''Give Us Our Skeletons!'' (Antakaa Meille Luurankomme in
Finnish
Finnish may refer to:
* Something or someone from, or related to Finland
* Culture of Finland
* Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland
* Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people
* Finnish cuisine
See also ...
, Oaivveskaldjut in
North Sami
North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography.
Etymology
The word ''north'' is ...
) is a 1999
documentary film
A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...
directed by
Paul-Anders Simma
Paul-Anders Simma (born 27 September 1959) is a Finnish Sámi film director and screenwriter. His 1997 film ''The Minister of State'' was entered into the 20th Moscow International Film Festival.
After the Norwegian Nils Gaup’s film ''Pathf ...
about
Niillas Somby
Niillas Somby (formally known as Nils Somby) from 1996. Retrieved July 15, 2008 is a
, a
Sami
Acronyms
* SAMI, ''Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange'', a closed-captioning format developed by Microsoft
* Saudi Arabian Military Industries, a government-owned defence company
* South African Malaria Initiative, a virtual expertise net ...
man who retraces his family ancestry as he searches for the head of his ancestor,
Mons Somby
Mons Aslaksen Somby (14 February 1825 – 14 October 1854) was one of the leaders of the Sami rioters that attacked several Norwegian shops during the Kautokeino rebellion of 1852. During the uprising a merchant and the town sheriff were ki ...
executed
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
by
decapitation
Decapitation or beheading is the total separation of the head from the body. Such an injury is invariably fatal to humans and most other animals, since it deprives the brain of oxygenated blood, while all other organs are deprived of the i ...
on 14 October 1854 for murder, following the 1852
Kautokeino rebellion
The Sami revolt in Guovdageaidnu, also known as the Kautokeino uprising, was a revolt in the town of Kautokeino in northern Norway in 1852 by a group of Sami who attacked representatives of the Norwegian authorities. The rebels killed the local ...
against the local
Norwegian government
The politics of Norway take place in the framework of a parliamentary, representative democratic constitutional monarchy. Executive power is exercised by the Council of State, the cabinet, led by the prime minister of Norway. Legislative power is ...
in which two people were murdered. Their heads were claimed by the government for scientific research, and were held as part of a collection of 900
skull
The skull is a bone protective cavity for the brain. The skull is composed of four types of bone i.e., cranial bones, facial bones, ear ossicles and hyoid bone. However two parts are more prominent: the cranium and the mandible. In humans, the ...
Oslo
Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...
.
The movie describes three parallel plots; the first is Niillas Somby's story on how he became one of the most celebrated protesters during the Alta Dam Protests between 1979-1981 near
Kautokeino
Kautokeino ( no, Kautokeino; se, Guovdageaidnu ; fkv, Koutokeino; fi, Koutokeino) is a municipality in Troms og Finnmark county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Guovdageaidnu/Kautokeino. Other villages ...
,
Norway
Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...
. In the years that followed, he traveled in exile to Canada where he was given sanctuary by the
Iroquois
The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of First Nations peoples in northeast North America/ Turtle Island. They were known during the colonial years to ...
First Nation
Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...
, and later returned to Norway.
The second plot was the disturbing examination of the
scientific racism
Scientific racism, sometimes termed biological racism, is the pseudoscience, pseudoscientific belief that empirical evidence exists to support or justify racism (racial discrimination), racial inferiority, or racial superiority.. "Few tragedies ...
and
racial classification
A race is a categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society. The term came into common usage during the 1500s, when it was used to refer to groups of variou ...
movement that was considered an accepted fact by Scandinavian scientists from the early 19th century until the 1950s. This included the plundering of Sami graves for their skeletons and the
forced sterilization
Compulsory sterilization, also known as forced or coerced sterilization, is a government-mandated program to Involuntary treatment, involuntarily Sterilization (medicine), sterilize a specific group of people. Sterilization removes a person's ca ...
of the Sami and other peoples in Scandinavia who were viewed as competing with the "noble races", as part of a larger
eugenics
Eugenics ( ; ) is a fringe set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter human gene pools by excluding people and groups judged to be inferior or ...
program.
The third and final plot was Niillas Somby's emotional struggle with bringing Mons Somby's skull home for a proper burial.