Properly dressed women choose a special headdress: The shape and decoration of the ládjogahpir in the early 19th Century.

Abstract

In this article I discuss the use of the ládjogahpir as being a part of women’s body decoration in the beginning of the 19th Century. For women who work with duodji (Sami applied art), clothing design has always been important and is an area where women can demonstrate their technical and aesthetic skills. It is possible to talk about at least two main shapes of ládjogahpir and the question is if these shapes are related to two different periods, one being the early 19th Century and the other being the late 19th Century.

Available written sources are rather vague and as a result, I utilise a variety of different approaches to approach the issue, including an examination of museum artifacts from the begining of the 20th Century. In my article, I examine what the words ládjogahpir and čoarvegahpir mean and through this investigation, you can arrive at some explanations regarding the shape and decoration of the ládjogahpir. I use some examples from the Norsk folkemuseum collection to show the variety of headdress designs. Many 19th Century explorers remarked upon the headdresses and I discuss their observations. Finally, I refer to the artworks of several European artists from this time and I discuss their images, which may represent «the truth» or may represent the artist’s interpretation.