Sjidda – The first Sami’s organization

The early hunting and fishing society of the Samis was organized around small family groups that worked and lived together. As the Sami population grew, new needs evolved that put greater demands on organizing and dividing the resources in the form of hunting grounds, fishng waters and settlements. The sijdda, the predecessor of today’s Sameby, has its origins in the demands that evolved from the increased and rational hunting of wild reindeer in their form of large trapping yards with trapping pits. The sijdda was also an early sami “local democracy”, in which family groups of the same area gathered to solve common questions. At the close of the 1800’s, the Sami sijdda system was replaced by Samebys or Sami villages, which are a modern administrative form which fits Swedish bureaucracy and exercise of authority.