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Century old photo of Just Knud Qvigstad

  I am certain there has been new scholarship on the Naeroy Manuscript since Just Qvigstad published his summary of it in 1903, but since he was my great-grandmother’s brother and he looks like my late father, I have been slowly translating his work for my own edification. I think there are English translations of some of his work in the British Library, but alas, travel to Europe doesn’t fit in my budget. 

I found a copy of Qvigstad’s work, Kildeskrifter den Lappiske Mythologie, from the University of Chicago library here:

https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=MwJNAQAAMAAJ&pg=GBS.PA4

I have been using Microsoft Word to translate it, so I will provide a summary only, since I am not able to verify the accuracy of the translation.

Naeroy is an island on the northern coast of Norway in the Trondelag region. An old stone church on the island dates from as early as 1180. 

The Naeroy Manuscript was written by Johan Randulf in 1723, who was the parish priest at Naeroy. He writes of a visit by missionary Thomas von Westen in January 1723, during which they invited local Sami to the vicarage and interviewed them about their practices. Qvigstad indicates that some of von Westen’s information on the Sami came from Jens Kildal, a missionary to Salten since 1721. 

Many discount this manuscript because it was written by Lutheran missionaries seeking to convert the Sami. Everything is written from the author’s particular worldview, and so should be read as if viewing through their particular lens. The manuscript has value because these missionaries were there, in that time and place, talking to Sami people, while we were not. Roman Catholic missionaries reached Sapmi well before the Lutherans, sometime during the Middle Ages. It has been interested to me to see Roman Catholic influences in some of the Sami practices in the time of the Naerøy Manuscript, specifically in the journal of missionary Isaac Oleson, of which Qvigstad has also left us a summary.

I will ignore Randulf’s theological ramblings that diverge from what the Sami actually experienced when writing my summaries. I will also use the modern terms “Sami” and “Sápmi” instead of “Lapp” and “Lapland,” which were standard in 1723 but are considered offensive now. 

Qvigstad states that he was quite certain all the manuscripts he worked with were copies of the original Naeroy Manuscript because they all contained spellings of words that were not in use in 1723 or had missing words and letters.

The most well-known part of this manuscript is a sketch of a Sami ceremonial drum, or runebomme, assumed to be by Thomas von Westen. The original drum was lost sometime after the sketch, likely in the Copehagen fire of 1795. I am still working with the download of the drawing and will post it when I can since it is in the public domain.