Tim Severin - Sworn Brother

Our siida (as I soon came to think of it) shifted camp the morning after my arrival. They did not trouble to dismantle their birch-bark tents. They merely gathered up their few belongings,

wrapped them in bundles, which they slung on rawhide cords over their shoulders or tied to their backs, and set off along the trail that followed the river bank. The fishing had been disappointing, Rassa explained. The local water spirit and the Fish Gods were displeased. The reason for their anger he did not know. There was a hole in the bottom of the river, leading to a subterranean spirit river, and the fish had all fled there. It would be wise for the siida to move to another spot, where the spirits were more friendly. There was no time to waste. Soon the river would be frozen over and fishing — on which the siida depended at least as much as hunting - would become impossible. Our straggle of twenty families, together with their dogs and the six haltered boazo, walked for half a day before we came to our destination, further downstream. Clearly the siida had occupied the site previously. There were tent frames already standing, which the Sabme quickly covered with deerskins.

'Birch bark is not strong enough to withstand the snows and gales, nor warm enough,' Rassa explained. 'For the next few weeks we will use a single layer of deerskin. Later, when it gets really cold, we'll add extra layers to keep in the warmth.'

His own family consisted of his wife, a married daughter with her husband and their small baby, and a second daughter who seemed vaguely familiar. Then I realised that she had been with the hunting party at the vuodman. With all the Sabme dressed in their deerskin blouses, leggings and caps, it was difficult to tell men from women, and I had not expected a girl to be among the hunters. Nor, during the previous night spent in Rassa's tent, had I noticed that he had a second daughter because the Sabme removed only their shoes before they lay down and they slept almost fully clothed. I had crawled into Rassa's tent to find the place half filled with smoke. There was a fireplace in the centre, and the chimney hole in the apex of the tent had been partly covered over because several fish were hanging to cure from a pole projecting over the fire. Staying close to the ground was the only place where it was possible to breathe freely. Arranged around the outer edge of the tent were the family possessions and these became our pillows when we all lay down to sleep on deerskins over a carpet of fresh birch twigs. There was no furniture of any kind.

Rassa asked me to walk with him to the river bank. I noticed that all the other Sabme stayed well back, watching us. The water was shallow, fast flowing over gravel and rocks. Rassa had a fish spear in one hand and a birch-bark fish basket in the other. Without pausing, he waded out to a large, slick boulder which projected above the water. Rassa scanned the surface of the river for a few moments, then stabbed with his fish spear, successfully spiking a small fish about the length of my hand. He carefully removed the fish from the barbs, knocked its head against the rock and laid the dead fish on the rock. Next he placed the fish basket on his head, and spoke some words in the Sabme tongue, apparently addressing the rock itself. Scooping up water in the palm of his hand, he poured it onto the rock, and bowed three times. With the curved knife which every Sabme wore dangling from his belt, he scraped some scales from the fish. Cradling the scales in the palm of his hand he returned to the camp, where he distributed them to the man of each family. Only then did the siida begin to prepare their nets and fishing lines and approach the water. 'The rock is a sieidde,' Rassa explained to me, 'the spirit of the river. I asked fishing luck for every family. I promised that each family that catches fish will make an offering to the sieidde. They will do this at the end of every day that we stay here, and will do so whenever we return to this place in the future.'

'Why did you give fish scales only to the men?' I asked.

'It is bad luck for a woman to approach the sieidde of the river. Ill luck for the siida and dangerous for the woman herself. It can harm her future children.'

'But didn't I see your daughter with the hunters at the vuodman. If the women can hunt, why can't they fish?'

'That is the way it has always been. My daughter Allba hunts because she's as good as many of the men when it comes to the chase, if not better. They can hardly keep up with her. She's quick and nimble even in dense forest. She was always like that, from when she was a little child. Her only fault is that she likes to talk all the time, a constant chatter. That's why my wife and I named her after the little bird that hops around in summer in the bushes and never stops saying "tik-a-tik".'

With every sentence, Rassa was strengthening my desire to stay among the Sabme if they would allow it. I wanted to learn more of Rassa's seidr and to honour my promise to Grettir by sharing in their way of life. Remembering the store of fish hooks in my trade pack, I went to fetch them and handed my entire stock to Rassa. He accepted the gift almost casually, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. 'We make our own fish hooks of wood or bone. But metal ones are far better,' he said as he began to distribute them among the different families.

'Do you share out everything?' I asked.

He shook his head. 'Not everything. Each person and each family knows what is theirs — clothes, dogs, knives, cooking gear. But they will lend or give that item to someone else if it meets a need. Not to do so would be selfish. We have learned that only by helping one another can we survive as a siida.'

'Then what about the other siida? What happens if you both want to fish on the same river or hunt boazo in the same area of forest?'

'Each siida knows its own territory,' he answered. 'Its members have hunted or fished in certain places down through the generations. We respect that custom.'

'But if you do have a dispute over, say, a good fishing place when there is a famine, do you fight for your rights?'

Rassa looked mildly shocked. 'We never fight. We use all our energy in finding food and shelter, making sure that our children grow up healthy, honouring our ancestors. If another siida is starving and needs a particular fishing spot or hunting ground, then they ask us and if possible we agree to lend it to them until their lives have improved. Besides, our land is so broad that there is room enough for all.'

'I find that strange,' I told him. 'Where I come from, a man will fight to defend what he owns. If a neighbour tries to take his land, or a stranger comes to seize his property, we fight and try to drive him away.'

'For the Sabme that's not necessary,' said the noaide. 'If someone invades our territory, we hide or we run away. We wait until the winter comes and the foreigners have to leave. We know that they are not fit to stay.'

He gestured towards the clothes I was wearing — woollen shirt and loose trousers, a thick travelling cloak and the same ill-fitting leather shoes which had given me blisters earlier. 'The foreigners dress like you. They don't know any better. That is why I've asked my wife and Allba to prepare clothes more suitable for the winter. They've never made clothes so big before, but they will have them ready for you in a few days.'

The unexpected benefit of Rassa's request for clothes that would fit me was that it silenced, temporarily, the constant chatter of his daughter Allba. She talked without pause, mostly to her mother, who went about her work quietly, scarcely bothering to reply. I had no idea what Allba was saying, but did not doubt that I was often the topic of her conversation. Now, as she sat with her mother stitching my winter wardrobe, Allba's mouth was too full of deer sinew for her to keep up her constant chatter. Every thread in the garment had to be ripped with teeth from dried sinew taken from a deer's back or legs, then chewed to soften the fibre and rolled into thread. While the women chewed and stitched, I helped Rassa prepare the family meals. One of the novel features of life among the Sabme was that the men did the cooking.