Every year, I get questions about Christmas Folklore from journalists, friends, and students. I’ve started compiling my little mini-research replies and share them here occasionally. I also welcome responses, corrections, and debates!
Query:
“[I’d like to know] about the perceived connection between the indigenous practices of the Sámi people and the colors and traditions associated with Santa Claus. (Example: https://www.ffungi.org/blog/the-influence-of-hallucinogenic-mushrooms-on-christmas) I am looking to hear from an expert who could speak to this being a myth or potentially of merit. If you would be able to talk about the potential veracity of this connection or debunk it as a likely fabrication.”
Answer:
While there might be something there to investigate in terms of Sami mythology, the history of Santa Claus developing into the globalized stereotypical image we know today has a quite well established American history. Below I will write more on that. Experts on Sami folklore worth consulting include Tim Frandy at University of British Columbia. https://cenes.ubc.ca/profile/tim-frandy/ and Thomas DuBois at University of Wisconsin Madison: https://gns.wisc.edu/staff/dubois-thomas-a/ Carrie Hertz of the International Museum of Folk Art has also written a book on Nordic dress and adornment, https://iupress.org/9780253058577/dressing-with-purpose/.
The transformation of the Christian Saint Nicholas to a folkloric elf involves a complex interplay of many Christian and pagan customs surrounding midwinter, from the Roman Empire to the Nordic countries, and then to America and beyond. In many European traditions, St. Nicholas retains his bishop’s attire. Other Christmas figures, including Father Christmas, Pere Noel, Frau Perchta, La Befana, draw on a variety of folklore customs of complex local origin.
Aside from a potential relationship to Sami folklore, there are Scandinavian precedents of tomte (elves) and these seem to have a separate evolution than our modern Santa in America. Note this quote from a magazine article published by Scandinavian Press, which does suggest that a Swedish interpretation of the Sami image may have been introduced in a publication in 1871: “In Sweden, like in many of the Nordic countries, it was someone dressed up like a goat that originally distributed the Christmas gifts. All that changed when Viktor Rydberg published Little Vigg’s Adventure on Christmas Eve in 1871, when a boy is picked up by a “tomte” distributing gifts around the countryside in his sledge drawn by four miniature horses. When Rydberg wrote the poem The Tomte he commissioned a less ugly-looking santa as an illustration from an 18-year-old artist. Jenny Nyström used her father as a model and gave her “tomte” the body of an old Lapplander. She created the image of the modem Swedish santa and as she continued to draw him for 70 years, her “tomte” was firmly established in Swedish Christmas traditions. Her son Curt Nyström Stoopendahl and other artists continued to draw her naturalistic santas while Aina Stenberg Mas Olle’s Christmas cards are full of younger more decorative tomtenissar. These “small santas” may sometimes deliver something in the stocking, as a foretaste of the real santa, already on the morning of Christmas Eve.” (Nordic Santas, Scandinavian Press)
Further information on tomte can be found in Swedish Legends and Folktakes by John Lindow: “Accordingly the being best disposed toward men is the household spirit, known in Sweden as the tomte (plural tomtar) or, in parts of the south, as the nisse, a hypercoristic form of the name Nikolas. The term tomte is regarded as elided from compounds whose first component is the noun tomt (“plot of land”) and whose second component is some nature-being.” Lindow goes on to quote from an early folklore source who describes them: “Tomtar are small, wear red caps, and are usually quite shabby. They are very strong, so it is not good to cross them. They can be either a help or a nuisance. If you treat them well they can be of much use to you, but if you treat them badly they can do you much harm.” (Lindow 40)
The potential influence of this Swedish publication in particular and the tradition of tomte in general on the American evolution of Santa Claus is uncertain, as Rydberg’s publication comes after the emergence of a Santa Claus image already developing in America. In America, the primary early influences are allegedly Dutch, but even these are disputed. Washington Irving’s book A History Of New York, From the Beginning Of the World To the End Of the Dutch Dynasty . . . By Diedrich Knickerbocker [Pseud] published on St. Nicholas Day, 1809 contains this description of the saint according to his fictional Dutch American narrator, “And when St. Nicholas had smoked his pipe, he twisted it in his hat-band, and laying a finger aside of his nose, gave the astonished Van Kortlandt a very significant wink, then, mounting his wagon, he returned over the tree-tops and disappeared.”
In his book The Battle for Christmas, historian Stephen Nissenbaum outlines the emergence of our modern myth of Santa Claus in early 19th century New York – in the 1820s through the influence of patrician New Yorkers, known as the “Knickerbocker set” – including Washington Irving, John Pintard, and Clement Clarke Moore. He argues that despite their appeal to a Dutch tradition, the Santa Claus they popularize was less directly influenced by the Dutch Sinter Klaas, and more an invention of their own version of Dutch tradition, a version which could elevate their social concerns and combat other rowdy Christmas customs of the time. “The Knickerbockers felt that they belonged to a patrician class whose authority was under siege. From that angle, their invention of Santa Claus was part of which we can now see as a larger, ultimately quite serious cultural enterprise: forging a pseudo-Dutch identity for New York, a placid “folk” identity that could provide a cultural counterweight to the commercial bustle and democratic “misrule” of early nineteenth century New York”. (Nissenbaum 65)
It is interesting to note that in the actual Dutch traditions of Sinter Klaas, he rides a white horse (not a reindeer). In Christmas A Candid History, Bruce Forbes writes: “According to legend, Sinter Klaas spent most of the year in Spain, keeping track of the behavior of Dutch children from afar […] Each year, two or three weeks before St. Nicholas’ Day, Sinter Klaas and Zwarte Piet would arrive by ship from Spain […] In the evenings Sinter Klaas rode a white horse over rooftops, leaving small gifts in wooden shoes children had placed on the step or by the fireplace.” (Forbes 77)
In her book, The Night Before Christmas: A Descriptive Bibliography of Clement Clarke Moore’s Immortal Poem With Editions from 1823-2000, librarian Nancy Marshall elaborates on the elements of the Santa image that Moore himself introduces in the 1823 poem, heavily influenced by Washington Irving’s “Dutch” depictions of St. Nicolas. “Moore is often credited with four original contributions to the iconography of our present conception of St. Nicholas – the sleigh, the eight reindeer, Santa’s fur clothing and pipe, and finally, his method of entrance and exit via the chimney instead of a door. Some of these fruit of his imagination, however, were almost certainly influenced by at least three publications that appeared in the years just prior to his writing the poem.” (Marshall xxi) Marshall goes on to reference the three potential influences, including Washington Irving, an unnamed poet published in a New York paper, and third New Yorker, William Gilley.
Finally, in Christmas a Candid History, author Bruce Forbes continues to outline the evolution of Santa Claus’s image, from the tiny elf wearing fur in Moore’s poem, to the large jolly Santa in red we are familiar with today. He describes the contributions of illustrator Thomas Nast who first drew Santa Claus in 1863, “The outfit that Nast gave Santa was a little different from our modern image, with a fur hat rather than a stocking cap, and clothes (“dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot”) that looked like very itchy long underwear. Nast returned to the subject of Santa year after year in Harper’s, and the content of the drawings added many other lasting features to the Santa mythology: A North Pole Headquarters; Santa as a toymaker; elves as Santa’s assistants; Santa receiving letters from children.” (Forbes 89-90) See more information on Nast’s images and political influences in this article: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/civil-war-cartoonist-created-modern-image-santa-claus-union-propaganda-180971074/
Forbes continues on the emerging images of Santa, ” Tall or short, thin or plump, Santa was dressed in fur or cloth, with colors varying from red and blue to earth tones. Red became the most common color for his clothing, and department store Santas appeared with standard red and white costumes, although uniformity was not absolute.” (Forbes 90-91)
In short, while a link to Sami folklore and mythology may be in there somewhere, perhaps through a late convergence of the American Santa Clause and the Scandinavian tomte tradition, the complex evolution of St. Nicholas into the globalized Santa Claus is full of so many diverse influences, that I do not think a Sami origin alone should be overstated, especially in specific the context of the American Santa Claus.
Sources
Forbes, Bruce David. 2007. Christmas : A Candid History. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press,. https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520933729
Irving, Washington. 1809. A History Of New York, From the Beginning Of the World To the End Of the Dutch Dynasty . . . By Diedrich Knickerbocker [Pseud]. New York: Inskeep & Bradford.
Lindow, John. 1978. Swedish Legends and Folktales. Reprint 2019. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520317772.
Marshall, Nancy H. 2002. The Night before Christmas : A Descriptive Bibliography of Clement Clarke Moore’s Immortal Poem. New Castle, Del: Oak Knoll Press.
Nissenbaum, Stephen. 1996. The Battle for Christmas. 1st ed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
From the Original Tomte to the Swedish Coca-Cola Santa. 2006. Swedish Press (Vancouver. 1986). Vol. 77. Vancouver: Swedish Press.
Nordic Santas. 1998. Scandinavian Press. Vol. 5. Vancouver: Scandinavian Press.
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