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<p align="justify">This mysterious concept presents one of the most difficult problems in the history of Saami religion. The word sáiva is common to all the Saami languages, but its etymology is uncertain. On the one hand, sáiva was connected with certain fells or mountains, especially in the west. On the other hand, sáiva lakes, which were believed to have two bottoms, were very important, particularly in the Swedish and Finnish traditions. Religious historians have assumed that the connection with certain lakes was the original one; the present meaning which is associated with sacred mountains or in particular anything supernatural or sacred would then be a secondary, looser one.</p> <p align="justify">Another problem is the possible connection between sáiva and a pre-Christian concept of a world of the dead. In this context, scholars have pointed to the ancient Scandinavian idea that the dead members of a clan went to certain holy mountains and lived a life there that was happier than our life on earth. These sacred mountains of the ancient Norwegians are found particularly in the area where the sources for mountain sáivas were collected.</p> <p align="justify">According to one theory, sáiva is derived from a Proto-Germanic word, from which the Scandinavian word sjö/sjø [lake, sea] is descended. This would make it an early loan word, and it would in agreement with the assumption that the lake sáiva was the original meaning. However, the problem is that in the eastern Saami languages, which must be considered to be very ancient and to have had no contacts with Germanic languages, the corresponding word means south.</p> <p align="justify">The sáiva lakes and mountains were inhabited by both human and animal beings. The names for the human inhabitants of the sáiva in the old sources were saiva olmah and saiva neidah [sáiva men and sáiva women]. The sáiva spirits selected, taught and empowered the Saami shaman (noaidi). These were the tutelary spirits of the shaman. Ordinary Saami persons also had their own tutelary spirits, but only the shamans were capable of communicating directly with the spirits. Erich Jessen wrote as follows about the saiwo (= sáiva) in the eighteenth century on the basis of sources from Norwegian Lapland.</p> <p align="justify">Because the Lapps considered the inhabitants of the saiwo to be real, they leagued themselves with them and sought assistance through them from the saiwo. The inhabitants of the saiwo became their protectors, and they were expected to help them in various undertakings like fishing and hunting. They were expected to save people, help them to attain all knowledge and to avenge wrongs suffered by the Lapps. In return, the Lapps undertook to serve the people of the saiwo with their lives and their property. The saiwo was inherited, and it could be bought and sold; therefore parents would divide their saiwos among their children while they were still alive. If a person received many saiwo beings as a dowry, it was believed that the marriage would be a happy one. If the parents died before they had divided the saiwo beings among their children, the latter had to acquire the support of the saiwo for themselves by means of sacrifices.</p> <p align="justify">There were also animals in the sáiva. The animal spirits served the shamans as assistants. Usually an ordinary person might only come into contact with them when fishing on a sáiva lake, and for this is was necessary that there was complete silence. The fish of sáiva lakes were considered to be especially meaty and healthy, but difficult to catch because they often hid in the lower section of a double-bottomed lake.</p> <p align="justify">The sáiva was clearly connected with the idea of a world of the dead. It was believed that a sacrificed animal was reborn and grew again as a sáiva animal, as was also the case with a bear that was killed and honoured according to correct ritual procedure. A shaman who died was likewise believed to join the saiva olmah spirits. Sacrifices to the sáiva spirits were made upside down ; for example a sacrificial tree was placed with its stump and roots upwards (Sacrifice).</p> <p align="justify">If there was a connection between the sáiva world of the dead; the fact that it lay under the water may be a relic of a Proto-Uralic cultural phase, and the strong verticality that was characteristic of Saami cultures a division into upper, middle and lower worlds with the world of the dead located deep under the earth (Cosmography) - Jábmiidáibmu) could have been incorporated from a foreign northern culture. In 1912 Edgar Reuterskiöld suggested that the sáiva </p> <p align="justify">On the other hand, it may be the case that a celestial world of the dead reserved for people of influence and sacrificial victims came into being spontaneously within Saami culture. This interpretation would accord semantically with the East Saami meaning of south , but then one would have to assume that sáiva is not an old Germanic loan word. According to the semantic rules of popular belief, the heaven of the dead was predictably located in the south, in which case this concept would have been changed into a happy world of the dead in a mountain or a lake under the influence of Germanic contacts and then blurred into a happier parallel world beyond the grave. Nilla Outakoski accepted Reuterskiöld s idea of a celestial other world of revered ancestors and went on to propose that the belief in earth spirits represented a further development that took place as a cosmology that accorded with Christian belief gained ground in the core of Saami culture. At any rate, in the late tradition, there was a confusion between the concepts of the sáiva -dwellers and the earth spirits. Lars Levi Laestadius dealt extensively with the sáiva concept in his work Lappalaisen mytologian katkelmat (Fragments of Lapp Mythology).</p>
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