Albert Jåma:

Between school and reindeer herding

Told to and translated by Svein Lund

Albert Jåma, Trones in Namdalen, 2003.
(Photo: Svein Lund)

Albert Jåma is born in 1946 and has grown up in a reindeer herding family. In winter they stayed in areas near to the coast in Namdalen, and in summer in the higher mountain areas in the northern part of Nord-Trøndelag. Today he himself is a reindeer herder in this area. Here he tells about his school days and about his life between school and reindeer herding.

Albert's father, Anselm Jåma, was actively involved in South-Sami school affairs. He was for many years leader of the South-Samis' school commitee. For his hard work for Sami school and other Sami affairs, he was granted the King's Gold Medal in 1968. The school commitee was started already in 1902, but was liquidated in 1947, as the authorities promised that it would be built a state owned dormitory school for South-Samis. But as the provisional school which in 1951 was started in Hattfjelldal was not what the South-Samis had been fighting for, the commitee was reorganised in 1953. It was mainly the Samis in Trøndelag and Hedmark who took part in this commitee. Most Samis in Hattfjelldal and Vefsn were afraid that founding of a new Sami school in Trøndelag would lead to that they lost the offer they now had in Hattfjelldal. (Hattfjelldal is in Nordland county, north of Trøndelag, while Hedmark is still further south.) It should last a long time before the work of the school commitee gave any visible results. The Sami school in Snåsa was finally started in 1968.

Albert's 4 years older brother went his first school years in the old Sami mission school in Havika. Albert himself got his whole primary school at the Sami school in Hattfjelldal 1953-60. When he started it was thus the third year that the school was running.

- It was a quite provisional school which met us in Hattfjelldal. It was build by the Germans during 2. World War as a barrack for officers. After the war the building was used as a hotel. The school hired the building for the school year, but it was run as a hotel in summer. The owner of the hotel lived at the school and looked after his hotel equipment the first three-four years.

Why Sami school without Sami language?

- I could speak both Sami and Norwegian quite well when I started school. I had no problems with understanding. Other pupils had problems. There were quite a lot who could very little Norwegian. None of the teachers could speak Sami language, except Ella Holm Bull. She was there for a while as newly educated teacher. She taught the 1. and 2. class, but I never had her as a teacher. Myself I never experienced a Sami speaking teacher. That I really missed. We asked each other why we go to a Sami school when we don't learn any Sami language. Even after it became legally to teach in Sami, there did not happen any changes in Hattfjelldal. I remember that we read Margarethe Wiig's Sami ABC, in Norwegian. [Bilingual elementary reader in North-Sami and Norwegian.]

However, for all the time when I was at the Sami school, there had been a housekeeper who could speak Sami. First it was Maja Staven (Lifjell) until we were in the 4th class, after that Sofie Kappfjell. There were also some others working in the dormitory who talked Sami, among others Skjolvor Joma. Åsta Larsen also worked there for a short time.

Most pupils came from reindeer herding families, and the school year was adapted to the seasons of the herding. That was important so that we should not loose the contact with our roots. The first years we went to school only before Christmas, about 16 weeks with 6 days a week. The higher classes went to school in spring, about 22 weeks. That way we had less hours than the village school in Hattfjelldal, and I remember that the village children envied us who had so much free time.

In spite of lack of Sami language and content, has Albert afterwards much positively to say about the school he went to:
- The school gave us a feeling of common interests. We had to take responsibility for each other and develop solidarity. Also as regards environment and learning of subjects it was a good school. Sometimes there were knowledge competitions between the schools in Hattfjelldal, and most often the Sami school was on top.

My mother was a member of the school's supervision council, as the only woman. It can't have been easy at that time, because the council was dominated by men in high posisions, like the parish priest and the local doctor. They did not always like that a woman without any higher education or noble descent should promote her own opinions.

Skiing day with campfire approx. 1960, Albert Jåma to the left.
(Photo: Grete Austad)

Spoiled by the environment at village schools

The 1950's and 60's was a merciless and tough time in the villages. The farmers' children teased and plagued the "Lapp children". Many of the Sami children, may be most of them, who attended village schools had to reject themselves to survive at all. I believe that we had not saved out identity if we did not have the Sami school. I will say it so strongly that, if I should have gone to the village school in Høylandet, I would have been mentally spoiled. I mean that many of those who went to village schools were environmentally spoiled seen from a Sami point of view. They were deprived of the Sami way of thinking, they don't any longer think community but individualism. In the Sami way of thinking landscape belongs to the community. It is neigher mine nor yours, but ours and all our relatives'. It is farmers' thinking to claim private ownership to an area. Such was completely unheard of in Sami way of thinking at that time.

Reindeer herding school with cultural collision

After the Sami school there were many Sami pupils who went to the continuation school (1 year school after obligatory primary school) in Hattfjelldal. But Albert was first at home for a year and took part in the reindeer herding before he went back to Hattfjelldal and took continuation school the winter of 1961-62. After yet another year at home and in the mountains, he went to Rørvik for state "realskole" (theoretical secondary school) for two years, and then he worked at home with reindeers for five years before he again went to school.

In 1968 started State Reindeer Herding School at Borkenes near Harstad, and Albert was accepted as a pupil. He should of course have started in autumn together with the others, but there was so much to do in the reindeer herding that he did not get away.

- I got a dispensation to stay at home the whole autumn, and I was in the mountains all the time. Then I went to school in January with strict order to work hard go reach up with the others. The only subjects which were new to me, was geology, soil knowledge and domestic animals knowledge. It was about production of grass and about cows, typical subjects of agricultural school. But these subjects were not very much stressed. Bookkeeping was a new subject for most pupils, but I had fortunately learnt it in the "realskole", so I had no problems in gaining up with the others. The rest of the subjects was mostly such which I was acquainted with.

There were almost only boys in the class, only one girl. The children came both from South-Sami areas and from Troms and Finnmark. There was a good contact between North- and South-Samis. This contact was always in Norwegian, as we did not understand each others Sami language. The North-Sami pupils spoke Norwegian well. I only remember one who may be had a little problems with the Norwegian language.

- The Reindeer Herding School was in a Norwegian agricultural village and was placed under a gardening school. It probably had to lead to some cultural collisions?
- There had been some problems in autumn, before I came, both at school and in the village. In the reindeer herding school there were mainly a little elder pupils, as there had not been such an offer before. Yes, we had some parties, and the headmaster, who actually was the headmaster of the gardening school, got a little scared by us. The leader of the board of the Reindeer Herding School, Anders Oskal, had to come to the school to mediate. But we were popular among the girls in the village. They were indeed not afraid of us. To me it was an interesting village environment.

- To start a reindeer herding school from nothing can't have been easy. Did you have any schoolbooks?
- The main book was " Rein og reindrift" (Reindeers and reindeer herding) by Sven Skjenneberg, who was a researcher at Statens reinforsøk (State reindeer research station) in Lødingen. To get the Reindeer Herding School accepted by the Ministry of Agriculture, we had to have agricultural subjects. So a certain percent of the plan consisted of such subject. But we succeeded in exchanging some of the subject, among others tractor was exchanged into snow scooter. The school bought an old Varg on which we trained repairing and a new Ockelbo which we raged around with.

Again and again back to reindeer herding

After the reindeer herding school Albert went back to reindeer herding. He would have liked to go to more schools, but did not have time for it.

- I had to be in the mountains. My brother married early and moved out, and I was left alone with my parents. After some years my family got more help. It was the Anti brothers who came from Karasjok and started working with reindeers together with my family. Then after some time I got time to get away for more schools, and I took one year gymnasium (upper secondary school) at Oslo språkskole. After that I applied to the journalist college. I saw the need of putting spotlight on all the injustice which the Samis had to bear. But unfortunately I did not get in. I had choosen teachers' college in Alta as a good number two, and I got in there instead. Again I got permission to start after the others. The slaughtering had of course to be finished first. It was two years with a lot of leaves, because I all the time had to go home for reindeer collection and slaughtering. At that time there was already a Sami department in Alta College, but this was only for students who spoke North-Sami. Myself I had to attend the department of ordinary Norwegian students, and I did not get any professional Sami content during my teachers' education. While I was i Alta I took introduction course in North-Sami in my leisure time, with Håkon Henriksen as a teacher. The last year I went to study in Trondheim, to have shorter way home.

After teachers' college he went back to reindeer herding for some years, before he started as a teacher in Snåsa.
- I indeed did not have time to work as a teacher, but after pressure I took some years at the Sami school in Snåsa. They then had some pupils with Sami as their first language, but the first language teacher had left. At the same time as I was working as a teacher I was responsible for the unit in reindeer herding. Therefore I was dependent on having an appointment with the school administration so that I could be present in the reindeer herding when necessary

- You tell that you have been teaching South-Sami language, but you did not yourself learn it at school. When did you learn to read and write your own mother tongue?
- In the schools which I have attended I have not got any South-Sami. As an adult I have joined a couple of courses at Snåsa, which the headmaster of the Sami school Ella Holm Bull was in charge of. Later I took half year unit in South-Sami at Snåsa under Levanger College, and several years later the other half year unit in Hattfjelldal. It was organised by Nesna College.

Education in favour of or against reindeer herding?

Both from his own experiences and from what he later has seen of reindeer herding education, Albert Jåma in somewhat sceptical.
- The reindeer herding education seems to have as its aim to adapt reindeer herding to the main society. It is not made based on the interests of Sami reindeer herding, but governed by external interests. One may therefore ask if it at all is an educations which benefits the reindeer herders, or just a way of educating reindeer herding youth away from the Sami reindeer herding and into a reindeer herding as the non-Sami society wishes it to be.

(Drawing: Josef Halse)

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