Historiska världars forum

Speaking of Saami, I'm trying to research the gakti from the 1800s and I'm getting almost nowhere. I say 'almost' because I have a number of good books (yes, I have People of the 8 Seasons, and another by Ernst Manker), but they only detail a very little. I have some beautiful photos of the embroidered neck pieces. What lovely work!!

But, I'm left with things like: did the women wear trousers or leggings? Did the trousers (for either sex, if them women wore them) use a drawstring or belt loops? Since the gakti is an over layer, what on earth was usually goes underneath??

If anyone has any information to share, I'd be so happy! even good pics, although they don't show much of the hidden aspects.

I'm stymied!

Thanks in advance.

/Judy Mitchell

Try to contakt this museum http://www.etnografiska.se/etnoweb/index.htm

Ludvig

Thank you, Ludvig. I will.

/Judy

You can also get in contact with Ájtte, Swedish Mountain and Sámi Museum in Jokkmokk, http://www.ajtte.com The site is only in swedish, but you find contact information there, see Kontakt. [:)]

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Judy Mitchell

Speaking of Saami, I'm trying to research the gakti from the 1800s and I'm getting almost nowhere. I say 'almost' because I have a number of good books (yes, I have People of the 8 Seasons, and another by Ernst Manker), but they only detail a very little. I have some beautiful photos of the embroidered neck pieces. What lovely work!!

But, I'm left with things like: did the women wear trousers or leggings? Did the trousers (for either sex, if them women wore them) use a drawstring or belt loops? Since the gakti is an over layer, what on earth was usually goes underneath??

If anyone has any information to share, I'd be so happy! even good pics, although they don't show much of the hidden aspects.

I'm stymied!

Thanks in advance.

/Judy Mitchell
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

Hello Judy, first of all it's worth mentioning that the sámi use of clothes differs from area to area. My ancestors in the southern part of Sápmi would surely find the northern sámi costumes pretty exotic and different... I have no sámi costume of my own, but appearantly the women of the southern sámi used trousers, whereas the men prefered leggings of skin (reindeer or moose). I'll try to find some images when I get back home from my vacation

/Mikael

Hello

I'm Marijke and I'm making my endwork for
school about lapland , the samis and more of
all there art and costumes , so if you could
give me any information , it would help
me very much
thanks
xx
Marijke

Hello all,
Some friends and I are coming to Sweden next month! So we have a lot of details to work out. We are still trying to research Sami clothes, but we are also costumers and anything fabric or clothing will make us oo and ahh. [;)]

So far, in my hunt for museums with actual clothes in their collection, none of them will answer any emails, even simply asking if they ahve any Sami clothes in the collection. The Nordic Museum used to have a nice display, but apparently it's been removed. Even though our first preference would be to see it not on display, I don't think that is likely to happen. The Historicka doesn't seem to have any Sami things - although I may have funthere while my friends are in Gamla Stan. The Ethnographic Museum apparently has a few Sami items, but doesn't sound like much. So Stockholm seems to be a washout for Sami research for us - unless some of you know other places we can go?

We do have plane tickets to go up to Umea to see the Vasterbottens Museum, they have fabulous photos of their collection online, although the oldest they have are men's and women's clothes from 1904 from Sorsele. If that's the oldest information we can find, that will be fine. If we can find information for older clothes, that would be marvelous. Is Sorsele considered North Sami or South Sami? I'm not sure where the boundaries are.

I wish we could go to Attje, but I see no way to get there in the short time we have in Umea. We need to be downin Falun on the 14 to meet someone at the Dalarna Folk Museum.

Also (sorry for putting so much in here), we want to buy fabric while we are here. We will be in Umea on the 10-12 of March, and then in Falun on the 14, around the Stockholm areafrom the 15 until the 18 - and then we take the ferry to Helsinki for the weekend. Does anyone know of fabric stores where we could find wool fabric, and wadmal? How about tinntrod?

Thank you very much,
Judy Mitchell

Didn't Carl von Linné have a Saami-suit? I'm almost certain he did. I wonder where that is nowadays... So the you'll be down at the 18th century. At least something. Unfortunately you can't see the actual colours at the picture, but if it is preserved you'd get them too. Anyway, here's a black-and-white picture:

http://www2.nrm.se/fbo/hist/linnaeus/linnaeus1.jpg

Hi Vesuvius,
Yes, he did. Apparently when he was roaming around, he fell in love with it also and bought an outfit - and had his portrait painted while wearing it. I saw that pic in a book about shoes. Apparently they actually found his Sami shoes under a floorboard in his house. No clue why they'd be there, but they have no idea who else would have had Sami shoes in his house. The fur has all worn/been eaten off, but the rest of the leather is still together. Pretty cool. No idea where the outfit is.
I did always wonder what color it was. Many of the old postcards seem to show outfits in browns. I wonder when all the bright colors started coming into use? Looking through Vasterbotten's photo collection, it looks like the Four Winds hat and the hat with the hard visor and bit pompom must both be fairly recent.

-Judy Mitchell

In Stockholm you could buy fabric at Sundbybergs textilcentrum. This is where all swedish larpers buy therir fabric. You should know what you want, because the owner will tell you that everything he is selling is period. The place is not very easy to find, but the adress is Järnvägsgatan 56 in Sundbyberg. According to a web page they are open mon-fri 09.30-18, sat 10-15.

Karin

Hi Judy!
Sorry to hear you can´t make a visit at Ajtte - here in Stockholm we don´t have much at all, but you may get in contact with Skansens klädkammare (Skansen's department of clothes) e-mail: kulturen at skansen dot se
They have a huge collection of folk costumes, (some of them for rent!!). (Skansen= the world´s oldest open air museum http://www.skansen.se/eng/index.html ).

The Nordic Museum's department for folk costume is closed for reconstruction work some years on. But the museum have about 6000 Sami objects in their collections and ca. 3000 of them can be viewed at their homepage
http://www.nordiskamuseet.se/exhibs/sameting/same1.aspx
You search on Föremål= object, Föremålsgrupp= group of object, Material and Technic.

At The Historiska you may find Sami jewellry.

Buying fabric? We hardly have any weaving mills left in Sweden, there are some in the Gothenburg area. At Hemslöjden (Arts & Crafts) in Umeå (adress: Renmarkstorget 5 D, phone 090-13 70 13) I think you will find tenntråd. They may also tell you if there are any store nearby who sell vadmal.
e-mail: hemslojdsfor dot v-botten at spray dot se

When you are in Falun, be sure to visit Dalarnas Hemslöjd (Dalecarlia Arts&Crafts), (Stora Torget, phone 023-151 31)

In Stockholm we have a rather big store (as mentioned above) who deals with fabric for teathrical purposes, they have imported vadmal and wool fabrics, but they are rather expensive (about 50-100 SEK/meter, 1 dollar = 7,08 SEK today). They have no homepage.

/Elin

PS. I think Sorsele is considered South Sami.

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Karin

In Stockholm you could buy fabric at Sundbybergs textilcentrum.
Karin
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
If you want to get there I could give you a lift. I'm free daytime at the moment anyway [:)]
//Nenne

Wow. Karin: thank you - I thought there must be some place where folks buy their fabric for Larping and re-enacting. I'll look for their website. I'm familiar with vendors who tell you everything you want to hear whether it's true or not. lol! Luckily Ann and I have a fair amount of experience in judging linen and wools. And even luckier, we'll already have been to Vasterbotten Museum, so we'll have an even closer idea of what we're looking for.

Nenne: wow, that would be so kind of you! although I realize that while you may available now... things can change in a month. [;)] I don't think we'll have a car, so I'm not entirely sure how we're getting around. But 16 March and 17 March look like our best times for shopping. There will only be myself and my friend Ann at that point.

Elin: we had planned on going to see Skanse, at least what is open in March. Thank you for the link, I'll try to contact them. And we also are losing our wool mills. I wonder where the mills are left? I think someone said once the wool was being imported from England? It's getting difficult for us to find. And we never had vadmal.
Oh good, there's a Hemslöjden in Umea? You're right, I think that would be a good place to check for the tenntråd. I wasn't sure where the shops were. I found out about them when I was researching 17th century Swedish outfits. The shops in Dalarna were great!
I was very disappointed to hear that the Nordica Museum had closed it's Sami display, it would have been such a great help. But you say they have photos online? fabulous, I'll check them right out. Next best thing if I can't see them myself. [:)]

Thank you so much, you've been great. Now I have to comb the web to find some place affordable for 3 adults to stay around Stockholm for 3 nights (well, 1 person leaves on the second day).

-Judy Mitchell

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Judy Mitchell

I thought there must be some place where folks buy their fabric for Larping and re-enacting. I'll look for their website.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
AFAIK they don't have one. All I can find via google are posts in various forums and web pages of individual LARPers mentioning them.
Their phone# is 08 - 29 94 20 and the fax# is 08-28 83 70.

/Angus

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Judy Mitchell

Now I have to comb the web to find some place affordable for 3 adults to stay around Stockholm for 3 nights (well, 1 person leaves on the second day).

-Judy Mitchell
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

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http://www.destination-stockholm.se/ hotels
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