My name is Juhán Nikolaus Wuolab Wollberg. I am a 25 year old man with a bachelor’s degree in reindeer husbandry as well as born and raised in the Saami reindeer herding culture. I am from the North Saami reindeer herding community specifically from Ballangen, Narvik area. I have been actively participating in reindeer herding for my community the last six years.
My relationship with reindeer milking is closer to me than I had previously thought. I grew up with the understanding that this is a cultural practice that my ancestors did a long time ago, I am thinking 200 years ago and further back, and that reindeer milk was a luxury thing. I had heard about other reindeer herding people from my aunt, but this was too far away in my world. It was not until I asked my mother and uncle about reindeer milking in association with the reindeer milking workshop with the Dukha reindeer herdersI attended that I came to understand how close the practice of milking still was to our community and how close it was to me personally. My grandmother and her sister as late as 1968milked their reindeer1on the mountain we call Ávjuvárri (Norwegian name Håfjell) sometime around early September.
I will write the following paragraphs in present form, to highlight this is a still living cultural practise of Dukha reindeer herders and from my family research that most of our knowledge and thinking processes are very similar. Saami reindeer milking practice still exists, and we can see a lot of similarities to Dukha traditional knowledge.
Saami reindeer herders like Dukha reindeer herder milk the áldu2 traditionally on the right side. When we milk reindeers, we collect the milk in a special cup made of wood with curved edges so it will not spill as easily, and we call it náhppi4. It is not specially tied to milking of reindeers. We would collect any type of milk that is milked, be it reindeers, goats, or the occasional cow. As the reindeer age from young áldu to older áldu (there is no clear cut-off point, and North Saami does not have a specific word for different ages of áldu), theáldu produces more milk. I was told this by a Dukha elder that there are two reasons. One is due to the áldu getting into the routine of milking, and the second reason is also depending on the time of milking season. To make future milking easier, the milker can drag the teat a bit to stretch it. In Dukha milking practice the season starts from 10 days after the calf is born until before the rut. Saami reindeer herders would milk from čákčageassi5 until early November. A common practice is to never milk a sick áldu. Dukha and North Saami reindeer herders nurse the reindeer or wait until it is well again.
The consistency of reindeer milk changes as the season does and with the reindeer’s diet. In the beginning of summer, right when the calf is born the milk has more protein, this is due to the change in diet from lichen to grass, and more of the milk is produced by the áldu so that the miessi3 can grow strong fast. From my interviews with Dukha elders, as soon as mushrooms start popping up the reindeer milk becomes creamier and thicker in consistency. This is in line with what I have been taught about reindeer diet, in traditional Saami reindeer herder knowledge, the time when mushrooms show up reindeer eat them like crazy to fatten up before the winter.
From what I have learned from my time with Dukha reindeer herders I have come to understand that land degradation, through policies or or own unwilliningness to change, is making it hard if not impossible to start up reindeer milking again in North Sápmi. Additionally I learned from the workshop that reindeer milking is resource intensive. You need good pastures, you need the infrastructure, and you need time and manpower. The milked áldu need daily human handling, the áldu need to be tamed with a place to come back to, i.e. the miessi.
There are some terminology when used in milking specific to North Saami. Saami terminology for milking reindeer is “bohčit”. When milk curdles, we say that the milk is “lohpemin”, and when it turns sour we say “suvrumin”. We call reindeer cheese for “gáfevuosta”, because this is tied to how we consume the cheese, with coffee.
I was personally surprised by how sweet the milk tasted after boiling and how easy it was to spread on a slice of bread. It enhanced and lifted the taste of whatever I put onto the bread whether it was jam or a slice of salami. And having tasted Mongolian tea with cow milk and Dukha tea with reindeer milk. I have talked to my uncle about the taste and he did not enjoy the powerful taste of reindeer milk, but I much prefer the taste of reindeer milk
Appendix:
1.Photo of my grandmother and sister from 1968
2. Áldu– female reindeer with a living calf
3. Miessi – reindeer calf
4. Náhppi – wooden bowl with curved edge to collect milk
5. Čákčágeassi – late summer, with start in early August