On the 15th and 16th of July 1749 the small village Kvikkjokk (Huhttán in Lule Sápmi) in northern Sweden became the scene of a heated debate on epistemology and botany between a Linnaean field naturalist, local clergy and Indigenous Sámi people. At the forefront were local botanical names and uses of Angelica archangelica, also known simply as the angelica, wild celery, or Norwegian angelica (or “kvanne” in Swedish). Sámi people, temporarily present at the location in order to attend two compulsory church gatherings were called in not once but twice to settle issues relating to nomenclature and identity. The first time they responded, they sided with the travelling naturalist Lars Montin (1723-1785), and, by extension, his teacher Linnaeus’s descriptions published in Flora Lapponica (1737).[1]Lars Montin, ’Beskrifning öfver en resa, på Kongl: Wetenskaps Societetens uti Uppsala, men i synnerhet Wälb. Herr Arch. Linnæi anmodan år 1749 om sommaren förrättad til Lapska Fiællarne Åfvan Luleå Stad’, MSS BANKS COLL MON, Botanical Collections, The Natural History Museum, London, 416, see also below discussion of the Angelica archangelica The second time, they dismissed the information detailed by Linnaeus in the same flora. Nor did they agree with the views of the local vicar Olof Olofsson Modéen (1696-1754), who translated the exchanges for Montin, that the plant in question was lethally poisonous.[2]Montin, ’Beskrifning öfver en resa’, 421–422. The plant in question here was Angelica sylvestri, which Modéen seems to have confused with Hyoscyamus niger.
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| ↑1 | Lars Montin, ’Beskrifning öfver en resa, på Kongl: Wetenskaps Societetens uti Uppsala, men i synnerhet Wälb. Herr Arch. Linnæi anmodan år 1749 om sommaren förrättad til Lapska Fiællarne Åfvan Luleå Stad’, MSS BANKS COLL MON, Botanical Collections, The Natural History Museum, London, 416, see also below discussion of the Angelica archangelica |
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| ↑2 | Montin, ’Beskrifning öfver en resa’, 421–422. The plant in question here was Angelica sylvestri, which Modéen seems to have confused with Hyoscyamus niger. |
