Excerpt from the longer article Stopped in Their Tracks

Ánne Heaika
as told by Niillas Somby to Árran

I had heard a lot about our neighbor in Seida (in Deatnu/Tana) who could do things that other people couldn’t do, supernatural type things. When I was a kid I believed in it, but as a modern youth in the 50s I didn’t believe that he had any supernatural powers. I had worked and managed to buy myself a car and was pretty proud of it.

One morning when I was driving to the neighboring town, Skippagurra, to shop, he was standing on the road with his hand out to stop me.

I’m not going to take that old man with me, I thought to myself and speeded up, when the car’s motor just stopped. Hendrik Gaski – that was his Norwegian name – slowly walked up to the car and with a sly smile asked if he could ride along to Skippagurra. “I’m only driving a little way,” I lied to him and thought there probably wasn’t much wrong with the car. “Then I’ll walk where you’re driving, and I’ll see you there,” he said and started walking. After awhile I got the car started and didn’t find anything wrong with it. I was speeding along and drove past the old man who was walking along the road when the car stopped again. I tried to get it started, but it was like dead, not even the starter reacted. Again he casually walked up to me. “Is this where you were going?” he asked smiling. I had begun to lose some of my youthful confidence, and regained a little of the respect for him that I had when I was a kid. “So, we were going shopping in Skippagurra?” he asked. “I guess so,” I said as I opened the car door for him. “Then let’s drive,” he said as he sat in the passenger seat. I turned the key and the car started right away. We drove to Skippagurra without any problems – the car drove like it always had.

At the store, I was done first and walked out to the car. I was a little irritated because it was taking him a while, and went inside to see what was going on. He was done shopping and was talking with a few other old men.
I went out to the car again and waited and waited. Finally I decided to drive home without him, but the car wouldn’t start. I was looking at the engine when he finally came out from the store together with the other men. They kept talking outside the store while I was digging around under the hood, but I didn’t find anything wrong.

I had given up hope of getting the car started, when he came, put his backpack in the back seat and sat down next to me in the car.

“Thanks for being so patient and waiting for me! Now you can drive,” he said.

I turned the key and the car started

We drove home in silence, I with weakened pride, and he with a big smile.

“Thanks for the trip! It’s great that young people today have time to take us old people along on shopping trips,” he said as he handed me some money as a way of saying thanks.

After that I was more curious about him and started to ask around. I heard many stories about him, both about the people who he had healed and about people who had tried to bully him. He, like many others, had worked for the highway department when the roads in the north were built. Many times the milieu in the worker camps was pretty tough, and older Sami men were often subject to the worst bullying. This included Ánne Heaika.

One time someone sticks a large rusty nail in his loaf of bread while he is out. During lunch break everyone sits around the table when Ánne Heaika starts cutting the bread until the knife reached the nail. Ánne Heaika casually cuts the loaf in two, takes out the nail, cleans the rust off the bread and gives the rusty nail to the person who had put it there. He then looks sternly at the two who had suggested the prank, but doesn’t say anything. It gets quiet in the lunch barracks for the rest of the break. For a few days after the event the three men had to constantly go to the bathroom.

I heard this story from Marelius Iversen from Seida in Deatnu in 1985.

Niillas Somby