Fire, blood and death<\/p>\n
These examples are noteworthy because they provide evidence from places where the aurora is seldom seen. But for people living at high latitudes \u2013 Iceland, Greenland, northern Scandinavia, Alaska, Canada, and northern Russia \u2013 the Northern Lights are a regular occurrence. Here, aurora have long been a part of a broader worldview connecting people and their environment.<\/p>\n
Traditions vary widely between different communities, from creation myths<\/a> to navigation and weather predictions. For some the Northern Lights represent ancestors or shamanic powers.<\/p>\n “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\u00a0involved in a\u00a0<\/a>North American Sami reawakening<\/a>, in\u00a0a 2020 article<\/a>.<\/p>\n Death and struggle are common themes. The aurora certainly\u00a0inspired fear in some Sami communities<\/a>, write Olsen and Fjeld. Their appearance would prompt warnings to be quiet when the aurora shone \u2013 and certainly not to tease it \u2013 and advice to women to cover their hair to avoid becoming entangled in its rays.\u00a0<\/p>\n