OTTERS IN THE OLD SÁMI TIMES

Another curiosity from the old times is regarding otters.

As far back as I can remember when I was a kid, I always dreamt about having an otter as a companion, like a dog.

Whenever I mentioned this to anyone, they reacted in surprise. Much to my own surprise, since it seemed so obvious to me.

Otter is the most positive fourlegged animal in the world and they are very intelligent. They can use tools.

Other animals do what they have to do to survive and reproduce, and not much more. But otters invent activities just for fun. Like running up slopes just to slide down again on the snow. 

The otters also have a shamanic connection, since they live both on land and in the water. Two worlds, like a shaman. Something that made them be regarded as sacred in many parts of Sapmi. And therefore not hunted.

This fascination for otters that I had all my life suddenly started to make a lot mor sense when I learnt that it was very common for my ancestors to have otters. 

From the book: Ren och varg. (Wolf and reindeer.) That is written from interviews with Samis born over a century ago, I learned more about the connection between our ancestors and the otters.  

Back in the days it was not so common to have boats and nets for fishing. The otters can easily become very tame if you start when they are small. So quite a lot of families had tame otters that helped them to fish, and they lived with the people inside their lavvus.

Mostly males where taken as companions, because people where afraid of lowering the population of otters if they took females. They knew that a life without otters, was not something to look forwards to.

Common names that the tame otters got was Fishnose and Sweetnose. 

When traveling to lakes far away they carried the otters in special backpacks made of twigs because the otters have too short legs to walk far and they didnt like to travel in normal backpacks where they couldn’t see out.     

-Jungle