The Sami Department of Norsk Folkemuseum was established in 1951. Here follows a short presentation of our Sami resources.
The Collection
Norsk Folkemuseum acquired its first Sami object shortly after the museum was founded in 1894, but it was not until the years after the Second World War that Sami culture was clearly defined as part of the museum’s work. In 1951 a Sami Department was established and the Sami collection in the Ethnographic Museum of the University of Oslo was transferred to Norsk Folkemuseum. It has since been extended and now counts some 4300 objects, making it the largest Sami collection in the country.
The Exhibition
Since 1958, a permanent Sami exhibition has been an important and popular part of the museum. The present exhibition was inaugurated in 1990 by the then Crown Prince Harald. In 2000 the exhibition was supplementet with a guide and catalogue in Norwegian and English, now for sale in the Museum Shop. Tours of the exhibition may be ordered at telephone 22 12 37 27.
The Open-Air Museum
In the open-air museum there is a Sami dwelling-site including a South Sami turf-hut and a storage house on poles. The buildings are new but were built according to Sami traditions, by a Reindeer Sami who himself grew up in such a turf hut in the 1930s. Also a tent from the nomadic Reindeer Sami of Finnmark is set up during the summer season.
The Image Collection
The Museum has a collection of some 4500 Sami photos. Some of these are unique documentations made by the museum staff during fieldwork in Sami areas. Others are historical pictures collected from various sources. There are also photos with Sami motives in other collections in the museum, such as the Wilse Collection, which is partly available on the net at Galleri.NOR. The Picture Collection is open to visitors only by appointment, telephone 22 12 37 90. You may search the collection on the Internet.
The Library
The Sami Collection has a library of some 2000 volumes. These are not for loan but may be used in the Museum’s reading room by special appointment. Books on the Sami are otherwise available through public libraries such as the Deichmanske Bibliotek in Oslo, the University libraries in Oslo and Tromsø, and The Sami Special Library in Karasjok.
The Audio Tape Collection
The museum has a collection of some 100 rolls of audiotape containing linguistic material, joik (Sami folk-song) and other material. Most of this was recorded in the 1950s and 1960s by Dr. Asbjørn Nesheim, the first curator of the Sami Collection, and is today of great interest to linguists and other scholars. The audio tapes will be digitalized during 2000 and made available to scholars and others on the net.
Publications
The museum’s monograph series Samiske Samlinger (Sami Collections) was founded in 1952 and has since published 18 volumes. Some of these are in English but the majority in Norwegian. Most are sold out, but three volumes (including Dutch anthropologist Nellejet Zorgdrager’s book about the 1852 revolt in Kautokeino, which has Norwegian text with summary in English and Finnish) may be ordered from the publishing company Vett og Viten.
The Sami Collection and the internet
The museum is working systematically to make its Sami and other collections and resources available on the net. This includes photos and films . The objects and photos in the Sami collection were made available in 2001
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