Measuring skulls or forced re-education. The Sami bear witness to the grievances

“I lost my self-esteem, I was afraid that I would do something wrong. This has accompanied me all my life,” describes the seventy-six-year-old Lars Stenberg, what studying at the so-called “nomadic elementary school” left in him, which was part of the boarding education system for Sámi children that existed in Sweden until 1962.

Stenberg, a shepherd living in the town of Arvidsjaur in Lapland, is one of hundreds of indigenous people who have shared their experiences with the Swedish government in recent months through the Sámi Truth Commission. In the coming weeks, she will complete the collection of statements and next year will issue a report on how historical injustices against the Sami have affected their lives today.

The document will also contain recommendations on how Sweden can proceed in relation to the indigenous people and how it can correct the injustice.

“The interviews revealed previously unrecorded information and a lot of collective trauma,” commission member Láilá Varsová told The Guardian.

“We have heard many stories of violence, abuse, boarding schools or the forced eviction of the Sami from their traditional homeland. There are many dramatic stories,” she added.

Photographing naked children and the elderly

An estimated 100,000 Sámi live in the vast arctic wilderness of northern Finland, Norway, Sweden and the Russian Kola Peninsula. They have lived by hunting, fishing and reindeer herding for thousands of years and have faced oppression for centuries.

Seventy-two-year-old Sami writer Nils-Henrik Sikku was forcibly taken from his family by Swedish officials at the age of seven and placed in a boarding school against his will. In them, the children of the natives had to speak exclusively Swedish, there was a penalty for using their mother tongue.

“When you did something wrong, you were punished, they could hit you, they could lock you up, they could take your clothes and you would sit outside in the cold until morning,” Sikku recalled to AFP.

The persecution of the Sami dates back to the 17th century, when the state began to colonize and exploit their territory rich in raw materials. The authorities forced the natives to give up shamanism and convert to Christianity. In the 19th and 20th centuries, assimilation efforts intensified as the economic importance of the far north grew.

The emergence of the theory of a “pure Swedish race” then led to the founding of the State Institute for Racial Biology in Uppsala in 1922. His staff regularly traveled to Lapland where they measured the skulls of the Sami and photographed them naked, including children and the elderly, in an attempt to prove that they were an “inferior race”.

“They subjected us to pseudo-scientific examinations. We didn’t know what they were doing to us, but we stood naked in front of the so-called doctors,” Sikku described. “They stole our land, banned our religion and took away our childhood,” he says.

The Sami are still fighting for their territory

According to Varsová, young people also come to the commission and talk about how their parents’ trauma affects them. “Diseases, mental problems caused by what happened to their parents in childhood, loss of language, loss of identity,” she said.

Young people also talked about the discrimination they face at school or work. “It’s still relevant, there’s so much ignorance and hatred,” Varsová stated.

According to her, the Sámi are determined to pass on their cultural heritage to new generations, but they believe that schools lack the resources to teach Lapland history. “Although it is in the curriculum, many teachers did not have the materials or competence to teach it,” said Vars.

Although the commission cannot yet comment on possible recommendations, its mandate does not prevent it from proposing compensation. The people interviewed by the commission particularly want better protection of Lapland’s land and livelihoods.

The Sámi must constantly fight to protect the pastures from industrialization. In January, the Swedish mining giant LKAB announced the discovery of Europe’s largest deposit of rare earths, which is located near Kiruna in Lapland.

“If our land disappears, we will disappear with it. We melt like snow in the sun,” says Sami researcher Kaisa Huuvaová, whose family owns the land where the valuable deposit was discovered.