As the blustery cold weather of the winter season heralds its own arrival in the winds knocking at my door, it seems a good time to snuggle into a warm nook, turning to our cultural storytellers. As with ages past, our human stories help us wrestle with the nature of our relationship to the living land and all our relations. For me, some of the most powerful ways this can happen is through film. Although there are many such to enjoy, the season seems right for taking a closer look at Disney's Frozen II.
Long forgotten by most, buried by colonization and its cultural legacies, Europe's tribal history isn't easy to uncover. Yet that history is deep...and it continues to this day. Disney helped bring a little of that to audiences the world over when, after criticism for culturally appropriating the Sámi culture in Frozen, Disney created Frozen II, a film based around Sámi culture and history. They released it, soundtrack and all, in the North Sámi language in theaters throughout Sápmi, the Sámi homeland.
Over 2,000 years ago, the Roman Empire mapped what it knew of tribal presence in Europe. The map below covers Roman knowledge over a period of time but centers mostly on their understanding around 52 B.C. Although there is much to learn from this map, of particular interest to me is the forest in central Europe (indicated by green tree icons), the one Julius Caesar called Hercynia Silva. It was an old forest of oaks, moose, bison and likely wolves as well as reindeer covering much of what we call Germany today. The forest was apparently impenetrable by the Romans as it prevented them from invading further north into Germania. The Black Forest, the western portion of Hercynia Silva, remains to this day. Some sources say the Sámi once lived as part of these German forests.
Today anthropologists such as John Bodley (Regents Professor Emeritus, Washington State University) will tell you tribal or small-scale societies share similar traits. Indigenous peoples gathering for the first time internationally in the 1970s were astounded at the cultural and religious similarities they shared, particularly when it came to how they viewed the Earth.
The tribes of Europe are no exception to this. From the Celtic Druids (Ireland, Britain, France and beyond) to the Balts of northern Europe (also known for their nature-based religions and sacred oak groves) to the Sámi (considered a Finno-Ugric people related culturally to the Balts) and others, we know from historical documents that these tribal peoples practiced Earth-based religions, revering trees and all aspects of "nature" as key to their spiritual (and physical) lives.
The Sámi religion is often described as animistic. According to Oxford Languages, animism is "the attribution of a soul to plants, inanimate objects [sic], and natural phenomena." According to Elina Helander-Renvall in the abstract for"Animism, personhood and the nature of reality: Sami perspectives," personhood for the Sámi extends beyond the human: "there are many different kinds of persons, such as humans, animals and spirits," Helander-Renvall writes. "To be a person in an animistic sense is a very flexible way of existence and one has to learn to know what the different personhoods are about. In this context, it is important to understand the role and function of the landscape and certain places and features within the landscape in specific areas."
For most people, the only thing that remains of Europe's tribal past are negative stereotypes of "human sacrifices" and "bloodthirsty cruelty." It's important to remember that much of our accounts about Europe's tribes derive from the Romans and other colonizers, sources that can hardly be considered objective. After all it is well known now that as part of the colonization of Native American peoples and lands, these same sorts of stereotypes were deliberately instilled in European and American thought, helping to morally justify abhorrent actions done to Native Americans by the colonizers themselves.
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But the persecution of Europe's tribal people didn't end with political domination. For example, Europe's witchcraft trials, conducted by both religious officials and men of science, targeted women in rural areas many of whom were carriers of their peoples traditional ecological knowledge, particularly when it came to medicines (see "The Burning Times"). In fact, rural areas seemed to have been targeted by urban administrators during these times of witchcraft trials and, in some cases, wiping out entire rural villages.
This aggression towards people of the land pervades the English language. From the word "savage" (also defined as wilderness and etymologically derived from "of the woods, wild") to "rustic" (rural as well as "boorish," "crude") to "pagan" and "heathen" (referring to those who practice the old ways). According to the Meriam-Webster Dictionary, "The definition and etymology of heathen overlap with those of pagan: both words denote 'an unconverted member of a people or nation that does not acknowledge the God of the Bible,' and heathen, like pagan, is believed to have come from the term for a country inhabitant, or in this case, a "heath dweller."
A lifelong resident of metropolitan areas, historian Theodore Roszak criticized civilization (literally meaning "city"): "Whatever holds out against us—the peasant, the nomad, the savage,” he wrote, “we regard as so much cultural debris in our path." Tribal nations honor their relations of all species. As a result, their lands are rich in what colonizers call resources. Since the dawn of urbanization, colonial governments have attempted to force tribes into what Roszak calls "the empire of cities" in order to appropriate those resources. (Roszak's Person/Planet qtd. in "Worldeaters")
It's certainly time to take another look at tribal histories around the world, including Europe, from a decolonized, and decolonizing, perspective.
While ties to Celtic tribal ancestry are seeing a resurgence in Europe, the Sámi remain the strongest tribal presence in Europe today. As first gatherers and hunters then semi-nomadic reindeer hunters, some sources argue that with the increased colonization of Sápmi 400+ years ago, the Sámi shifted from reindeer hunters to reindeer herders. Today that reindeer herding is threatened as the governments of Norway and Finland among others continue to expand onto traditional Sámi lands.
Overall, though, the Sámi languages and culture remain strong despite the stresses on the Sámi. Although the Disney's Frozen II portrays the Sámi-based Northuldra as dark-skinned people, perhaps drawing on a stereotype that if a people are tribal they must be dark, the Sámi have varied physical traits. In fact, outraged social justice bloggers claimed Disney "whitewashed" Kristoff, a character Disney says is Sámi. However, such outrage only showed what society has conditioned us to believe tribal people are "supposed to" look like. Blonde-haired Kristoff is an accurate representation of the tribal Sámi. Curiously, while Kristoff is intentionally a Sámi man, his connection to the Sámi in the sequel is only suggested and not really made explicit.
Climate change presents a major threat to the Sámi. Like other Indigenous Arctic peoples such as the Inuit, Gwich'in, and Chukchi, the Sámi are experiencing more extreme changes than the rest of the world. Reindeer herding has become difficult as the land changes. Food for the herds is no longer predictably where it should be. The seasons shift more erratically making it difficult to anticipate where the herds should be taken for optimum seasonal conditions.
Ironically and as could be predicted, the industrial solutions offered to address today's industrially-induced climate change also threaten the Sámi. In 2021 the Sámi faced down Bill Gates and put a stop to his planned experiment with global engineering. Without asking Sámi opinion or permission, Gates determined to use their skies to experiment with ways to deflect solar heat from the Earth's atmosphere. It turned out he was the one deflected.
"Green" energy projects such as hydro-power and wind are consistently resisted by the Sámi as such projects are often sited on lands that threaten the ecological health of their traditional homelands. Early in 2021, for example, the Sámi filed a lawsuit to stop a wind project that would interfere with reindeer migration paths in Norway. Sámi Council member Gunn-Britt Retter argues, “The Sámi people are not the ones who have contributed the most to climate change, but we seem to be the ones who have to carry its greatest burden.” Norway's wind turbines have quadrupled in recent years, with many of those wind projects built where the majority of the Sámi live.
Resistance to so-called green energy actually initiated a resurgence in Sámi pride and culture in the 1970s. Norway proposed to build a large dam on the Alta River. This would have eliminated an entire Sámi village and impacted traditional Sámi lands. Sámi insistence that the land be designated a "heritage area" did not stop the dam and reindeer migration routes were destroyed. However, the designation did lead to the scope of the hydro-project being scaled back. Sámi organizing against the dam also led to significant legislation protecting Sámi land and rights in Norway.
Like other Indigenous peoples, the Sámi do not make the mistake of assuming climate change is our only major environmental crisis. It is one of many, the root of which lies in industrial colonialism. That is why industrial solutions, such as "green" energy and geo-engineering are so often opposed by Indigenous nations: the "solutions" hide the problem, making us feel as if it is addressed, while instead exacerbating the underlying threat. As American Indian Movement activist John Trudell points out, colonial society today is "industrially insane" -- and that is the crux of the problem.
In viewing Disney's Frozen II, it is good to keep in mind the emergingly popular "water protector" movement. Water protectors are people who are working positively to protect the water as a living being, the relatives who live within her, and the human communities who depend on the gifts of that water. After viewing this film, some might see Elsa and Anna as water protectors. I leave it to you to decide.
In addition, in viewing the film, it may be informative to think of feminism in a light other than that of the Western liberal definition. While undoubtedly Disney is writing according to the ideals of modern liberal feminism, modern liberal feminist thought does not match up with traditional Indigenous feminist thought. According to Anishinaabe activist Winona LaDuke, Native women "don't want a bigger piece of the pie. We want a different pie."
In other words, simply striving to achieve what has been given men and denied women will solve nothing. We need a different way of seeing the world. In Anishinaabe culture, for example, women are the keepers of the water, and water is a living relative. As women and carriers of that precious life-giving water of the womb, it is our particular responsibility to care for the waters of the Earth. How does seeing Frozen II from this perspective give new interpretations to the film, even if those interpretations were not the creators' intent?
Finally, Europe's tribes were subjected to intense colonization. While the physical conquering occurred, the cultural values, knowledge and practices continued, even if underground. People who lived in rural or wild areas kept these tribal cultures alive as the urban population converted to Christianity. We see this in the negative terms used -- to this day -- in describing people who are not Christian: pagan, heathen. Both describe people of the land keeping to the old ways. We might even have called them "conservatives" - reluctant to change from the old ways. These same rural people (especially women) carrying on this tribal knowledge were persecuted as witches by urban Christian administrators and by urban men of science such as Francis Bacon, considered one of the founding fathers of modern science.
What happens to our interpretations of Frozen II when we employ this understanding of history to our interpretations of the film?
Trudell writes, "We are all children of the Earth." This is something tribal societies seem to recognize across the planet today and throughout our history on Earth. Thankfully we have storytellers who are willing to remind of us of that. Perhaps this can be part of a Great Global Re-Awakening as people across the planet recall who we really are.
Time will tell.
Until then, I'll curl up with some apple cake, cinnamon tea, and enjoy those storytellers who are willing to let these old ways be heard once again.
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