Problem med schamanistiska tolkningar av de nordfennoskandiska hällbilderna

Abstract

This paper deals with hunting-themed rock art from the Stone Age in North Fennoscandia. The dominant perspective in archaeological studies of the past 15 years has been that most of the rock art should be interpreted as shamanistic. This is problematic as there is very little support for shamanism in the archaeological record, including the rock art itself. Shamanism has been taken for granted in a surprisingly uncritical manner. The animals, predominantly elk, which dominate most sites in northern Fennoscandia were once seen as evidence for hunting magic. Recently they have more or less been ignored in published interpretations. Several papers on rock art and religion are also based on a destructive dichotomy between religion and subsistence, nature and culture, and sometimes even rationality and irrationality. This paper discusses the reasons for this trend. It also offers an attempt to sort out scholarly misunderstandings of shamanism, hunting ritual and religious thought among circumpolar peoples who have been subsistence hunters. It is finally argued that most rock art sites in northern Fennoscandia can be understood as expressions of a profound and multiple reciprocity between humans and game animals. This relationship does not necessarily exclude shamanism.

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