Drum Time: Tracing the Multfaceted Significances and Stories of a Sámi Drum

Abstract

Drums are among the most treasured items in a cultural museum context, and have been and still are sought after as a means of visualizing Indigenous religions and histories. This is indeed the case with the drum held by the Arctic University Museum of Norway in Romsa/Tromsø, which became a part of the museum's collection 28 March 1962 and has since served as a key symbol for the museum's dissemination of Sámi culture. Currently located in a display case in the Samekulturen (The Sámi Culture) exhibition, the drum raises numerous questions, such as how knowledge of its creation, translations, and travels emancipate Sámi cultural heritage from the heavy burden of simply being conserved and displayed. This chapter addresses some of these issues by focusing on the drum's cultural biography, its history, and its shifting meanings, movements, and associations. Furthermore, the chapter also explores the ways that increased knowledge has repositioned the drum as a cultural belonging, as an instrument for shifting power relations, and as a means to create identity and memory.