meet and the conversation is not exactly festive.

The herders are among the last speakers of Ume Sami, one of at least five Sami languages spoken in Sweden. Today, it is spoken by fewer than 50 people.

Understanding why the language has become endangered is impossible without unpicking the complicated past and present of being a Sami in Sweden. “There is a deep wound in Sami culture and it is still bleeding,” says Oscar Sedholm, our guide from the NGO Såhkie Umeå Sami Association.

Prejudice, tourism and wounds that are still bleeding

The herders identify themselves as Sami, a recognised indigenous population from Sapmi - a region that stretches across the national borders of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. Samis are one of the five national minorities of Sweden and there are- or Gákti as they are called - in gift shops. A Sami doing a traditional Yoik won Sweden’s Got Talent this year. The Sami culture has been embraced and boldly put forward as a central part of the programme of the Swedish city Umea festivities as European Cultural Capital of 2014.

But the kitsch, celebrated version of Sami culture neatly packaged for tourist consumption is at best incomplete, and at worst misleading. The speakers of Ume Sami tell a different story: one of an institute set up in the 1920s for racial profiling, community fragmentation, name changing and today particularly high suicidal behaviour among Sami women and reindeer herders. Like so many indigenous people around the world, Samis have found themselves, their rights, and their livelihoods intertwined with