{"id":"SAMI2024-001","label":"Luleå River Sámi Biei've Niila bull-roarer cave narrative","people_or_site":"Bieve Niila at the Basseuk'sa/Ganiiuk'sa bird-stone and cave sacred place","country_current":"Sweden","historic_region":"BASSEUK'SA / GANIIUK'SA, Small Lule River / Tarrekaise sacred-site narrative","macroregion":"Europe / Scandinavia","local_name":"","source_term":"bull-roarer","source_language":"English","object_description":"","function_summary":"Sacred-site bull-roarer narrative connected with a bird-shaped sieidi stone, cave, echo, and the mythic saivo world.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"sommarstrom1987_sami_religion","source_type":"scholarly_article","source_url":"https://journal.fi/scripta/article/download/67164/27462","page_or_plate":"Sommarström 1987 p. 214; JEF 18(2), p. 56; IUCN/UNEP-WCMC 2000 p. 73","map_confidence":"low_medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Small Lule River / Tarrekaise regional anchor from Sommarström's figure caption; not a precise cave coordinate.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"At the cave the Sámi called Basseuk'sa, \"Holy Doorway,\" and Ganiiuk'sa, \"Spirit Doorway\" — a 25-metre-wide opening on the Tarrekaise mountain above the Small Lule River, one of the most renowned sacred places of the Sámi — a man remembered as Biei've (\"Sun\") Niila would go to the left side of the entrance and whirl a bull-roarer around his head. The sound, Lars Pirak told the ethnographer Bo Sommarström in 1986, was \"similar to bird wings,\" and it came back as an echo \"after two hours\" from the unknown depths of the interior; a relative of Pirak's had inherited the instrument. The cave's principal deity was described in the seventeenth century as a stone in the shape of a \"large bird,\" and other sieidi stones here were offered fat, bones, and reindeer antlers. It may have been the gadnihah, \"the small people below,\" who answered the questions Niila put into the dark.","pull_quote":"rites de passage at a hole for shamanic journeys in the Middle Worlds where spirits appear close to the surface","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Sommarström 1987:214 (caption to Fig. 2)","term_gloss":"","cls":"sacred","class_label":"Sacred / spirit","color":"#8A5A2B","is_candidate":false,"flags":["spirit_voice"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"Bo Sommarström, \"Ethnoastronomical Perspectives on Saami Religion,\" Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis 12 (1987), p. 214, fig. 2 caption, citing Lars Pirak, personal communication (1986)","url":"https://journal.fi/scripta/article/download/67164/27462","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260309120840/https://journal.fi/scripta/article/download/67164/27462"},{"citation":"Joy, Armstrand and Helander, Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics 18(2) (2024), p. 56"},{"citation":"IUCN / UNEP-WCMC (2000), p. 73"}],"source_citations":"Bo Sommarström, \"Ethnoastronomical Perspectives on Saami Religion,\" Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis 12 (1987), p. 214, fig. 2 caption, citing Lars Pirak, personal communication (1986); Joy, Armstrand and Helander, Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics 18(2) (2024), p. 56; IUCN / UNEP-WCMC (2000), p. 73","source_display":"Bo Sommarström, \"Ethnoastronomical Perspectives on Saami Religion,\" Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis 12 (1987), p. 214, fig. 2 caption, citing Lars Pirak, personal communication (1986); Joy, Armstrand and Helander, Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics 18(2) (2024), p. 56; IUCN / UNEP-WCMC (2000), p. 73","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"","function_display":"Sacred-site bull-roarer narrative connected with a bird-shaped sieidi stone, cave, echo, and the mythic saivo world.","confidence_display":"low to medium","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"bieve niila","display_name":"Luleå River Sámi Biei've Niila bull-roarer cave narrative","image":{"full":"assets/objects/LUND2020-004_nf_1948-1203_hurre.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/LUND2020-004_nf_1948-1203_hurre_thumb.jpg","alt":"Norwegian folk hurre: pine slat with cord wound in bands along the shaft.","credit":"Norsk Folkemuseum, Oslo (NF.1948-1203) — via DigitaltMuseum","license":"CC BY-SA","source_page":"https://digitaltmuseum.no/things/hurre/NF/NF.1948-1203","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Scandinavian hurre bullroarer.","pool_id":"auto-LUND2020-004_nf_1948-1203_hurre"},"slug":"sami2024-001-bieve-niila-at-the-basseuk-sa-ganiiuk-sa-bird-stone-and-cave-sacred-place"}