Sámi shamanism

Traditional Sámi spiritual practices and beliefs are based on a type of animism, polytheism, and what anthropologists may consider shamanism.

[4] In the landscape throughout Northern Scandinavia, one can find sieidis, places that have unusual land forms different from the surrounding countryside, and that can be considered to have spiritual significance.

[5] A noaidi is a mediator between the human world and saivo, the underworld, on the behalf of the community, usually using a Sámi drum and a domestic flute called a fadno in ceremonies.

One of the most irreconcilable elements of the Sámi's worldview from the missionaries’ perspective was the notion "that the living and the departed were regarded as two halves of the same family."

The Sámi regarded the concept as fundamental, while Protestant Christian missionaries absolutely discounted any possibility of the dead having anything to do with the living.