Did you know? Real trolldrums do exist!
Origins
The Sami (or "Saami", indigenous people of northern Europe--mainly Sweden,
Norway and Finland) used troll-drums in magical rites. The Sami noaidi
(shaman) would use the troll-drum in spiritual rituals, along with joik
(a traditional form of song).
The Sami had a worldview that was animistic (where every object in nature has a "soul", thus they were polytheistic), leading to a desire for harmony with nature, with the world that sustained them and which they were a part of.
The drums were used in multiple ways:
- to make incorporeal travels and
see distant places,
- to perform prophecy, and
- cure sickness
Reformation Suffocation
The 16th century Reformation spread Christianity to the Scandinavian countries. This did not bode well for the Sami and their pagan rituals, who were soon persecuted--noaidi became the targets of witch hunts and about 20% of the over 175 prosecutions in arctic Norway for witchcraft between 1593 and 1695 affected the Sami directly.
The Sami were rather accommodating to the new belief system--they were, after all,
accustomed to having a bunch of gods in their myths--and many simply
incorporated these new stories and characters along with the others even adding the new symbols to their drums.
This was unsatisfactory to the christians, and much of the conflict with
the indigenous Sami religion became focused on the very symbolic drums.
Almost all the older Sami drums were crushed or burnt by missionaries and their escorts. Only about 70 are known to remain in existence today.
Interpretation
Because so few troll-drums are left, and because the culture itself was forced underground, interpreting the symbols on the drums is difficult. Each drum was unique but certain features do recur.
The symbols themselves represent, for the most part, aspects directly important to Sami day-to-day life: family symbols, hunter/weather/fertility gods, reindeer, sickness and death, meat sheds, the sun, etc.
Their positioning remains an open question. One very interesting
hypothesis, the "star map hypothesis" proposed by Bo
Sommarström in the 1980s, is that the symbol positions reflect the
Zodiac/constellations which explains the basic pattern of the figures.
At least on the Southern type of drum... The complete answer may well
be indefinitely lost to history.
Today
On a brighter note... In modern times the Sami culture has been coming out
from the shadows in which it had been forced, first by the church and then in
the early 1900s by Norway's attempts to wipe it out. As a
symbol of this re-appropriation of their culture, the 13th Nordic Sami
Conference in 1986 officially acknowledged the flag shown here. Because
the role of the drums as a symbol of the Saami resistance and
resilience, the flag includes a stylized drum. The flag is also meant as a
visual representation of "Paiven parneh" (Sons of the Sun, a poem by
Anders Fjellner).
Hopefully, you'll be able to use this TrollDrum to make some magic of your own... Enjoy!
