Renberg, Elsa Laula

Born on November 29, 1877 in the family of reindeer herders Lars Thomasson Laula and Kristina Josefina Larsdotter, she grew up near the village of Dikanäs. After receiving a specialty of a midwife in Stockholm , she returned to her native village.

In 1908, she married reindeer herder Thomas Renberg, with whom she moved to the town of Vefsn , in the county of Nordland , in Norway and gave birth to six children.

In 1904, she wrote and published in Swedish the pamphlet Infor lif eller död? Sanningsord i de Lappska förhållandena ”(“ Do we face life or death? Truth words about the Sami situation ”), which made her the first Sami woman to publish her own work ^[1] . The work touched on issues relevant to the Sami education, voting rights, land ownership, which aroused the political and social activity of the Sami population.

Elsa Laula Renberg initiated a large Sámi meeting, held in Trondheim on February 6, 1917, the day on which International Sámi Day is currently celebrated.

The 19th Saami Conference proposed to make Elsa Laula Renberg's birthday a Sami flag day and forwarded the matter to the Committee on National Sami Symbols. In June 2015, the Committee considered this issue (§18), deciding: “The Committee decided to propose the Saami Parliamentary Council and the Saami Union to designate Elsa Laula Renberg's birthday as the official Saami flag day. In this regard, the committee will prepare a question so that a proposal for a decision will be submitted to the Saami Union and the Saami Parliamentary Council. ” The 21st Saami Conference, held on February 11, 2017, decided to designate Elsa Laula Renberg's birthday on November 29 as the official Sami Flag Day . On this day, starting in 2017, Sami flags should be raised ^[2] .