Sámi drums
The Sámi drums are oval wooden frames (South Sámi gievrie) or bowls (North Sámi goavddis) covered with reindeer skin. The drumskins are decorated with characteristic patterns painted with a red colour obtained by chewing alder bark. Of the thousands once existing, only 71 drums have survived with their skins intact; while the designs of a few more are partially known from early modern drawings of variable accuracy.
Classification and geographical distribution
The drums can be classified according to their construction and decoration styles. Though the exact place of origin is known only for a minority of the surviving drums, the distribution of each type seems to correspond so closely to the territory of a distinct Sámi language (if the now extinct Kemi Sámi language is included), that the terms used for the languages may with some caution also be applied to the drum types.
The map shows the recent historical distribution of the Sámi languages with the current number of speakers or the approximate year when the language went extinct. The icons show the main characteristics of the corresponding drum types and the number of surviving drums. Written sources confirm that drums also existed in eastern Sámi areas other than Kemi, but none survive and neither their construction types nor their design styles are known.
The Sámi languages can be organised into a language tree, but their relation is perhaps better described as a continuum where neighbouring dialects usually are mutually intelligible. Similarly, the drum types can be grouped into larger categories, though with the same inherent problem – no matter which characteristic is chosen to define a group, its boundary will also separate drums with other shared features. Further, the terms generally used for such categories are also used for branches of the language tree without necessarily matching these precisely.
No gaps |
With gaps |
|||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3+ rows |  North |
 Kemi |
||
| 1–2 rows |  Lule |
|||
| No sun cross |  Pite |
|||
| Sun cross |  South |
 Ume |
||
| Undivided field | Divided field | |||
The diagram to the right suggests two obvious alternatives in
categorisation: either pairwise in rows, giving a northern, an Arctic
Circle
and a southern category, or – intuitively less useful
– in columns giving eastern and western categories consisting of a
single type each and a central category with four. However, in spite of
the clear similarities in the decoration both between the South Sámi drums
and the neighbouring Ume Sámi ones and between the Kemi Sámi drums and the
North Sámi ones, the latter categorisation is probably the better one for
two reasons. First, most features shared by Lule and Pite Sámi drums are
also common to Ume and North Sámi ones, so the suggested Arctic
Circle
category would be defined by negative criteria
(lacking a central sun cross; having no more than two
horizontally separated fields). Second, the three columns closely
correspond to different construction types.
There are two major types of construction: frame drums,
where the skin is stretched over a short cylinder
made of bent
wood stiffened by a crossbar also functioning as a handle, and bowl
drums with a rounded body made from a single piece of wood, with
two elongated holes in the bottom forming a grip. These are generally
smaller than the frame drums. Both types had developed before any of the
surviving drums were made, but the bowl drum is typologically a later
development, via a subtype of frame drums with an inward flange on the
bottom rim of the body.
In the normal frame drums, the body is made from a thin band of wood bent into an oval. This type is similar to the Siberian shaman drums, the Irish Bodhrán and several other drums from around the world. With four minor exceptions, this subtype corresponds to the South Sámi decoration style, though it must have been the original type in all areas. The exceptions are two bowl drums with South Sámi decoration and one frame drum with Ume Sámi decoration – all three with somewhat transitional features in the decoration as well – and finally a very late South Sámi drum where the frame-shaped body uniquely is carved from a large piece of wood like the bowl drums. Otherwise all central Sámi drums are bowl drums and the two Kemi Sámi ones are flanged frame drums, larger than any normal frame drums. The remains of a very old smaller flanged frame drum without the drumskin has been found in the central Sámi area, suggesting that the bowl drums developed from this form.
Early sources on the use and symbolism of Sámi drums
Tracings of all surviving drums and drawings of lost ones