abstract

Although the productive fishing grounds had long attracted the Crown and the Church to northern Sweden, it was not until the sixteenth century that the judicial and fiscal powers of the Swedish Crown were exercised in full. Records show that the regular fishing in interior lakes formed a prominent enterprise among coastal farmer communities. This paper examines the social and economic context of farmers engaged in interior fishing with respect to the internal organization of village communities, principles of private and collective ownership, land-use strategies and inter-community relations. There are no a-priori assumptions about the coastal population being "Swedish". Instead of applying ethnonyms, the terms "farmer" and "coastal" are used throughout the paper. The main area of investigation includes the coastal area of northernmost Sweden and the western parts of Finnish Lapland. The study shows that interior lakes fitted into village resource areas, long sanctioned by usage, and that usufruct belonged to village members collectively. A large part of the fishing lakes are situated in interior Sámi territory. Fishermen were internalizing Sámi place names, implying close relations between the groups. Archeological investigations point to subsistence strategies including systemic interior lake fishing being established before AD 1200. The authors propose that coastal and interior communities should be perceived as two economic strategies representing indigenous and pre-colonial land-use schemes.

Consideration of Freshwater and Multiple Marine Reservoir Effects: Dating of Individuals with Mixed Diets from Northern Sweden

“…This required the isotopic characterization of various food groups which were likely to have contributed to the diet of the Rounala individuals. From historical sources, it is known that fish were an important dietary input, also for the people in Rounala (Nickul 1977:3, 10, 15, 32; Ruong 1982:22–26; Fjellström 1985:22–44; Korpijaakko-Labba 1994:81–86, 91–93; Bergman and Ramqvist 2017). In northern Scandinavia there are many lakes and large rivers from which freshwater fish would have been caught.…”

Unhierarchical and Hierarchical Core‐Periphery Relations: North Fennoscandian Trade Network from the Middle Ages to the Post‐Sixteenth Century

“…Recent archaeological research has revealed that very little in the coastal archaeological evidence suggests that colonists would have formed a significant part of the coastal communities prior to the 16th century (for an in-depth analysis see Kuusela et al 2016; see also Bergman and Ramqvist 2017). Neither the coastal-nor inland communities were agricultural societies during this timethis is reflected both in the site distribution patterns and artefactual evidence of which the former indicates a marine/riverine subsistence economy for the coastal-, and hunter/fisher economy for the inland communities (Kuusela 2013, 89-118) whereas the artefactual evidence in the north is devoid of agricultural implements which are prevalent in the southamong the assumed centres of the colonisation of the northern coastal zone (Kuusela 2015, 16-18;Kuusela et al 2016, 181-183).…”

Ethnoichthyology of freshwater fish in Europe: a review of vanishing traditional fisheries and their cultural significance in changing landscapes from the later medieval period with a focus on northern Europe

“…These fisheries continued to be exploited through the millennia, not least in northern Europe. Artisanal fishing was of great importance in the historic period for the Sami [ 72 ], whose specialised fisher-hunter-forager cultures existed until recently along northern rivers and larger lakes in Sweden and in Finland. The Fisher-Sami fished the lakes of Tjäurajaure and Tjieggelvas in Swedish Lapland [ 73 ] and the Inari Sami were predominately fishermen in Lake Inari in northern Finland until recently.…”