Rika Maja's Sami hut
There is a lot of talk about Sami Rika Maja and legend says that she had magical powers. Visit the place where, according to legend, Rika Maja had her hut and her reindeer at Akkanålke.

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Akkanålke is closely connected with the story of Rika Maja in Mausjaur. She was born in 1661 and died at the age of 96 in 1757. Although outwardly Christian, she was a follower of her fathers' pre-Christian Sami religion throughout her life. The Sami had a religious contact with nature and did not worship only gods as in other parts of the world.

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Pasture land for her reindeer was the areas around Stenträsket and Akkanålke. In the evenings, she let her reindeer out of the enclosure. In the morning she played the fortune-telling drum and knelt on the ground with a sacrificial veil of reindeer skin over her face. Then the whole reindeer herd gathered.

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When her servants collected the reindeer for deer slaughter in the autumn, she asked them to make a special "gill" - storage stand - in the place where most of the reindeer were found. There they would hang the meat from a couple of slaughtered reindeer so that, as she said, all the birds of the sky would be fed.

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Rika Maja was, according to legend, rather vain. It is said that when she went to church in the summer on the obligatory mood weekends, you could see her striding along in the hot sun still wearing up to five kaptehs - colts - at once. The innermost one was then always the longest and the outermost the shortest so that everyone would see how rich and beautiful she was.

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She prayed and sacrificed to the mountain. When she grew old and blind, she mostly had to stay at home in Mausjaur and then one day she heard that Akkanålke was on fire. Rika Maja then allowed herself to be led out a bit into lake Mausjaur. Wearing a sacrificial veil, she struck the water three times with a brass rod while whistling. Then immediately came a fierce thunderstorm and Akkanålke was saved.

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When Rika Maja felt that she no longer had so long to live, she asked to be buried at Akkanålke because she wanted to hear "gweppe lehsa ja velkenen bello" - the clicking of the reindeer's hooves and the bell of the white bell reindeer. She warned of what could happen if this was not done according to her will. Despite that, her wish was not fulfilled and she was buried in the cemetery in Arvidsjaur. It is said that when they buried her, her reindeer became restless. They no longer found comfort around Stenträsket and Akkanålke, but spread across the country at great speed. They tried in vain to catch up with the herd. It drifted further and further down towards the coast. But even then the herd did not stop, but continued out onto the ice. Without halting their course, almost the entire herd plunged into the open sea wake.

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Source Arvidsjaur Municipality