Paper Short Abstract:

This paper addresses the generative potential in the Lars Hætta collection, renowned for its exquisite craftsmanship and its brutal history. This spring, the collection will return home. The homecoming becomes an opportunity address the unwritten in the widely circulated stories of the collection.

Paper Abstract:

The collection of miniatures by Lars Hætta is easily Norway’s most violent museum collection. These are models of Sami material culture by Sami prisoner, Lars Hætta or Jáhkoš-Lásse, at Akershus Fortress. Hætta was imprisoned at the age of 19 for participation in the Kautokeino rebellion (1852), narrowly escaping the capital punishment. The fate of his family was brutal. His brother was beheaded, others imprisoned, the reindeer confiscated, people left destitute. Hætta himself spent over a decade in slavery.

The exquisiteness of the miniatures is mesmerizing: Perfectly crafted objects from nomadic lives; tents, skis, sleds, objects for food production. All miniatures are functional, made to illustrate use. They can be neatly packed and transported. Meant to be teaching aids, they typically come in sets. Every part is neatly named in Sami and Norwegian. The miniatures assemble the infrastructure that makes a Sami landscape into a home.

We do not know how many objects Jáhkoš-Lásse made. This is also part of the violence, how the story of these artefacts, as much as their beauty, contributed to the spread of the miniatures, to museums across the world. The Guovdageaidnu rebellion might be of the most described historical events in Sámi history. Still, as the story has been circulated, the violence within it has gradually disappeared. In this collaborative writing project, we return to elements in the story of the rebellion that has become unwritten. We hope Jáhkoš-Lásse’s miniatures can speak for themselves enabling other stories to be rekindled as they return home.