The Sami Department
The Sami of Trøndelag are South Sami. For more than five hundred years they have made their living herding tame reindeer, and in the past they accompanied their reindeer on their migrations according to a pattern determined by the seasons and the grazing.
The reindeer herds were small, and were watched closely. The reindeer were used as farm animals: they would be milked, and after butchery the Sami would use the meat for food, the skins for clothes and tents and the horns and bones for tools and gear. The entire family would trek with the animals during which time they would live in tents. When not migrating they would have regular settlements with permanent dwellings, turf huts and small storehouses called njælla, built on tall pillars.
Over time the reindeer herds grew in size. Milking was discontinued at the start of the 1900s, reindeer herding then focusing on meat production. Then only the herders would stay with the herds. Thus the basis for more permanent Sami settlements had been laid, some of them farms in the mountain region.
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