Sami Blood addresses the assimilation of indigenous children in Scandinavia – Globe and Mail
Sep. 14, 2016
As Amanda Kernell’s first feature-length film, Sami Blood, demonstrates, measures of indoctrination and assimilation used against indigenous people are not territorially exclusive: They traverse the world over, even Scandinavia’s northern reaches. And their effects were disastrous.
Depicted are the Sami, a nomadic indigenous group in Sweden, Norway, Finland and Russia known for reindeer herding and their elegant, head-to-toe style of dress. Like indigenous people in Canada, they did not escape efforts of Euro-centrism: Children were separated from their families during the 19th and 20th centuries and sent to boarding schools where they were restricted from speaking in their mother tongues, beaten, called “Lapps” and forced to internalize Christianity.
