Lower Deatnu/Tana History 1700-1900 (Part 3)
by Nils Evald Biti


Many young settlers from the south, who came as store clerks to the Schanche family’s businesses, also married into the family and settled in various locations, mostly lower Deatnu.  Even if Schanche was considerate of people, one wonders in retrospect at all of his business transactions and property purchases.  There were certainly many Sami who didn’t manage to pay off their debts and lost their home and all their property to Schanche.  When the stepfather died, the Gilevuotna (Kjøllefjord) inn also came into Schanche’s hands.   You could almost describe all of his businesses as a dynasty with him enthroned as a patriarch. Written accounts reveal that his wife Else Sofie was almost somewhat of a good Samaritan among the poor.  Even on Christmas eve she would travel to the mountains to help a Sami woman who was about to give birth.  When Schanche died in 1840, his wife took over the business with some of the sons and managers.  On Gollesuolo (Gullholmen) she had foreman Nordvie manage the businesses the first year.  This Nordvie later started businesses both in Buolmat (Polmak) and Ceavccageadgi (Mortensnes) in Unjárgga (Nesseby) municipality. From the legal records we see that a Nordvie was about to lose his businesses because he had abused his license to serve alcohol.  During Ting proceedings in Buolmat and Ceavccageadgi he had served alcohol to Sami and others over the counter inside his stores.  He did not have this kind of license, and it led to all the drunk people throwing up and disturbing the proceedings in the Ting.  It was a dramatic attempt to make money from all those assembled, but affected many of the officials involved with law and order.  When Nordvie was reported for these transgressions, he was about to lose his license to sell alcohol at both locations.  He surrendered his license for Buolmat, and was barely able to manage to hang on to the one for Ceavccageadgi.

    The province was divided into several judicial districts which dealt with such matters and which later came under municipal control when the position of rural judicial magistrate was established.  The Ting functioned also as a court which could settle many kinds of disputes.

    Before 1812 it was punishable to have sexual relations outside of wedlock.  This was called leiermål loosely translated as “getting to the sheets,” and led to fines for both parties.  The man had to pay a fine of 12 riksdaler and the woman half the amount.  The fines were initially established to reduce the number of births outside of wedlock.  The fines were a good source of income for the state, since these birthrates were very high and were rampant among the higher middle class.

    If you were an unmarried officer, noncommissioned officer or soldier, the fine would be waived the first time.  The king’s men had few such privileges to avoid financial hardship with their low pay.  Often in civilian cases, the man paid the woman’s fine if she lied and said it was a soldier she didn’t know.  After such fines, it was not unusual that the guilty parities had to stand in church and acknowledge their sins.  If incest was involved, the instigator had to pay with their head well into the 1700s.  When Norway came into union with Sweden in 1814 these fines were discontinued, but the ministers often noted in the church records children who were brought for baptism by unmarried couples, noting ”this was their first out of wedlock incident.”  Later in the 1800s, ministers would write the letter ‘U’ (meaning ugift or unmarried) to indicate a child born out of wedlock who was baptized.

    Although the Danish King Christian V had increased the penalties for children born out of wedlock in a revision of a Norwegian law dated April 15th, 1687, it apparently did not apply to himself or succeeding Danish kings.  Apparently it was generally accepted that several Danish kings named Christian and Frederik had many children with their mistresses.  These children, in any case the boys, were held in high esteem and were bestowed high sounding titles of nobility and shared such last names as Gyldenløve (golden lion), which were retained among the nobility of Denmark and Norway long into the 20th century. 

    Even though most people had very great respect for authority, there is evidence to the contrary, in an episode from Deanodat (Vestertana) early in the 1800s which led to a court case.  There were two Sami brothers who were drafted into the military based at Várggát (Vardø) fort. When the brothers did not show up for induction, the commandant sent a message to the sheriff in Deatnu asking him to look into the matter.  The sheriff went west, found the two brothers at home, and demanded an explanation for their absence from Várggát.  One of the brothers got angry and answered the sheriff rudely.  The sheriff curtly said that he better watch it, or he would be put in irons and sent to Várggát.  Then the young Sami became even more angry and answered, “Shut up, you shit sheriff, I’ll put you in irons myself,” and proceeded to pull down his pants and moon the sheriff.  The Sami was fined in court for improper behavior toward a government official, avoiding military service, and for misappropriating traveling money and provisions.

    Another incident in the same vein also deals with two Sami from lower Deatnu, who were also to report to Várggát for military service in the first quarter of the 1800s.  Merchant Schanche had advanced them travel money and provisions and gave them use of one of his private boats so they could sail from Gollesuolo to Várggát. The sailing went fine out the Deatnu fjord, they passed Bearalváhki (Berlevåg) and came to Løkvik where they met a Russian fishing boat, where they went on board, were served and purchased liquor. They partied with the Russians and thereafter proceeded to blow off  Várggát and military service.  Hung over, they turned and sailed over the Deatnu fjord to Deanodat (Gamvik).  The incident had legal consequences:  they had to compensate Schanche for his boat which had been badly damaged after having been left at the shore’s high water point.

    It also happened that fjord Sami and others ignored laws and other restrictions when food shortages were at their worst.  In this context a small incident out in the Deatnu fjord can be mentioned, where Sami from Deanodat and Lággu (Langfjord) had illegally flayed a whale which had run aground by Langfjordnes.  Until 1813 Sami and other settlers in the Deatnu fjord area had exclusive rights to dead whales and shipwrecks.  The new law established that this was property of the crown and must be reported to the authorities.  On several occasions the population ignored the law as was the case with the above-mentioned whale.  The Sami were discovered and reported, but tried the excuse that they didn’t know the new law and that the whale was already rotting.  This became a major court case, as they had seized the king’s property.  During the trial, the accused had to account for everything they had taken, and the amount.  Some had taken blubber and cooked oil from it, and others had taken meat and fat.  All were fined according to the amount they had taken from the beached whale.

    When it came to shipwrecks in the Deatnu fjord, iron fittings, rope and other usable items were collected and delivered to merchant Schanche on Gollesuolo.  Each year when the Ting opened, questions were always asked.  That which was reported was taxed by the court officials.  Even old fat which was collected on the beach was taxed after the Dutch ship De Hoop had run aground and broken apart by the fishing bank Omgang, near the entrance to the Deatnu fjord.

    When a death was reported and the estate was to be settled, the records reveal all the heartbreaking tragedies experienced by poor people, when the tax collector, chief magistrate and sheriff came with their people to assess and liquidate the estate.  By the time they secured their own fees and any claims by creditors, there often wasn’t much left for the survivors.  From such a settlement in Juovlavuotna
(Austertana) I can see in the records that both the cow, boat and nets went as fees to the officials, while the several teenage sons were left empty handed, without any way of making a living.

    When Deatnu became its own municipality and parish in the early 1860s, the population had doubled  many times over.  The school system was becoming more organized, and both trading and church were moved  seven or so miles up to Langnes, which then became the center. From Birkelund and down to Langnes there lived mostly Norwegians and a few Kven.  From the 1875 census, we see that two mountain Sami had settled among the Schanches on Birkelund.  Since the two youngest  brothers, Hans Eilert and Nils Vibe Schanche owned 150 reindeer besides all the businesses, it is likely that the two Sami who lived there were their herders.

    The settlements in lower Deatnu had become almost completely agricultural, as many had acquired horses and steel farm equipment. In 1878 the Schanches went bankrupt, and Hans Eilert moved to his mother’s large 250 acre farm Marienlund.  The entire merchant dynasty fell apart at the seams, and almost took the venerable Várggát firm Brodtkorb with it.  It is told that the great merchant house of Jansen in Hamburg rescued Brodtkorb from the crisis.  Hans Eilert in 1905 willed about 50 acres for a future agricultural college in Deatnu. The remaining 200 acres of Marienlund farm was willed to a children’s home which the Samemisjon (Sami missionary society) acquired and first started in 1927.

    I hope in this article that I have managed to share with the readers of Árran some of the life and the activities in Deatnu through two centuries, both under Danish and Swedish rule.


Nils Evald Biti, local historian