Reindeer milking has always been an interesting part of Sámi culture that I have always wanted to learn more about. It has always been a dream of mine to try it in our herd. Milking reindeer have not been practiced in decades in my area, and a lot of the knowledge about milking has diminished by time. I could read about it and hear about it, but it would never be the same as trying it in practice. The opportunity to visit the Dukhaa people in East Taiga, Mongolia in August 2024, is a trip I will be forever grateful to have fulfilled. Here I was pleased to try reindeer milking for the very first time. The hospitality and openness about the Dukhaa peoples way of living gave us the opportunity to get to know them, and also to get to know our own Sámi history.
We followed the Dukhaa peoples daily tasks in connection with the reindeer milking. Early in the morning they wake up to release the females (aaltoeh) and males (råantjah) for grazing. They bind the calves, and in that way, they get hours separated for the female to produce milk during the day. In the afternoon the females automatically return to their calves, and it becomes natural to milk the females before releasing the calves again. Everyone have their way of milking their females, but in general they do the same procedures. In terms of milking, you of course need to be clean. They often make products of the milk that is not pasteurized, therefore a clean process is highly necessary. By observing the dukhaa people milking their reindeer, we observed the result of years of hard work taming their reindeer enough to be good milking females. Because of the time limit, we were not able to observe the taming process, but I am deeply impressed by the close relations between the reindeer and the people. Milking reindeer requires deep trust from both the reindeer female and the one milking. The females have to be tame enough and trust people enough to let herself be milked. She even have to be stimulated to release the milk. The calmest females are the easiest to milk, but they have several binding solutions if the females are harder to milk. We asked if there are females that are too hard to milk and the answer was; as long as the female had a calf this year, it will be milked. The young females are unexperienced and need a lot of training for becoming a good milking female, but the older ones are experienced and stable.
The women of the village are the ones who traditionally handle the milking. They are mainly those who release the females in the morning, bind the calves and milk the reindeer in the afternoon. They also make a lot of different products of the milk and have a lot of knowledge of preparing the milk. We got informed how the pastures and seasons affected the milk. We were visiting in the mushroom season, and according to the people the mushroom makes the milk fatter and creamier than before. And it really was creamy, fat and had a round taste. For example, the boiled, fresh milk became a delicious cream that was good with bread, and the tea with fresh reindeer milk was a tasty drink. The women shared knowledge about the climate changes, land degradation, how they struggle with the high population of wolves. We even experienced a hard situation in the morning, where a wolf came near the village and slaughtered a reindeer calf. The similarities between the Dukhaa and Sámi people are many, as we see our indigenous traditions, our livelihoods and challenges we face. I value the relationships we have built in this trip, and for the friendship between the Dukhaa and Sámi people. I will continue to seek more knowledge about reindeer milking, and bring what I have learned into the reindeer husbandry in my area.