The Sami are an indigenous population that once lived on the Sápmi (an area between the Kola Peninsula, Norway, and the northern regions of Finland and Sweden). Originally a nomadic people, they gradually settled down at the end of the nineteenth century, at a time when the evangelical missions were established in the region. The Sami still hunt and fish and raise reindeer. Traditionally these reindeer provided the staple diet and all the necessary raw materials including the bones and tendons that were made into instruments and tools. In their relationship with the natural environment, the Sami acknowledge the existence of a system of interchange between human beings and animals, whose equilibrium has to be preserved on both the material and spiritual levels; in this context the drum was used by the noaidi. He used this instrument when acting as an intermediary between his community and the world of the spirits. The drum’s sound helped to communicate between different levels of reality. The hide is decorated with a map of the natural and supernatural worlds and their occupants.
The shamanic drums were a source of fascination for many travellers, including Jean-Louis Pictet-Mallet, who collected this instrument. In his diary, he mentioned an accident that occurred during the construction of one of the two drums he had commissioned from one of the old Sami. A carpenter’s work may account for its unusual shape. This drum, which was made for European travellers, also attest to the presence of Pomor colonists—orthodox Christians from Novgorod—in the region. Until the early twentieth century commercial trade was mainly carried out by tradesmen, hunters, fishermen, and—to some extent—free peasants.