Bedtime Story: Akmeeli, The Mighty Shaman

Hello friends!

In today's lesson we will travel to Lapland at the 17th century Finland.

My great-grandmother was a Sami.

Sami are the indigenous people of Scandinavia,

And I actually managed to trace my Sami ancestry to the 15th century southern Lapland,

Which is pretty cool,

But also some of my ancestors might have actually known Akmeli in person or by hearsay,

So they must have at least heard about him.

Akmeli was a very famous shaman who lived in Lapland,

And this is his story.

Akmeli was a legendary figure,

The mightiest shaman and a witch of the north.

During the time of Akmeli,

The Sami were the dominant population in Lapland.

Akmeli's story comes from the 16th century.

A group of Finnish fishermen from Tornio,

That is a city in north Finland,

Arrived in Lapland at Lake Jervis in Muonio,

Another city.

These men were peasants who had gotten the rights to trade with the Sami.

They stayed over the summer in the small wooden huts fishing.

They came to Muonio because they wanted to catch something other than salmon.

They wanted to catch white fish.

The name Jervis comes from the Sami word which means high demand.

The men caught a lot of fish,

Perch,

Vendors and pike.

Samis were horrified.

Strangers had almost taken all the fish out of the lake.

They had to do something.

Autumn evening was getting darker,

And the peasants heard a low drumming from the woods.

Every day the drumming got a little louder.

The Sami village was preparing for a ritual to drive away the greedy strangers.

Then strange things began to happen.

When the men arrived,

They saw their boats floating loose in the water.

Houses were caught on fire,

And only undesirable fish were caught in the net.

Something strange was going on.

Men dragged their boats far from the shore,

And seines were locked inside.

A couple of days went by,

And things became even weirder when the men were out fishing.

All the fish they got jumped out of the boat and back into the water.

The ship got stuck into a sunken lock,

Or so the men thought.

As it turned out,

That lock was a giant pike.

It hit the boat with its tail,

Making the men fall into the water,

And before it swam back to the depths,

It snapped a piece from one of the fisherman's fingers.

The man swore that the pike only had one eye in the middle of its forehead.

Shocked by what happened,

None of the men dared to go back fishing the following days.

A week passed,

And the men's luck seemed to return.

The men caught so much fish that they needed to build new huts to store them.

People in the Sami village grew angry and frustrated.

The fishermen didn't care about the obstacles they had put in their way.

They had done all kinds of tricks with them.

Mighty Witch Akmele had been helping them.

He had turned himself into a magical giant pike,

Which had not scared the fisherman away.

Akmele could turn himself into many animals.

In the previous village he had become a bear and chased away plowmen.

The men from Tornio started to bring cattle with them.

Their cows and sheep walked in the fields while their masters were fishing at the nearby lakes.

Soon the cows began to die mysteriously,

One by one.

One of the men wanted to find out the cause of death and found a Sami bough inside the cow's stomach.

Witchcraft,

The men thought.

Some people did not want them there.

Akmele followed those events from the top of the mountain.

He had a fierce reputation all over North and Middle Europe.

He was a master at ruling winds.

Akmele was at peace with nature.

He knew how to control the powers of nature.

Young lovers of them bought west wind from him,

For good luck.

Reindeer herders bought south winds,

Which were warm and sweet.

He sold east winds to the Sami,

Who wanted to eliminate the fisherman.

For east wind had taken away their fishing luck.

Then there was the fierce north wind,

Which was set against enemies.

Release the north wind,

And your enemy might get lost in the mountains.

And the harsh north wind makes it impossible to move forward.

Early next morning the fishermen were pulling the seines,

And they were all empty,

Thanks to the east wind.

The men gathered inside the cabin to meet and agreed to send a messenger to Tornio,

And ask a great sheaf to help them.

A few weeks passed,

And Olli,

The son of Olli,

Arrived at Lake Jeris with his impressive boat,

With a dried salmon in the front of its massive mouth open.

Olli also looked amazing with his great sword and wearing a seal coat.

He knew the great shaman Akmele was behind all the strange things,

And he had decided to challenge him to a duel.

In the evening,

When the lake was quiet,

Akmele heard a shout.

The next day Akmele arrived on an island called Haltialetto,

In the middle of Jeris.

Haltialetto,

By the way,

Means a grove to spirits.

Something like that.

The duel was to be taken there.

Akmele smiled.

Digging the surrounding waters would work well with the northern wind.

Olli was also well-prepared.

He had a magical necklace,

And a sword gave their owners great power.

First they fought,

With their sparkling swords creating small fires in the nearby woods.

Akmele turned himself into a lynx and jumped to the back of his enemy.

After some time,

The fishermen and the Sami rode to the island to look for the winner.

Neither Akmele or Olli must be seen.

They only found four prints from the ground and a broken necklace.

The story goes that the chief had quickly rowed across the lake to the nearby Isosaari Island when a giant pike attacked him.

Olli managed to escape to the shore from Isosaari.

Olli waded to the nearby Tuukinsaari.

He had been too afraid to leave the while Akmele was in the form of a pike.

Akmele,

On the other hand,

Was worried about Olli's sword.

This way,

Both men were trapped,

And year by year their magic faded.

Some legends say Akmele remains in the lake as a giant pike.

All the shamans are thought to be his pupils.

They still sell wimps,

But they are only kind ones.

Many stories are told about Akmele,

Who is believed to have been a real person and a shaman.

Akmele was from the village of Sombio,

And many stories about him were recorded early on.

Akmele was his Sámi name,

His Finnish name was Ikämieli,

And his Christian name was Andereus.

Akmele lived sometimes between 16th and 17th centuries.

Tax records from the 16th century mention the name Ikämieli from Sombio.

When discussing with the Finns,

Sámi often use their Finnish names,

So the name is likely a Finnish translation.

There are stories told about Akmele among the Sámi,

Finns,

Norwegians,

And Russians.

He was said to have gathered the Sámi from Sombio,

Sodankylä,

And Keminkylä to fight against the Russian partisans.

Norwegians and Russians announced a reward from his head,

But they never called him,

And he lived to old age.

According to folklorist Samuli Paulaharju and Jaakko Fellmann,

Akmele was the father of Johan Musta,

Who resided in Sodankylä in the 17th century.

According to historical records,

The man was a witch and a mighty shaman,

Who kept reindeer and buried treasure for future generations.

The stories about Akmele fit with the stories told in Sombio about the fights against the Russians and the Norwegians.

These stories go back to the time when the country lines were more ambiguous,

And taxes from the Sámi were collected from three different countries.

Sounds complicated.

During shamanistic journeying,

Akmele fell into a trance,

And he so traveled as a whale,

Bear,

Wolf,

Fish,

And a bird.

He could hide himself in a cloud or the wind,

And become invisible.

He was thought to be a great bowman,

Who never missed his target.

Still today,

It is said that people visit his grave to seek knowledge and wisdom.

The most famous story about Akmele is about his death.

He trapped himself into trance,

First telling his wife the words that could wake him up.

His wife,

However,

Forgot these words,

And Akmele was not able to return to his body,

And his body was buried on the lakeshore.

Only ten years later did the wife remember the words.

She tried to bring him back,

But his body had been turning into dust,

And he could not return to the land of the living.

The exact location of Akmele's grave is unknown.

Trees and domes behind Sombio lake have been suggested to be Akmele's grave.

They are called Akmele's domes.

One of them has a hole that is said to be Akmele's grave,

And there is a wooden cross brought by another shaman,

Polvari Jaakko.

Polvari means a fortune teller.

Who left it there to honor Akmele?

There have not been signs of a burial,

But if Akmele were buried according to 16th century pagan customs,

Where the coffin was buried close to the earth's surface,

There would be nothing left of him.

Only the howling of the wind.

Most of the stories about Akmele were told orally from generation to generation.

Some stories were told by his admirers,

And others by his enemies.

There are many similarities between the stories about Akmele and Väinämöinen,

Who is the hero in the Finnish national epic Kalevala.

Both fit into the archetype of a shaman.

According to folklorist Martti Haavio,

It is possible that Akmele was an inspiration for the story of Andero Vipunen,

A character in Kalevala.

In the story,

Andero Vipunen,

A giant and a shaman,

Swallows Väinämöinen into his stomach.

This is a metaphor,

Represents the way a shaman falls into a trance,

And seeks wisdom from shamans before him.

For many,

Shamanism was a calling,

And a shaman could simultaneously be a father,

A husband,

And a fisherman.

Shamanism served as a means to support the community.

Unlike their Siberian counterparts,

Sami shamans did not wear masks,

Or care for ritual clothing.

One of the shaman's key skills was the ability to enter a trance state.

It typically occurred through dancing,

Singing,

And drumming.

The ritual session would begin by warming the drum by the fire,

With the shaman holding it in their hand.

Some shamans used substances such as alcohol or a drink made from the ash of a birch tree,

While others would fast for several days prior to the ritual.

The shaman would call upon animal helpers through drumming and singing,

Leading to a changed state of consciousness.

Soul travel required a deep trance that could last from half an hour to an hour.

However,

Discussions with spirit animals did not necessitate a deep trance.

A light trance could be achieved through simpler means.

There are many lessons that we can learn from the story of Akmeli.

Akmeli,

Like any true shaman,

A noadi in the Sami language,

Would see no boundary between the human world and the natural world,

Mountains,

Rivers,

Winds,

And animals,

But spirit,

Memory,

And agency.

The lesson is,

Treat the world not as a resource,

But as a relative.

The Sami shaman did not just cure people,

They listened to their dreams,

Signs,

And nature's rhythms.

Akmeli would teach that true healing comes from tuning into what is already present.

Listen deeply,

And the remedy will reveal itself.

Much of a shaman's strength came from solitude in the fells or deep snow forest.

Akmeli's wisdom whispers,

Retreat to stillness,

Not to escape.

But remember,

The shaman,

Noadi,

Would often journey between worlds,

Between life and death,

Seen and unseen.

For Akmeli,

Life itself was a continuous crossing.

To change is not to lose yourself,

But to become more truly who you are.

Thank you so much for listening to the story of Akmeli.

Because of my Sami ancestry,

I just love the stories from Sami shamans and noads.

It was great fun to share this story with you.