The church and copper smelting works at Sulitjelma. Photo: Sulitjelma Historical Society’s photo collection. The shaman family and the legend of Sulitjelma

By Wenche Spjelkavik

It is not unusual for a mining town to have a legend about how a Sami randomly found the ore, or about a reindeer bull that kicked away some moss and uncovered some precious metal. In Sulitjelma, the Sami was Mons Andreas Pedersen, who found the ore in about 1858. Older memoir material occasionally mentions the name “Jungen” for the Sami who gave Sulitjelma the legend of the church spire and the downfall of the village.

That the legend has remained alive in folklore until the present day is not so strange. The fate of mining communities who live by producing metals is inextricably linked to international politics and stock exchange prices for currencies and metals, and thus to economic ups and downs. Political events on the world stage have certainly influenced life in this northern-Norwegian mining town. For example, the outbreak of the First World War brought with it an extraordinary increase in the prices of copper and pyrite. In 1915, the enormous profits realised by the mining company became obvious to everyone when the railway was extended by 10 km from Hellarmo and into the smelting works in Fagerli. A brand-new workers’ housing area with architect-designed homes was also constructed in Glastunes. By November 1918, however, the war was over, and the market for those products suddenly evaporated. The 1,545 workers faced massive lay-offs. By October the following year, only 420 workers remained.¹ After such dramatic changes, the legend was surely recalled and refreshed by those who had been affected. People experienced similar sudden upheavals in the mining and economic situation almost every decade, until the mine in Sulitjelma was shut down in 1991. Consequently, there have been many situations where workers have brought up the legend of the Sami who had a vision of the building and downfall of Sulitjelma. The identity of the soothsayer was forgotten, along with when this “vision” was supposed to have taken place. This article aims to attempt to shed new light on both the prediction and the shaman.
The Church and the mining company’s relationship with the prediction.

Johannes Aanderaa came to Sulitjelma as a resident curate in 1915. After two years in the mining town, he wrote an account of the place: They say that about 60–70 years ago, a clairvoyant fjellfinn (Mountain Sami) stood on Sulitjelmatoppen and looked out over the Sulitjelma Valley, [...] down to the hills with the lush, green grass and luxuriant forest, which had been his permanent station for many years. There was an excellent pasture for reindeer, and there were plenty of fish in the rivers and grouse up in the woods. And there he ruled, mostly alone. However, as he stands there and looks out over his kingdom, a strange sensation runs through him; he becomes psychic and sees into the future: Large boats with no oars or sails steaming up Lake Langvatnet. The forest disappears, and great houses are erected along the lake. Places where there used to be reindeer paths are teeming with people. They dig into the mountains and retrieve an expensive metal. Everything is changed, and bustling prosperity prevails. A church is also built, but when the church spire is raised, everything will have reached its peak. From then on, the village begins its decline. With certain variations, this is how people retell the vision of the future supposedly seen by a fjellfinn, long before copper deposits were discovered here.²

The Sulitjelma church was completed in 1899. The priest Aanderaa wrote that the church had, remarkably, been built in such a exposed location that no one dared build the church tower as high as was originally intended. The tower was shortened by four metres, and, among the people, this has been interpreted as being due to the legend. Aanderaa does not mention that the church had a cross on the tower and not a spire.³

The church was consecrated with great fanfare, but not without the prediction casting its long shadow among the parishioners. Olaf Amundsen, the parish priest in Skjerstad, had written the text for a cantata that was performed at the consecration. The director of the mining company, Emil Knudsen, had composed the music and was himself the soloist. And, in one of the verses, Knudsen sang:

In the memoirs of the mining engineer Fredrik Carlsson there is a story told by a miner in Sulitjelma, Frants Holmstrøm. Holmstrøm came from Arjeplog and worked in Sulitjelma from 1891 to 1935. He said: Kristine Jungen in Fagerli was a cook and old maid. It was her paternal grandfather who had visions in Bursi. He saw that Sulis would be populated as a big city with lights and houses, and steam boats on the lake, dragging barges behind them, and he saw the church being erected. But if the spire were also raised, it would mean that Sulis had reached its peak and would begin to decline. He then foresaw the construction of three smelting works and that the third would be at Sandnes and that it would explode and lay waste to the area, and many lives would be lost – and then the fortunes of Sulis would enter a state of flux.⁵

Steamers with pyrite barges on Lake Langvatnet, about 1913.

Holmstrøm said that the shaman was Kristine Jungen’s paternal grandfather, without providing any more detail about how he could know that. He probably didn’t know the name of this grandfather. The first time I heard the name of the shaman was a summer evening in the mid 1970s, on the Swedish side of the Sulis Mountains. It was Lars Ranberg (b. 1903) in Stenudden by Tjeggelvas, who spoke of “Jungen” and the prediction about Sulitjelma. Jungen belonged to the Mavas sameby (corporation of Sami reindeer herders). The family was now extinct, and no descendants were known of in Sweden. In his childhood, Lars had often heard about Jungen and how he had seen a steaming serpent slithering both on water and on land through Langvassdalen. This had been interpreted to be the steamboats on Lake Langvatnet and the railway.⁷

Lars Erik Ruong (1937–2007) was brought up in Mavas and had been a reindeer herder for many years. He was known as a local historian with great knowledge of the areas bordering Sulitjelma. In a conversation with Ruong in 1995, he said that for many years after “Jungen’s” death, his walking staff stood as a monument in a rocky desert in the mountains east of Mavas, where it had remained for many, many years, weathered by wind and rain, until strangers to the area arrived around 1920 and used the staff as wood for their fire.

In 1940, the nomad Peder Nilsson Ruong (b. 1889) told of several known people one would visit during one’s stay with reindeer on the Norwegian side of the border. He mentions Klihpa Jåuna (Jonas Klippen).⁸ He was the son of Junga, who saw what other people could not see – among other things, how the Sulitelma [Sulitjelma] mining community would spring up in a place where there was still a small Lapp lavvu.⁹

Based on the story told by Nilsson Ruong and curate Aanderaa, the shaman’s prediction/vision was supposed to have happened long before any ore was discovered, i.e. before 1858. This changes the general perception that the Sami’s “vision” had been provoked by the encounter between reindeer herding and the commencement of mining operations in Sulitjelma.¹⁰ Recent literature on Sami religion and shamanism indicates that the Sami shamans were known to be able to see into the future (precognition). Clairvoyance is described as the ability to predict events or future conditions that are not due to likely prognoses. This quality among the indigenous people of the north was well known from the time of the writing of the Norwegian sagas.¹¹ A vision was not considered a curse; indeed, by having such a vision, one could also prevent things from happening. In the prediction about Sulitjelma, there was a warning against putting a spire on the church. It may have meant that if they did not erect one, the village would not “go under”.
The discovery of a Sami shaman

In the sources that have been examined, two different people have been suggested as the shaman. It remained to investigate who these people were, and their lives before the ore was discovered in 1858. The first was “the paternal grandfather of old maid Kristina Jungen”.¹² His name was Jon Andersson Ljung, b. 1782 in Mahasvuoma lappby (corporation of Sami reindeer herders). The other was believed to be the father of Klihpa Jåuna (Jonas Klippen).¹³ The claim was a confusion of kinship, but it turned out that Jon Andersson Ljung was Jonas Klippen’s maternal grandfather. One explanation for the confusion may be that the Jungen name was linked to Jonas Klippen, but that one was unaware of family relationships backwards in time.

It turned out, therefore, that Jon Andersson Ljung was the common denominator for all who thought they knew who the shaman was. In a genealogy record based on church registers and interviews of the local residents of Arjeplog, I found Jon Andersen Ljung – and also his origin.¹⁴ This was a remarkable discovery. It turned out that his father, Anders Andersson Antack, was a Sami shaman. According to the records of Eva Lundmark in Jäckvik, Antack’s shamanistic abilities were known across much of Pite Lappmark.¹⁵

Antack was born in 1739 and moved to Mavas in 1772 to work as a reindeer hand.¹⁶ In 1776, he married Karin Jonsdotter, and the same year the couple was registered as residing at Lake Langvatnet in Sulitjelma.¹⁷ I presume they herded reindeer, and since they did not have any hereditary land in Mavas, they moved to Lake Langvatnet. Here they could engage in intensive reindeer husbandry for their own household, without conflict with the established reindeer owners. At this time, there was also a large emigration from the Mavas area, due to crop failure from heavy snow and later a massive wolf incursion.¹⁸

Antack was thus referred to as a shaman. What does this entail? According to an article on the shaman in Sami tradition, the “shaman’s primary task is to establish contact with the spirits and either ally himself with them to achieve a desired outcome or fight them because of their dangerous powers and influence. The shaman does not primarily get involved to satisfy his own wishes, but rather because there is someone who needs his help and who asks him to use his insight for the welfare of the individual or the community. The benefit of having a shaman available could thus be great, and he was treated with both respect and dignity by those who made use of his services.”¹⁹

Two stories have been preserved about Antack’s abilities that fit well with the description of the shaman’s primary duties, and that he did not act on his own behalf but for the community. The stories were recorded by Eva Lundmark in Jäckvik.²⁰ The first story tells of when a contagious foot-and-mouth disease broke outthe breakout of a contagious foot disease in Antack’s reindeer herd. The herds belonging to other Sami in the same community became infected and sick. There was great despair and the Sami asked Antack to use his shamanistic abilities. Antack refused for a long time, but finally he took his shamanic drum and went up on the mountain where the reindeer were gathered. This was on a pleasant summer day, with the sun shining in a cloudless sky. Up there on the mountain, the others saw Antack beat his drum. The next moment, they saw a small cloud come sailing across the sky and stop just over the herd. Suddenly, they heard the rumblings of thunder, and lightning struck down in the middle of the herd. The reindeer ran away in confusion and fear. When the people gathered their herds again, there was no trace of the of the foot-and-mouth disease.

The second story tells of when Antack demonstrated his special abilities at a market in Arjeplog. During the market in Arjeplog, a group of Sami had sought out Antack and asked him to participate in a wrestling match against a big Swede who had been tormenting and harassing the Sami. Antack reluctantly agreed, but only on the basis that the other Sami had to promise to help him. If they saw that he could not win the match, they were to shout: Manne Stuor-Antack nau stimpala? (“Why does the Great Antack falter?”)

The time for the match came, and soon the big Swede had an advantage over Antack. So the Sami shouted their phrase in unison, just as Antack had taught them, and Antack became so strong that he threw the Swede over the roof of a small house nearby. After this incident, the place where the wrestling match took place was named “Antackbakken” (Antack Hill).²¹

Four years after Antack and Karin moved to Sulitjelma, in 1780, they moved on again, this time to the areas east of Vassbotn mountain.²² Antack and Karin’s first son, Jon, was probably born here in 1782. Jon was the only one of Antack’s children who took the surname Ljung/Jung. Jon was confirmed in Saltdal in 1800. In the church register, the priest has written: Lapp Jon Andersen, servant at Pothus, 18 years old. Knows much about the Lord’s will. Believes he is a good Christian.²³

Two years after Jon was confirmed, his father Antack passed away at Saksenvikfjell. He was buried in Saltdal on Good Friday of 1802.²⁴ Antack and Karin had seven children, of whom six survived to adulthood. Of these, two children married in Saltdal, and two in Skjerstad. Jon’s youngest brother, Pål, married in Mavas in 1813; the following year, he was murdered “at the Norwegian mountain Saulo”.²⁵ Jon’s youngest sister, Anna, was married in Saltdal and moved to Skjønstådal, near Sulitjelma. There she had many descendants, of which a number still live in Sulitjelma and Fauske today. Among other things, she was the grandmother of Johan Fjeld, after whom the Fjeld mine in Sulitjelma is named.²⁶

Whether it was the shaman Antack or his son Jon Andersson Ljung who foresaw the emergence of the mining town of Sulitjelma, we will never know. It could be that it was Antack who had the vision, but that his son Jon passed it on, and the prediction was consequently attributed to him. Both father and son had lived at Lake Langvatnet in Sulitjelma and made their living and had their families there. For the detailed story of what the shaman had seen to be remembered, the family had to remain linked to the Sulitjelma area in some way. I have chosen to follow Jon’s life and that of his descendants to seek an answer to how the prediction could be remembered from “long before the copper deposit was found” until the present day.

Jon married for the first time at 25 years of age, in 1807, to Elin Nilsdotter from Lairo. Shortly after, Elin died, just days after she gave birth to their son Nils Ljung. The child was placed with Carl Wallström and his wife Sophie in Båtsjaur, near Arjeplog, where he, according to the sources, had a good upbringing. Among other things, Nils was sent to Pitheå apologistskola (accounting school).²⁷ Jon remarried in 1808, and this marriage was childless. Jon was widowed again in 1822, and married for the third time in 1823, this time to Maria, half-sister of his first wife. Maria Nilsdotter was 16 years younger than Jon, having been born in 1798 in Lairo. Her mother’s family were reindeer-herding nomads who had used the Sulitjelma mountains as summer grazing lands for generations and were considered “rich”.²⁸ Maria’s father, however, came from an extremely poor background in Arjeplog city, but after only one year at Arjeplog’s lappskola, he could both read and write. He also knew Luther’s catechism, the creed and rule of conduct by heart.²⁹ We do not know if Jon Ljung had received any schooling, but his wife Maria was certainly taught by her father to read and write proficiently. Instruction in Christianity did not mean that the Sami automatically set aside their old beliefs and traditions. In particular, the Sami of Norrvästerbyn (Mavas) rarely went to church, even though they had strict orders to do so. In the book about Arjeplog’s lappskola, the Christian knowledge among the Sami from this area is described as “weak” and “poor”.³⁰

Jon and Maria had four children: Karin born in 1823, Per in 1825, Andreas in 1834 and Kristina in 1839.³¹ How the children in the family made themselves noticed is not known, but the book about Arjeplog’s lappskola states that “in the Mahasvuoma lappby, there is said to have been some brothers Ljung who were very talented, and eventually moved to Norway”.³² This must have been Jon’s son from his first marriage, Nils Ljung, and Jon and Maria’s sons, Per and Andreas. Otherwise, no information has been found about the family from before 1829. At that time, Jon and Maria were summoned as witnesses to a murder that happened in Dieckagåhpe, in the mountains just across from Bottenvann in Saltdal. During the interrogations for this case, Jon’s family was not listed as members of the two lavvu (tent) groups that had reindeer in the area when the murder happened.³³ This suggests that they worked as reindeer herders and servants for other Sami. They may also have been “smallholders” under others who had leased grazing areas.

When their son Andreas was born in 1834, they listed Lake Langvatnet in today’s Sulitjelma as their place of residence. Five years later, in 1839, their daughter Kristina was born. Both children were baptised in Saltdal, and the priest noted that they still lived at Lake Langvatnet.³⁴ In the records of the “Schoolmaster in the Stranden district” (Fauske) for the year 1840–41, it says: Langvasdal. John Andersen and wife. NB. He is a Norwegian Lapp, born, raised, and confirmed in Saltdal’s parish, but has however spent time in the mountains herding reindeer. [...] He has now settled at the top of Langvasdalen, and makes his living on cattle.³⁵

We must assume that they also had some reindeer when they settled down in Fagerli on the eastern side of Lake Langvatnet.³⁶ We do not know exactly where they lived, although perhaps it was on the same site that Jon’s parents had lived in the 1770s. It was probably Jon and Maria who gave Reinhagen (“milking pen”) in Fagerli its name. Reinhagen is a place name still in use in Sulitjelma today. It is unknown how long they lived in Sulitjelma; the most recent sources that say they lived here are in the schoolmaster’s records, where their eldest daughter, Karin, was registered as a pupil in 1840–1841. At this time, Jon would have been almost 60 years old, but still had two small children aged two and six. Probably they went back to being nomadic reindeer herders, because in 1848 when farmers began establishing themselves and clearing the area around Fagerli and Sandnes, it appears that Jon’s family is gone.

Maria died in the summer of 1858, and five years later Jon became a boarder with Olina Olsdotter and Aanen Olofsson, at Lake Bottenvann. At that time, Jon was 81 years old, and almost completely blind. The farm and family history of Saltdal says that: Jon Anderssen’s sons, who both worked as reindeer herders, had arranged for their father to board with Aanen in 1863. However, in 1865, because of poor business, they said they could no longer pay. Therefore, Aanen had applied to the municipal poor law union for financial support to take care of Jon. After an investigation in Arjeplog, the conclusion was that the sons should be able to pay for themselves. They considered sending him home, but it was an unfavourable season, and Jon was in poor health. The municipality applied for reimbursement from the Stiftsdireksjon [the bishop and the prefect of the diocese], but was refused because Jon had the right of residence in Saltdal after a two-year stay.³⁷

Eventually, Per and Andreas brought their old father with them across the border after all. The church register for Arjeplog says that he died in Mahasvuome on 10 October 1867 at age 85. Jon was buried in Arjeplog on 4 December of the same year. He was listed as a widower, “poor”, and the cause of death as “old age”.³⁸

The last time sources mention Jon Andersson Ljung in connection with Sulitjelma, almost 40 years had passed since his death. This must mean that he was a person who had made his mark, and was remembered. When negotiations were conducted on the municipal boundary between Saltdal and Fauske in 1903–1909, a witness apparently identified where Jon and his family had lived in Sulitjelma before the new farmers came, and long before mining started.³⁹
Children of reindeer herding and grandchildren of mining

Two of Jon’s sons had links to reindeer husbandry. Per Jonsson Ljung probably married for a herd of reindeer: he was 20 years younger than his wife, and the marriage was childless. Per “Jungen” is mentioned in the Sulitjelma Historical Society’s interview collection as one of the Sami reindeer herders who used the milking pen at Risevasshøgda in Sulitjelma.⁴⁰ Per drowned in Lake Langvatnet on 5 December 1870 at the age of just 45. Another Sami, Per Spigdi (Spegle), drowned at the same time. The two went through the ice on Lake Langvatnet near the Villumselva River and were taken to shore at a place since named Daumannvika (Dead Man’s Cove). Per Jonsson Ljung and Per Larsson Spigdi were buried in the cemetery at Saltdal on 29 January 1871.⁴¹

Andreas Jonsson Ljung was Jon’s youngest son, and was born in Sulitjelma. He was married to Margreta Ruong from Mavas. They were the parents of Kristina (Kristine Jungen), born at Mavas on 23 April 1865 and baptised the same year in the Kvikkjokk chapel. Andreas was a reindeer herder in the Sulitjelma area and belonged to the Arvas Sami and the Luokta sameby.⁴² From 1870, the family took up permanent residence on Vassbotten mountain, although Andreas continued with reindeer husbandry. In the church register for Arjeplog, where he was listed as having emigrated to Norway, “Jungen” is noted beside his name. Andreas died in 1904, and he was the only one of the Ljung brothers who lived long enough to see his birthplace become populated by thousands of people, hundreds of houses, boats and a railway. Not least, he saw two (of the three) smelting works built, as well as the destructive effects of the sulphur smoke on the vegetation where the reindeer had grazed before. Maybe it was Andreas who had left his walking staff in the mountains of Mavas.

All of Jon Andersson Ljung’s grandchildren ended up living in Norway. None of them continued with reindeer herding, however; several of them ended up working at the mine in Sulitjelma. It is also noteworthy that the grandchildren are so strongly associated with the prediction. It was probably Kristine Jungen, Jonas Klippen and his sisters Margrete Nilsdatter and Maria Nilsdatter (later Renton)⁴³ who told of the vision of one of their ancestors, and thus the legend gained the momentum to be remembered in our time.

Jonas Klippen, Margrete and Maria were siblings; their mother was Jon Andersson Ljung’s eldest daughter, Karin.⁴⁴ In Sulitjelma, the three siblings were associated with their mother’s family name “Jung”. Jonas was a miner at Jakobsbakken, but his family lived at Rognan. In an interview with another miner, we are told there was a saying that Jonas constantly repeated: the day will come that the woman will protest.⁴⁵ Today, we can conclude that Jonas was also clairvoyant.

Margrete came to Sulitjelma around 1900, after losing both her husband Olof Ärsja and a one-year-old son in 1897. Her two daughters, aged four and six, were placed in the care of others for their upbringing.⁴⁶ Margrete took work as a cook at the mountain mine of Hanken to support her daughters. At Hanken she met the Swedish miner Johan Lindblad, and they married in 1903 and moved to Jakobsbakken. In an interview with another cook at Jakobsbakken she is called “Margrete Jungen”⁴⁷. Margrete died in 1925 at Rønvik asylum and is buried in the cemetery at Sulitjelma.⁴⁸

Kristine Jungen used the surname Andreassen after her father, Andreas. She was born in 1865 in Mavas, and baptised in Kvikkjokk. It is not known what year she came to Sulitjelma, but she had worked both as an ore separator and as a cook, and in addition she spent several years as a janitor at the boarding school at Jakobsbakken.⁴⁹ In her old age, Kristine lived in a room at Storbrakka in Fagerli. In light of the mining company’s strict housing policy, it is strange that Kristine was allowed to stay there until she died. The mining company owned all the houses in Sulitjelma, and no single elderly person was allowed to occupy a room after their working life was over. This suggests that the Jungen name had so much respect that they did not dare to throw her out. Kristine died on 21 March 1941, aged 76. Karl Kjeldsen of Fagerli then went to Mavas, to Kristine’s cousin Inga Steggo, with all her worldly goods. It all fitted into a shoebox.⁵⁰ Kristine is buried in the new cemetery in Sulitjelma, and the tombstone still stands. She was the last Ljung in Sulitjelma.
But the legend of Sulitjelma lives on.

Endnotes