ABSTRACT
The traditional Sarni reindeer-herding culture, including all its characteristics, has been developed over thousands of years to be highly specialized in its know-how and technology. Reindeer-herding originated in Eurasia. Traditionally in Eurasia, reindeer- herding has taken place in the entire region north. Of the total 4.5 million reindeer in the world, 3 million are domesticated. Many linguistic and ethnologic factors have pointed to the conclusion that reindeer-herding originally began in one place and then spread elsewhere. Birket-Smith notes Kai Donner's opinion that reindeer-herding could have begun with the Samoyed people at the beginning of the Bronze Age and was fully developed long before our written history. The graphic terminology used by the Sami people to describe reindeer and its way of life is also clearly very old. Already in the time of wild-reindeer hunting, it was possible to use words to describe exactly the structure of the wild-reindeer herd and the different types of reindeer.
