Tag: Sámi

Forest and fell

8 May 2013 | Reviews

From North to South: young Heikki Soriola dressed in Lapp clothes, on his way to represent Utsjoki in Helsinki, in 1912. Photo from Saamelaiset suomalaiset

From North to South: young Heikki Soriola on his way to represent Utsjoki in Helsinki, in 1912. Photo from Saamelaiset suomalaiset

Veli-Pekka Lehtola
Saamelaiset suomalaiset: Kohtaamisia 1896–1953
[Sámi, Finns: encounters 1896–1953]
Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 2012. 528 p., ill.
ISBN 978-952-222-331-9
€53, hardback
Leena Valkeapää
Luonnossa: Vuoropuhelua Nils-Aslak Valkeapään tuotannon kanssa
[In nature, a dialogue with the works of Nils-Aslak Valkeapää]
Helsinki: Maahenki, 2011. 288 p., ill.
ISBN 978-952-5870-54-1
€40, hardback

The study of the Sámi people, like that of other indigenous peoples, has become considerably more diverse and deeper over recent decades. Where non-Sámi scholars, officials and clergymen once examined the Sámi according to the needs and values of the holders of power, contemporary scholarship starts out from dialogue, from an attempt to understand the interactions between different groups. More…

Morning coffee yoik

29 January 2010 | This 'n' that

Music from the fells: figures on a Sámi shaman's drum

The Sámi, or Lapp, people invented yoiking (juoiggus; in Finnish, joiku) aeons ago. Today, this monophonic vocal music, or chanting, is still practised by Sámi artists, among them Wimme Saari (born 1959 in Enontekiö, 300 km north of the Arctic Circle, a son of a reindeer herdsman), who’s brought a new dimension to this ancient art form. More…

The sun’s progress

Issue 1/1991 | Archives online, Fiction, poetry

A selection of poems. Introduction by Erkka Lehtola

the wind
blew the clouds to travel
across heaven
the fire to speak

our gods
together with us
the same joy
dreamed dreams
the sun’s progress
along the highways
the moon in the vent-hole
aurora borealis
heaven’s stars More…

Words and silences

Issue 1/1991 | Archives online, Authors

A collection of poems and photographs by the Finnish Lapp artist Nils-Aslak Valkeapää is an uncompromising statement of the culture of one of Europe’s last truly local peoples

After its supersonic journey across the skies, Concorde lands at Rovaniemi airport. The steel bird disgorges its cargo: rich Europeans on a day trip to Lapland. Among them are a few even more long-distance travellers, from Japan.

Father Christmas greets them cordially. They visit the Arctic Circle. They eat in the frosty outdoors, in front of a roaring campfire. They ride in a reindeer sled. It is the exotic experience they have hoped for; they laugh for the pleasure of it. More…