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Comment by timonoko

11 hours ago

No. Swedish Sami are almost all whitehaired Scandinavians. Famously depicted longnoses like Peter Stormare in the movies.

In 1800 Sweden and Norway made it impossible to follow herds around in Nomadic Style so they all escaped to Finland and Russia.

The "Sami" you see today are Swedes who adopted the lifestyle when certain restriction were lifted and Reindeer-herding become monopoly of Sami. Declaring Samines was just a formality.

All nordic "Sami" oppose DNA-testing, as they clearly are very different from real Sami living in Russia.

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timonoko

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vintermann  11 hours ago

There are so many weird theories like these.

No, Sweden and Norway did not make it impossible to follow herds around. They had so little state presence up north, they hardly could even if they had wanted to! Once state power started to reach Northern Sapmi for real, one of the first things Sweden and Denmark/Norway managed to agreed on (despite regular wars!) was rights for reindeer herders to cross borders as they used to. This wasn't to be nice, but because reindeer herders were very profitable tax subjects with a lot of highly mobile capital (so mobile it could move on its own!), and neither Sweden or Norway wanted to scare them off to the other side.

What did happen is that Denmark-Norway and Sweden didn't want to involve Russia-Finland in this early brotherly deal (especially, Norway didn't want to let Russians fish in Norwegian fjords), and so Russia closed its borders, including to the nomads. A few got stuck on the Russian side, but most stayed in Sweden and Norway. This forced the reindeer herders to push further south (with government blessing, as mentioned they were highly profitable subjects) and into the lands of non-herding Sami causing a lot of problems, but that's another story. This is why Norway and Sweden have far more Sami than Russia and the former Russian duchy, Finland. Reindeer herders were also the main preservers of the Sami language, due in no small part to their wealth and pride in their distinctness - how exactly does the Sami language factor into your theory that today's Sami are just cosplaying Swedes?

(Also, if Sami are so opposed to DNA testing, why do I have half of Karasjok in my match list at ftdna?)