Beaivi

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Swedish. (January 2023) Click [show] for important translation instructions. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Swedish Wikipedia article at [[:sv:Beaivi]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|sv|Beaivi}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Finnish. (January 2023) Click [show] for important translation instructions. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Finnish Wikipedia article at [[:fi:Beaivi]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|fi|Beaivi}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Beaivi, Beiwe, Bievve, Beivve or Biejje is the Sami Sun-deity; the name of the deity is the same as the name of the Sun.^[1][2] The Sami Sun-deity is usually depicted as female, but sometimes as male. In Sápmi, north of the Polar circle, where the sun does not even reach the horizon in winter, the sun was widely venerated and played a major role in the cultic coherence.

Beaivi is goddess of the sun, spring, and sanity, associated with the fertility of plants and animals, particularly reindeer. She made the plants grow so that the reindeer flourished and reproduced, and brought wealth and prosperity to the humans.

On the winter solstice, a white female animal or animals, usually reindeer, were sacrificed in honor of Beivve, to ensure that she returned to the world and put an end to the long winter season. The sacrificed animals' meat would be threaded onto sticks, which were then bent into rings and tied with bright ribbons. This is called the Festival of Beaivi.

At the time of the year when the sun was returning, butter (which melts in the sunshine) was smeared on the doorposts, as a sacrifice to Beivve, so that she could gain strength during her convalescence and go higher and higher in the sky. At the summer solstice, people made sun-rings out of leaves and pinned them up in her honor. On these occasions, they also ate butter as a sacral meal.

At the time of the year when Beivve returned, prayers were made for the people who were mentally ill. The Sami believed that madness (in the shape of psychoses and depression) were provoked by the lack of sunshine and light during the long, dark winter.

In Sami myth, she travels with her daughter, Beaivi-nieida, through the sky in an enclosure covered by reindeer bones or antlers, bringing spring with them.

• Sami shamanism
• Päivätär (Finnish solar goddess)
• Amaterasu

• December 2003 Holidays- School of Seasons Archived 2012-12-28 at the Wayback Machine