noaidi, including spirit-travelling female noaidi. In contrast to the claim that only men could be noaidi and use the drum, there are examples of Sami women who did use the drum. Kirsten Klemitsdotter (d. 1714), Rijkuo-Maja of Arvidsjaur (1661-1757) and Anna Greta Matsdotter of Vapsten, known as Silbo-gåmmoe or Gammel-Silba (1794-1870), are examples of women noted to have used the drum. Drums after Christianisation In the 17th and 18th centuries, several raids were made to confiscate drums, both in Sweden and in Denmark-Norway, during the Christianization of the Sámi people. Thomas von Westen and his colleagues considered the drums to be "the Bible of the Sámi", and wanted to eradicate what they saw as "idolatry" by destroying or removing the drums. Any uncontrolled, "idol-worshipping" Sámi were considered a threat to the government. The increased missionary efforts towards the Sámi in the early 18th century might be explained as a consequence of the government's desire to controle the citizens under the era of absolute monarchy in Denmark-Norway, and also as a consequence of the increased emphasis on an individual Christian faith in pietism, popular at the time. In Åsele, Sweden, 2 drums were collected in 1686, 8 drums in 1689 and 26 drums in 1725, mainly of the Southern Sámi type. Thomas von Westen collected about a hundred drums from the Southern Sámi district; 8 of them were collected at Snåsa in 1723. 70 of von Westen's drums were lost in the Copenhagen Fire of 1728. von Westen found few drums during his journeys in the Northern Sámi districts between 1715 and 1730. This might be explained by the advanced Christianisation of the Sámi in the north, in that the drums had already been destroyed. It might also be explained through the differences in the ways the drums were used in Northern and Southern Sámi cultures, respectively. While the drum was a common household item in Southern Sámi culture, it might have been a rare object, reserved for the few educated noaidi in Northern Sámi culture. Probably the best-known is the Linné Drum – a drum that was given to Carl Linnaeus during his visits to northern Sweden. He later gave it to a museum in France, and it was later brought back to the Swedish National Museum. Three Sámi drums can be found in the collections of the British Museum, including one bequeathed by Sir Hans Sloane, founder of the