Inari Sami people Inari Sami people Inari or Aanaar Sami are a group of Sami people who inhabit the area around Lake Inari, Finland. They speak the Inari (Aanaar) Sami language, which belongs to the eastern Sami languages. There are an estimated 700–900 ethnic Inari Samis in Finland, of whom approximately 300 speak Inari Sami. They are the only group of Sami who live within one state and one municipality. Inari Sami are indigenous peoples of their area. The traditional homeland of Inari Sami is the shores of the Lake Inari and the surrounding areas. Historically they are believed to have inhabited a
Inari Sami people Northern Sami immigration after Norway and Russia closed their borders in 1852, and eastern Sami immigration from south when Finnish settlement crawled northward. In 1920s Spanish Flu killed 190 people in the Inari area, which constituted one-tenth of the population. After the Second World War Skolts from Pechenga area were evacuated and settled to Inari. Till the 1950s most Inari Samis lived in natural economy, but this was changed rapidly and during this process the use of Inari Sami language decreased. Unlike most of other Sami groups, Inari Sami didn't historically practice large-scale reindeer husbandry. The more descriptive feature of