Fire, blood and death

These examples are noteworthy because they provide evidence from places where the aurora is seldom seen. But for people living at high latitudes – Iceland, Greenland, northern Scandinavia, Alaska, Canada, and northern Russia – the Northern Lights are a regular occurrence. Here, aurora have long been a part of a broader worldview connecting people and their environment.

Traditions vary widely between different communities, from creation myths to navigation and weather predictions. For some the Northern Lights represent ancestors or shamanic powers.

“Indigenous peoples throughout the Arctic area combine their spiritual understanding of the Northern Lights with their physical relationship to them, often through stories,” wrote Mel Olsen and Faith Fjeld, who are both involved in a North American Sami reawakening, in a 2020 article.

Death and struggle are common themes. The aurora certainly inspired fear in some Sami communities, write Olsen and Fjeld. Their appearance would prompt warnings to be quiet when the aurora shone – and certainly not to tease it – and advice to women to cover their hair to avoid becoming entangled in its rays. 

Similar warnings are still shared among Alaska’s Indigenous people today, some of whom say they were told stories as children of the Northern Lights playing football with their heads to frighten them into coming home on time.