Elsa Laula Renberg (née Elsa Laula, 29 November 1877 in

Tärnaby Tärnaby is a locality situated in Storuman Municipality, Lappland, Västerbotten County, Sweden with 482 inhabitants in 2010. It is known for its successful skiers, particularly in the "technical" disciplines: Slalom and Giant Slalom: Ingemar St ...

– 22 July 1931 in

Brønnøy Brønnøy is a municipality in Nordland county, Norway. It is part of the Helgeland region. The administrative centre and commercial centre of the municipality is the town of Brønnøysund. A secondary centre is the village of Hommelstø. Ot ...

) was a

Sámi The Sámi ( ; also spelled Sami or Saami) are a Finno-Ugric-speaking people inhabiting the region of Sápmi (formerly known as Lapland), which today encompasses large northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and of the Murmansk Oblast, Ru ...

activist and politician. She was born to

reindeer herders Reindeer (in North American English, known as caribou if wild and ''reindeer'' if domesticated) are deer in the genus ''Rangifer''. For the last few decades, reindeer were assigned to one species, ''Rangifer tarandus'', with about 10 subspe ...

, Lars Thomasson Laula and Kristina Josefina Larsdotter and grew up near . After receiving training school in Stockholm as a

midwife A midwife is a health professional who cares for mothers and newborns around childbirth, a specialization known as midwifery. The education and training for a midwife concentrates extensively on the care of women throughout their lifespan; co ...

, she returned home to live near Dikanäs. In 1908, she married reindeer herder, Thomas Renberg. Together, they moved to

Vefsn Vefsn ( sma, Vaapste) is a municipality in Nordland county, Norway. It is part of the Helgeland traditional region. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Mosjøen (population: 9,843). Some of the notable villages in Vefsn i ...

in Nordland,

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 the ...

where they lived as reindeer herders and had 6 children together. Elsa died at the age of 54 of tuberculosis in

'"Do we face life or death?"

In 1904, Renberg wrote and published a 30-page pamphlet in Swedish entitled ''Infor lif eller död? Sanningsord i de Lappska förhållandena'' (''Do we face life or death? Words of truth about the Lappish situation'') making her the first Sámi woman to have her writings published. This work discussed several issues that were facing the Sámi, such as their education system, their right to vote, and their right to own land. The Sámi national spirit was reawakening at the point the writing was published, making it especially important. Renburg also encouraged Sámi women to work and help her in the cause. Throughout the pamphlet, she uses carefully crafted temporal rhetoric to enact resistance to Swedish colonization. In 1904 she founded the South Sámi Fatmomakka Association, which was the first Sámi activist organisation. Its aim was to combat issues surrounding increasing state colonization and settler presence on Sámi lands, and to resolve local land conflicts, as well as improve the societal, economic, and political position of the Sámi.https://jsis.washington.edu/news/still-sami-resilience-resistance She was also the chair of the organizing committee of the first

Sámi Assembly of 1917 The Sámi Assembly of 1917 was the first Sámi people, Sámi National Assembly. The Sámi who took part in the assembly were from both Norway and Sweden. The meeting was held at the Methodist Church in Trondheim from 6 to 9 February 1917. The S� ...

in Trondheim.

References

External links

The Pioneers: Elsa Laula And Karin Stenberg, The First Sámi Woman Writers
{{DEFAULTSORT:Laula Renberg, Elsa 1877 births 1931 deaths People from Storuman Municipality Swedish Sámi-language writers Writers from Lapland (Sweden) Swedish Sámi activists Swedish midwives Norwegian midwives Swedish non-fiction writers Swedish women non-fiction writers Tuberculosis deaths in Norway 20th-century deaths from tuberculosis

'"Do we face life or death?"

References

Further reading

External links