In celebration of the Sámi National Day, the Sámi Museum Siida opens its collection of traditional Sámi clothing in Finna

The launching of the collection provides an opportunity to study Sámi traditional clothing digitally no matter where you live.

The Sámi living in Finland wear five different Sámi attires depending on which family and area they come from. The collections of the Sámi Museum contain almost three hundred dresses from different areas and periods. The launching of the collection in the Finna Services provides an opportunity to study Sámi traditional clothing digitally no matter where you live. In the autumn of 2022 the attires were photographed anew, and details of the dresses can also be studied better now.

As an estimated 60 percent of the Finnish Sámi live outside the Finnish Sámi Area, the Museum also wants to be accessible to them. You can get more information on the dresses and the photographs on them from the Collection Services of the Sámi Museum. The photographs presented in Finna are not reproducable in print, and they have been licensed with the licence Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

The ten-year-old Finna Service is a combination of several search services and home to millions of items of cultural and academic materials in Finland. Hundreds of Finnish organisations such as archives, libraries and museums offer their unique contents in Finna. The Finna Service is kept up and developed by the National Library of Finland in cooperation with archives, libraries, museums and other partners. The Sámi Museum has its own Finna view at https://siida.finna.fi.

The Sámi National Day in Siida also launches the ten-year anniversary of the Finna Service. During the day, Finna’s experts show the Finna search services to the public, giving guidance on their use.

“During the anniversary of Finna, we want to inspire people to have a look at millions of items of materials, so we are happy to be able to open this jubilee year with the launching of such an important collection. Starting the year with hundreds of Sámi dresses is also in order because we will be working on a North Sámi version of the Finna Services during the year”, Erkki Tolonen, Finna’s Head of Development, says.

Have a great Sámi National Day! Buori sámi álbmotbeaivvi!

Pyeri säämi aalmugpeivi! Šiõǥǥ saaʹmi meeʹrsažpeeiʹv!

Further information:

Sámi Museum Siida

Marjo-Riitta Rantamäki, Deputy Curator, tel. +358 40 5715670, marjo-riitta.rantamaki(at)samimuseum.fi

Finna

Erkki Tolonen, Head of Development, tel. +358 29 414 4588, erkki.tolonen(at)helsinki.fi