Tromsø
TROMSĂ, Norway
We brought Dead Ends on its first winter holiday, celebrating the first show of the spring season in this cold, snowy and rainy city surrounded by great mountains far up in north Norway. Despite harsh weather, the sun looked down at us 23 hours per day and 6 successful performances were given in the center of the city for the festival VĂĽrscenefest, 28th of April- 3rd of May 2014.
SUMMARY
Upon arrival one of the questions we asked our hosts was: Do you know why Tromsø is called Tromsø? Where does the name come from? "It is because the region is called Troms.." was the only answer we got from most the persons we asked. But where did âTromsâ come from in the first place then? This question was never answered so we started digging into the history. We came about stories of holy mountains, ancient SĂĄmi rituals, wild techno parties, polar explorers, hungry bears and arctic cruise ships. We went through ice age all up through second world war and to recent days electro fenomenon RĂśyksopp to find the story behind the name âTromsâ.
THE STORY OF TROMSĂ
History is always a subjective and complicated thing. In our performances we aspire to highlight a few interesting points. Here are some extracts of the historical background and a few of the signs used during the performance in Tromsø.
Trying to answer the question how Tromsø got its name we came across a couple of different theories.
THEORY NUMBER 1: The Holy Mountain
The Såmi people are the natives of northern Norway, Sweden and Finland. Here you can see a native Såmi sign that we designed for the county's Såmi minority.
The Såmi people have a tradition of giving names to the places according to their characteristics. The holy mountain Sålaťoaivi is located just next to the island of Tromsø.
Here is an old map depicting the way from Tromsø going over the large bridge up to the mountain. Sålaťoaivi means hunting and head indicating that it has been an important hunting place.
Some SĂĄmis say the mountain looks like a head of a rain deer.
Other SĂĄmis say it looks like a drum.
Another name for the same mountain is RumbbuÄohkka which means drum mountain (in SĂĄmi culture it is common that one place has many names depending on different dialects and culture).
A great SĂĄmi spirit is here drumming on the mountain using a traditional SĂĄmi drum-hammer.
There is a theory that the word Troms would derive from the SĂĄmi word "Rumbbu" and in that way the island and the city got its name from the great mountain.
The Tromsø based electro duo RÜyksopp absorbed this drumming tradition to make funky dance music.
THEORY NUMBER 2: Roald Amundsens tea party
Here is the great polar explorer Roald Amundsen, posing on his tame polar bear.
He visited the South pole more then 1 time, even two times!
The second time he went to the south pole was very successful, he was very well prepared.
But he was also lonely and on the way back to the north he passed by Cuba to trade some dryed whale meat for a whole shipload of rum.
When he arrived in Tromsø he promised everyone that wanted to come along on his next expedition a glass of tea mixed with cuban rum. It became a great party in the harbor of Tromsø, known as the Tea-Rum-Sunday. In Norwegian you say Te-Rom-Søndagen what quickly was abbreviated into T-rom-sø.
THEORY NUMBER 3: The Kings Stream
By the end of the ice age when the ice started to melt, about 11 000 years ago. A large snake sprung up to the surface.
The beast was terrorizing the inhabitants in the area. He swallowed a whole motorcyclist with helmet and everything.
The great King Haakon was called to the north Norway to do something about the beast.
His majesty spoke to the people and then said - Excuse me, and turned his back to the crowd, facing the horrible beast.
What His Royal Highness did to scare the snake away can be seen here, illustrated by this memorial fountain located at the center of Tromsø.
There are many stories that describe how âthe Kings Streamâ scared that evil snake away. âThe king's streamâ became a popular slogan describing the great bravery of King Haakon, king of the whole arctic ocean.
He was as powerful as 800 other kings.
Stream in old Norwegian is Straumr, and naturally the area where the whole event had taken place took this word into its name. In modern language âStraumrâ is written as âTromsâ and thereof the name Tromsø (The island of the kings stream/ The island of Troms)
TELLING THE TRUTH
In our search for the right answer to the question why Tromsø is called Tromsø we could not make up our mind what is the correct story.
Looking back at our journey, consulting with our SĂĄmi shaman and his drum, we feel that we reached...
a Dead EndâŚ
