I can only guess at what the noaidi knew before the norwegians murdered our culture and turned the remainder into charlatans and fortune tellers.
Conversation
Me: what can you tell me about-
"Noaidi": your future? let me read your palms.
Me: no, I mean-
"Noaidi": look, do you want a palm reading or are you going to fuck off?
Can't even blame them.
Replying to
Rural norwegians used to be legitimately terrified of curses from local "laps". Of course, they have always been a superstitious, pedestrian lot...
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Norwegian school took my language, gave me as teachers nothing but alcoholics and transients, made lessons rare and inconvenient.
My grandparents buried what they knew in alcoholism, as did many others.
Native rights as reparations did the rest, turning the survivors corrupt.
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People keep saying to go to the tibetan mountains if I ever decide to give up on householding.
Fuck that. Give me a lávvu in Finnmark and some reindeer somewhere no farmer has a claim.
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One day, when life allows, I will learn the words. All of them. Every last one. I will carry the dead with me until I, as well, die.