The visible and the invisible landscape
In order to understand Sami views about the landscape, one has to distinguish between the visible and the invisible parts of it. It was important for every individual to be able to read the visible landscape in order to catch quarry, find pasturage for the reindeer or know where to pick berries.
The reading of the landscape was situational and differed depending on what one was looking for: settlements or hunting grounds, migration routes or places for contact with the ancestors. Moreover, notions of the landscape differed between groups and individuals as did the stories told about different parts of nature, not least about those places and areas regarded as “sacred” (bissie'). These places were used to contact and communicate with the culturally postulated inhabitants of the invisible landscape.The invisible landscape was situated under the visible one and was the land of the departed members of the family as well as of other invisible beings. It was regarded as a landscape with its own geography, well known only to trained specialists such as the ndejtie, who had to be able to orient themselves there.
To be bissie (“sacred”) was regarded as something positive, although much that was so designated could be dangerous. This is why a very clear distinction was made between how men and women had to relate to anything bissie. According to pre-Christian Sami views, since women menstruate and give birth, they were already bissie in themselves, and it could therefore be dangerous for them to come near places that were bissie. That would be too much of a good thing. Men, however, were not regarded as bissie, and it was not as dangerous for them to approach things and places that were bissie. The responsibility for performing rituals at these bissie places was therefore a male duty.
When it comes to traditions about the vault of the sky, one widespread idea was that it revolved around an invisible pillar (the vearelden tjoelte “the world pole”), which was attached to the Pole Star. Later North Sami traditions seem to indicate that at least some Sami connected eschatological ideas to the Pole Star: at some time in the future the archer of one of the Sami star constellations would shoot his arrow, which would then hit the Pole Star. Thereupon the heavens would fall down and crush the earth.