A reindeer is just a reindeer, Rangifer tarandus. Or is it? The Eveny of northeast Siberia, like many Arctic peoples, have no single word for this species. Instead, they have separate words for wild and domesticated reindeer, highlighting a fundamental difference in how they relate to humans. Domesticated reindeer are controlled through drones and lassos, or collaborate with humans by offering themselves to be saddled or milked, sacrificing themselves to save their owners from danger, or carrying them on migrations in the afterlife.
In this talk, anthropologist Piers Vtebsky shall contrast this cooperative partnership with the inscrutability of wild animals as they follow their own mysterious purposes under the command of an unpredictable spirit Master: the wild reindeer which can be deceived by the hunter; the wolf who competes with humans by attacking their domestic reindeer; and the bear whose body parts give powerful medicine but who is almost too sacred to kill. In the process, he shall also invite listeners to make comparisons with human-animal relations in Sápmi.