It’s likely that the early 19th century persona of Santa, his sartorial style and his occupation as a reindeer herder, flying with his flock of reindeer are based on Sami folklore.
The Sami people, formerly known as Laplanders and numbering today a total of 100,000 are the only “indigenous” people of Europe. They inhabit a large area of northern Scandinavia, throughout the current national boundaries of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia.
Here’s a short documentary made about the Sami made for Austrian TV.
