Ei sørsamisk katastrofe i norsk minnekultur: To synsvinklar på ulykka i Dunderlandsdalen 1948

Sammendrag

In 1948, a bus carrying a South Saami delegation to a national indigenous convention crashed, killing 16 of the delegates. Although being one of largest in Norwegian history, the accident is very little known, even disregarded, in national public discourse. Among the South Saami, however, the memory of the accident is of great importance. The collective memory of the accident may thus be a key to understanding both the forming of identity and the status of this minority in Norwegian society at large. This article traces how the memories of this traumatic event are presented, developed – or avoided – in Norwegian public discourse until today, and examines how the memory is used to negotiate the status and identity of the South Saami within the indigenous group itself and towards the majority population of Norway. The article concludes that for the South Saami community, the memory process is about coping with a multi-layered social trauma: the loss of important tradition-bearers and ties to the past; the death of their guarantors and hopes for a prosperous future; and the painful experience of a still ongoing negligence from the larger society. For the majority population, though, the avoidance of commemorating the event makes it, in effect, a tool of governance of the minority.