The Church of Sweden has admitted to running segregated, racist schools for the country's ethnic Sami population.

The Church, the country's national Church and the world's largest Lutheran Church, acknowledged the schools were "based on racist ideas".

The confession came as the Church is trying to atone for the part it played in repressing the indiginous Sami people.

A two-volume 'White Book' has been published today, documenting its mistreatment of the Sami and focusing on  the so-called Nomad Schools it ran between 1913 and 1962.

"It was a form of school whose ideology was based on racist ideas of superior and inferior races, and that took away from many Sami their language, culture and human dignity. One must describe where the pain persists, and what the abuse was," Archbishop Antje Jackelén told Sweden's Dagens Nyheter newspaper.

The book has been published as part of the ongoing reconciliation process between the Church and the Sami, many of whom are Laestadian, a particularly conservative form of Lutheranism.

The nomad schools were set up because of a belief in the Church that those Sami who herded reindeers should be corralled within their historic way of life. In one school, the children until the 1940s lived in huts furnished with twigs and reindeer skins. They were taught basic skills only as they were not expected to reach a high educational level, and it was believed that their culture would be harmed if they were exposed to "civilisation".

Other Sami were encouraged to assimilate, where they were taught in Swedish which they did not understand. Their traditional names were removed from Church records and the traditional Yoik singing was banned.

Reindeer herders now make up about 10 per cent of the Sami peoples, or nearly 3,000 people in total. 

Jackelén said: "It is good to take the troll out into the light, because then they disappear. There's been a silence surrounding this. Young people do not know what happened. The nomad schools were found throughout the Sami regions, from Karesuando to Jämtland. We must talk about it."

The publication of the White Book comes on the eve of National Sami Day, celebrated on February 6 in Norway, Sweden and other Scandinavian countries.

Earlier this week, the Sami won a 30-year battle for land rights when their village, Girjas, inside the Arctic Circle, won exclusive rights to local hunting and fishing. These same rights had been removed by Sweden's parliament in 1993.

.