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It is very misleading to draw a link between the Sami people and the prehistoric peoples that first ventured into Northern Scandinavia at the end of the last Ice Age. No such link exists.

The ancestors of Sami people arrived from east around 1500 BCE (not significantly earlier than the ancestors of "non-indigenous" people of the area). The Sami language was developed much later.

While the common ancestor of the Saami languages came from the east, it spread in part by the local inhabitants adopting the language of outsiders. To a degree, the Saami are the same prehistoric peoples, they simply switched to speaking Saami. This is also why the Saami language is replete with words not found in other languages of the Uralic family: when the indigenous people learned Saami, they brought many of their original language’s words into their new language.
Interesting/fun fact: Traditionally they castrated the reindeers by chewing the testicles and this was a task especially for the women to do. There's even an old english language nature documentary clip of the whole ritual: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fftnExG-WFg
Problem with Saami today is that Norway treated them quite well, in spite of various issues. So there are now lots of Blond Aryans with Long Noses and Blue Eyes who declared to be Saami. They had sole right to have reindeers and have fishing fleets. Ethnic Finns, for example, did not have those rights, they were not even allowed to fish independently.

If you Google Saami, they look really different in Norway and Russia. This is also why Max von Sydow was able to play reindeer-herder in some movie :-)

In my ignorance of Sámi life and culture I can’t help but think “what a terribly cold and squalid existence”!

Apart from elk, fish, berries and a handful of hardy veggies, what did they eat?

Reindeer. For the last several centuries before modernity totally overtook them, the Saami had established an economic niche as reindeer herders, and before they domesticated reindeer they hunted wild ones. Also, Arctic peoples often traded with other peoples for bread, which could be stored frozen for weeks and thawed when needed.

Lapland is definitely cold and stays cold longer than southern parts, but the Saami weren't living in all that much colder conditions than your average Finnish peasant from Karelia or Ostrobothnia.

They seem pretty happy though. I bet you they're happier than the average 1st worlder.

And they still exist, by the way. They mainly eat reindeer meat.

Sámi people still exists, sure, but their culture has changed a lot, naturally. They live in modern houses, use snow mobiles and helicopters for herding the reindeers (many work in "regular" jobs), buy most food from shops just as anyone else. Of course they are well aware of their roots and proud of their history.

Just an anecdote: my grandmother was born as Sámi, so I could officially have the Sámi status as well (but my kids not anymore), although I don't speak the language nor have much connections with the culture.

They are traditionally reindeer herders. There is a page on Wikipedia about Sámi cuisine you can check out. If you are interested, you could also check out the films Kukuška (2002) and Ofelaš (1987).
I loved this thriller novel: Forty Days Without Shadow, by Olivier Truc.

It's about two police detectives in Norway's northern Finnmark county. The book offers a fascinating introduction to the way of life of the Sami people and their land, Sápmi.

I'd love to visit there someday.

https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/le-dernier-lapon_olivier-truc/...

I enjoyed watching "New Scandinavian Cooking" on PBS.

I like to joke about how excited the hosts got about vegetables, but it kind of makes people mad.

10 minutes of television and then there is a big reveal for the carrot.

Aren’t the Basques Europe’s longest surviving indigenous group?
Afaik they're Europe's longest surviving isolate group, but I hadn't heard they're the longest surviving indigenous group of any kind.
Perhaps the most fascinating thing about the Sami peoples is how much they've influenced Western Christmas traditions.

See this video by The Atlantic: Santa Is a Psychedelic Mushroom - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrLb2-wETAQ.

It saddens me to see the downvotes on this comment. Perhaps people could take a moment to watch the video before downvoting, or give some feedback!

There's another article on this topic from the New York Times, available here: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/21/opinion/santa-christmas-m....

To quote:

> It’s the holiday season, and I’m thinking of mushrooms. The hallucinogenic Amanita muscaria to be exact — a red-and-white toadstool mushroom — most closely associated with fairy tales. At first glance, Amanita muscaria and the Christmas holiday appear to be an unlikely duo. But would it be too far-fetched to propose that the story of our modern Santa Claus, the omnipotent man who travels the globe in one night, bearing gifts, and who’s camped out in shopping malls across the United States this month, is linked to a hallucinogenic mushroom-eating shaman from the Arctic?

> I don’t think so.

> And neither do a number of scholars. As it turns out, the shamanic rituals of the Sami people of Lapland, a region in northern Finland known for its wintry climate and conifer forests, bear an uncanny semblance to the familiar narratives of Santa and Christmas that we have come to know.

> According to the writer and mycologist Lawrence Millman, the shaman would make use of Amanita muscaria’s psychoactive effects in order to perform healing rituals. The use of Amanita muscaria as an entheogen (that is, a drug used to bring about a spiritual experience) would enable the shamans to act as intermediaries between the spirit and human world, bringing gifts of healing and problem-solving. (Although these mushrooms are poisonous, the Sami reduced their toxicity by drying them..) Various accounts describe the shaman and the rituals performed in ways that are fascinatingly similar to the narrative of Santa. An all-knowing man who defies space and time? Flying reindeer? Reindeer-drawn sleds? Climbing down the chimney? The giving of gifts? The tales of the Sami shamans have it all.

Or another article from NBC News, available at https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna50263554.

> In his book Mushrooms and Mankind (The Book Tree, 2003) the late author James Arthur points out that Amanita muscaria, also known as fly agaric, lives throughout the Northern Hemisphere under conifers and birch trees, with which the fungi —which is deep red with white flecks — has a symbiotic relationship. This partially explains the practice of the Christmas tree, and the placement of bright red-and-white presents underneath, which look like Amanita mushrooms, he wrote.

> "Why do people bring pine trees into their houses at the Winter Solstice, placing brightly colored (red and white) packages under their boughs, as gifts to show their love for each other … ?" he wrote. "It is because, underneath the pine bough is the exact location where one would find this 'Most Sacred' substance, the Amanita muscaria, in the wild."

> Reindeer are common in Siberia, and seek out these hallucinogenic fungi, as the area's human inhabitants have been known to do. Donald Pfister, a biologist who studies fungi at Harvard University, suggests that Siberian tribesmen who ingested fly agaric may have hallucinated into thinking that reindeer were flying.

To be honest, this sounds like "stoned-ape theory" tier speculation without evidence, so it's good that it's being downvoted. This sort of thing is honestly super annoying. You like to use mushrooms recreationally? Great, do what you want. But when people who are excited about psychedelics start doing this thing that you're doing above, namely trying to say that ancient use of psychedelics was the reason for all manner of cultural practices, it's very annoying, anti-intellectual, it it has honestly soured my opinion of psychedelic-users. For example, it's really hard to take you comment seriously when it contains things like:

> Various accounts describe the shaman and the rituals performed in ways that are fascinatingly similar to the narrative of Santa. An all-knowing man who defies space and time? Flying reindeer? Reindeer-drawn sleds? Climbing down the chimney? The giving of gifts? The tales of the Sami shamans have it all.

> This partially explains the practice of the Christmas tree, and the placement of bright red-and-white presents underneath, which look like Amanita mushrooms, he wrote.

Yeah, except these aspects of Christmas described here are largely American traditions with well documented origins. So even if some (tenuous) parallels between Sami folk religions and modern American Christmas exist, how exactly is it being postulated that those Sami traditions made their way into the US? Scandinavian immigration to the US was quite small in comparison to German, Italian, Irish, etc., and they were rarely ethnically Sami. Meanwhile, as I've said, US Christmas traditions like Santa, Christmas trees, gift giving, the Christmas color scheme and so on have pretty well-identified origins, which are largely from British and Central European traditions, with a modern, more secular, reinterpretation coming about in the 19th and 20th century.

Look, I used psychedelics in my younger days. They have many effects, but the strongest one I would say is that they make you think things are far more profound than they really are. I don't doubt that they have potential for treating depression or addiction (recent research on this seems promising), but it seems that far too often, psychedelic-enthusiasts fall into the trap of "psychedelics are so cool, I must find a way to tie each and every thing to them."

I share your skepticism and tepid weariness for the sort of over-interested rambling psychedelics can bring on. That said, I think this is a really unique case and deserves more investigation. The number of relational motifs is astounding:

- The mycorrhizal relationship between the Amanita Muscaria mushroom and pine trees [1]. This means that the "gifts" of the mushroom would grow underneath the pine tree, much as we place boxes under Christmas trees today.

- That reindeer, after consuming Amanita Muscaria mushrooms, urinate a less toxic, yet still psychedelic substance. At the very least, reindeer are quite attracted to Amanita Muscaria mushrooms [2] [3].

- That mushrooms become more potent when dried, and are therefore often dried by hanging them over a fire fireplace, much like the stockings we hang over our fireplaces today.

- The myth of the mysterious workshop of elves who produce presents and live at the north pole. (I think it's very clear the relationship elves/dwarves have to psychedelics.)

As an anecdotal story, while living and traveling in Europe for a 2 year period, I was stunned at how many Christmas statues and figurines I saw which incorporated the Amanita Muscaria mushroom in some way — from elves sitting on top of the mushroom to the face of St. Nicholas etched into a larger painted wooden mushroom.

I also don't know that the origins of Christmas traditions are so well-documented as you claim. Christmas is a rather messy amalgamation of pagan folklore, Christian mythology and religion, and other interspersed and aberrant traditions (take Zwarte Piet, for example). With a large grain of salt and acknowledging the probably biased nature of the publication, I would point you to this article for a bit more in-depth exploration of this topic http://entheology.com/research/when-santa-was-a-mushroom-ama....

I could go on, but I don't want to devote too much writing to something that's unlikely to be read (given it's a late response).

Some other links:

- https://psychedelicgospels.com/santa-siberian-reindeer-shama...

- https://www.samwoolfe.com/2013/08/is-santa-claus-myth-based-...

- https://www.gaia.com/article/the-story-of-santa-claus-might-...

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[1]: https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/trees-woods-and-wildlife/fu...

[2]: https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/meet-the-anima...

[3]: https://www.dailygrail.com/2012/09/taking-the-pss-did-shaman...