Rune Hagen
University of Tromsø

From the hearing of a case about witchcraft at Hasvåg, in the western region of Finnmark, Norway , May 1627 - Sammendrag på norsk

Source: Court Book ("Tingbok"), No.2 for Finnmark, March 1627 - August 1633, 4a-5b

A criminal case was brought against a Sami shaman (noaidi ) called Quiwe Baarsen, working as a servant for Norwegians at Aarøya, in Altafjorden. From 1603 until 1607 he lived in Lappojavrre, at this time in the Swedish-Norwegian borderlands (Lapland). In 1608 he moved to Porsangerfjorden and after 1613 we can find him at Talvik and Lagnes in Altafjorden before settling down at Aarøya in the early 1620's. He is one among twenty-six Sami accused of witchcraft in Finnmark (or Vardøhus Len) in the 17^th century.

The Court:
Bailiff (fogd): Niels Knudsen
Deputy Bailiff( underfogd) in Hasvåg: Jens Jensen Vendelbo
Chief Magistrate and Jury Foreman (Sorenskriver): Johan Borchenfeld
Local jury members (lagrettemenn): Jens Jensen Vendelbo, Daniell Christophersen, Niels Poullsen, Jens Olsen, Jon Hellesen and Oluf Semundsen.

Hasvåg in the 17^th century. From Speculum Boreale by Hans H. Lilienskiold.

On 9 May 1627, the local court was in session, at Hasvåg, in the presence of Bailiff Niels Knudsen and a jury. The bailiff questioned a Sami male, Quiwe Baarsen, about what he did the time he made sailing winds for Niels Jonsen, from Rognsund, two years before (1625). Quiwe confessed that Niels came to him on the eighth day before All-Saints Day, in 1625, and asked for a sailing wind for him to get to Hasvåg, saying that he would pay him well when he came back. Quiwe agreed to this, took off his right shoe (komage), and washed his bare foot in calm sea waters, saying:

"Wind to land, wind to land!".

Niels and his fishermen then got a favourable sailing wind. Before sailing to Hasvåg, Quiwe told the fishermen not to set the sail too much before they passed Klubbenes; after that, they could set the sail as much as the boat could carry.

The Saturday before All-Saints Day, Trine, the wife of Oluf Øresen, came to Quiwe and asked him to make a sailing wind so that her husband, who had sailed with Niels Jonsen, could come home soon. She promised to give him a keg of beer if he would raise the wind. Again Quiwe agreed, and this time he took a piglet, throwing it into the sea and invoking the winds with:

"Wind to sea, wind to sea!"

But the piglet squirmed too much under the sun (snode sig formegit vnder soelenn), and the wind became too strong. Quiwe said to Trine: "God have mercy on them. I am afraid that they have left prematurely and that the wind will be too strong. If they sailed at the beginning of the storm, may God have mercy, or they will not return."

Niels Jonsen, Oluf Øresen and three boys from Hasvåg - Jon Olsen, Hans Poulsen and Matz Olsen - all perished in that storm. The bailiff asked if Quiwe had raised the wind other times. Quiwe replied: "Yes, I have often made wind for people. Four years ago I made wind for a ship from Nordlandene, lying at Karcken, because the men aboard requested that I make wind for them. So I washed my foot and stirred a gentle southern wind."

Furthermore, the Bailiff asked whether he knew how to do sorcery (gand). Quiwe answered that he had never taken anything to conjure runic spells (rundom). The Bailiff then wanted Quiwe to explain what the runic spells were. Quiwe answered:

"When they want to cast runic spells, they use a Sami drum (goavdi - runebomme). The drum is made of pine root and covered with reindeer hide or buckskin. They use a piece of wood, as a handle under the drum, and claws from every kind of animal native to this county are hung around the drum. Nine lines are painted on the drum with alder bark; this bark is also used to paint domestic pillows in the huts of the Sami. The first line on the drum represents their god, the second the sun, and the third the moon; these, in turn, symbolise the animals which can bring them luck or inflict harm on their enemies. And when two sorcerers (gandmen) want to test whose craft is the strongest, they paint two antler-butting reindeer on the drum. Whichever one turns out to be the strongest will indicate which master is strongest and most cunning. And when they want to ask their apostle (demon or guiding spirit) about something, they will take some small pieces of copper and hang them on the wings of a bird made of copper, which they then place on the drum. Striking the drum with a horn hammer, lined with beaver skin, the bird leaps around on the drum and finally stops on one of the lines. Then the master knows immediately what the apostle has answered. To protect the master, or whoever else may be in the hut (gammen), from accident, they beat the drum with the hammer. He whose bird falls from the drum will not live long."

Then Quiwe was asked if he had studied this craft for some time. Such things were introduced to him when he was a mere boy, he replied. He was also asked how often he himself had been involved in beating such a drum. He answered that once many sorcerers (gandmenn) came together to drum, to see whose craft was strongest.

Quiwe was also interrogated about who had taught him to raise the wind (gjøre bør). He then said:

"A Sami, now dead, by the name of Lauridtz Quern (from Kvalsund), before the time of the war" (i.e. the Kalmar War with Sweden, 1611-1613).

 Two days later, on 11 May, the court was again in session. Quiwe Baarsen's account was read to him, and he was asked to confirm his statements. He pleaded guilty to the charges. The bailiff asked the court to arrive at a verdict and wanted the penalty to be strong. According to the bailiff, Quiwe Baarsen should be given the death penalty and be burned at the stake. In the verdict, the local court said that Quiwe Baarsen had made a free confession about the use of diabolic spells and that he had used witchcraft to drown five people. The court sentenced Quiwe Baarsen to death and to be burned at the stake.

A Sami shaman using his drum. More about this picture

References:
Tingbok nr. 2 for Finnmark, 1627-1633, Statsarkivet i Tromsø
Fogderegnskap for Torneå og Vestersjøen 1599-1609

Hagen, Rune "The witch-hunt in early modern Finnmark," Acta Borealia 1- 1999:43-62
Lilienskiold, Hans H. Trolldom og ugudelighet i 1600-tallets Finnmark, Redigert og bearbeidet av Rune Hagen og Per Einar Sparboe, Ravnetrykk nr.18, Tromsø 1998
Nielsen, Jens Petter: Altas historie, Bind 1, Alta 1990

Sami witchcraft was known to entail three characteristics, according to educated Europeans of the early modern age. The Sami were renown for their abilities to tell fortunes and predict future events. Ever since the Nordic sagas were recorded, this feature of the indigenous populations of the North was well-known. It was forbidden to travel to Finnmark's Sami, according to ancient Norwegian laws, to have one's fortune told. But closely associated with their powers of prophecy were their abilities to narrate events. By the use of a magic drum (runebomme), and other rituals, a Sami shaman (noaidi) would allow himself to fall into some kind of a trance - at which time his spirit would be led far away. Upon awakening, he could tell a patron of events that had occurred at the site to which his spirit had travelled.
Satan himself was thought of having given these drums to the Sami, according to Christians immersed in demonological concepts of shamanism. The drum, or instrument of the Devil, was the means by which a sorcerer would summon his demons. Such demons were believed to reside in a drum, and these were revived by striking the drum. In this manner, each drumbeat was intended for Satan in hell - to quote a Swedish missionary working among the Sami. While under the spell of his satanic trance (djevelsøvn), a shaman would communicate with his attendant demon whom, because of his tremendous acuity and faculty for moving swiftly, could divulge global events to his master. As a result, 17th-century missionaries appointed to the Sami regions made necessary arrangements to burn the drums and to destroy the pagan gods of the Sami. The demonizing of this pantheistic-like religion profilated throughout the 17th-century. And Sami who believed in their abilities to predict the future were accused of being satanic prophets.
"Gand" was the third kind of sorcery attributed to the Sami. Spellcasting - or "gand" (diabolicus gandus) - was what Norwegians, and other pious men and women, feared most during the 16th-century and the beginning of the 17th-century. The Sami were known to cast their evil spells across vast distances. In fact, such spells could be carried upon the northern winds and result in illnesses among people far to the South in Europe. These beliefs were asserted with great conviction by some of the greatest intellectuals residing in France, England and Denmark. The "gand" was imagined to be something physical. Olaus Magnus, for instance, spoke of this kind of spell as small leaden arrows, at the middle of the 16th-century. And the Nordland vicar, Petter Dass, described the Sami spell as vile, dark blue flies - otherwise known as Beelzebub's flies - at the end of the 17th-century. Historical court records, from Finnmark and Nordland, offer specific descriptions and actual illustrations of the Sami "gand". One of the passages even mentions that the "gand" resembles a mouse with heads at both front and rear. Consequently, the Sami were known to bewitch by casting spells upon people. This is the kind of bewitching that is reported upon in the Sami sorcery trials of 17th-century Finnmark. Some witch trials were also said to contain elements of shamanism, but only in limited numbers.

Satan in the North
Satan im Norden
At the Entrance to Hell
Am Einstieg zur Hölle
Vorestellungen über Samische Zauberkunst
The 1670 voyage of la Martinière

On the picture I'm holding the original runebomme, which was confiscated from Anders Poulsen in Nesseby, Eastern part of Finnmark, late 1691. The drum is preserved at De Samiske Samlinger (Sámiid Vuorká Dávvirat) in Karasjok.
Photo by Marianne Johnsen Utsi, Ságat (November 2003)

In Arctic Norway over 175 people were prosecuted for the crime of witchcraft from 1593 to 1695. The witch trials of the far north are distinctive in a European context because of the elements of Sami magic. About 20% of the witch trials are known to have affected the Sami. But only a few of these trials show traces of Sami shamanism. In Sami shamanism the drum, runebomme, is of great importance, and often linked to ecstatic divinations. The Sami shaman, noaidi, played his drum when he wanted to heal, divine, or to bring luck during hunting, and when he wanted to communicate with his gods. During the witch trials in Finnmark, two Sami drums were confiscated. One of the owners had to answer questions about the use of the drum and about the meaning of all the figures and symbols on his drum. Trying to find traces of shamanism, the article emphasises on the trial records of this particular case. These records date from one of the last but most momentous witch-trial in 1692. An old Sami shaman, Anders Poulsen, told the court about the symbols and the use of his magic drum. He also stood up and demonstrated the instrument for the people being present in the court house of a small fishing village called Vadsø.The assessment of the court case upholds the findings which criticise ecstasy and trance as choice characteristics when trying to determine what exactly the shaman world view consists of.

Same. Fra Årøya. Dømt i Hasvåg 11/5. Båldom.
Fra 1603 til 1607 er han omtalt i de svenske skattelistene fra Lappojavrre.
I 1608 heter det at han er dratt til Vestersjøen og at han gjør sin skatt i Porsanger. Etter 1613 finner vi han i Talvik og Langnes før han tar tjeneste som dreng hos nordmennene på Årøya rundt 1620
Omfattende sak. QB trolldomskunst blir satt i forbindelse med et forlis på Altafjorden der ei jekt fra Rognsund gikk ned med fem mann senhøsten 1625.
Dømt for å ha forgjort disse fem ved bruk av djevelkunster.

Opplært som noaide før Kalmarkrigen av Lauritz Kven fra Kvalsund. Ble ofte brukt fordi han kunne lage bør. Trondheimsborgeren Jens Jacobsen hadde brukt QB som forløser engang hans kone skulle føde.

Da Niels Jonsen fra Rognsund høsten 1625 skulle seile til Hasvåg for å levere fisk, fikk han QB til å lage bør. QB laget denne gangen vind ved å ta komagen av sin høyre fot, deretter dyppet han foten i vannet mens han sa 'landvær, landvær'. De fikk da en fralandsvind. QB sa til Niels Jonsen at de ikke burde føre for mye seil før de kom forbi Klubbneset ytterst i Rognsund. Jekta kom fram til Hasvåg. Forliset inntraff på tilbaketuren. Det er Trine som vil ha QB til å lage ny bør for å få sin mann Oluff Øressen, som var med på jekta til Hasvåg, snarest mulig hjem igjen. Hun kjøpte vind for ei kanne øl. Denne gangen laget han vind ved å kaste en grisunge på sjøen mens han sa 'havvær,havvær'. Men siden grisungen snudde seg for mye under solen, ble børa for sterk. Jekta gikk ned i stormen og Niels, Oluff samt tre av drengene til handelsmannen og underfogden Jens Jensen Vendelbo omkom.

Fogden spurte QB om gankunst og runebommen. QB gir en lang beskrivelse av runebommen i rettsreferatet fra 9/5-1627.

(Stor takk til MARK LEDINGHAM i Tromsø Kommune for hjelp med den engelske oversettelsen av sakspapirene)

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