Ursula Länsman, member of the Sámi Band Angelit, describes it very well. http://www.folkworld.de/9/e/sami.html
"A yoik is not merely a description; it attempts to capture its subject in its entirety: it's like a holographic, multi-dimensional living image, a replica, not just a flat photograph or simple visual memory. It is not about something, it is that something. It does not begin and it does not end. A yoik does not need to have words — its narrative is in its power, it can tell a life story in song. The singer can tell the story through words, melody, rhythm, expressions or gestures."
In one of the earliest published Sami texts, Johan Turi describes it as "the art of recalling other people." But in the past the Sami also joiked animals, landscapes, and weather. The earliest joiking was unaccompanied voice, but in the last twenty or thirty years it's been backed by many different instruments and performed in a variety of styles. There's even Sami rapping now.
Ande Somby is a Norwegian Sami lawyer and musician. He writes about joiking in this article on the Web. http://www.uit.no/ssweb/dok/Somby/Ande/95.htm
Although I described the general idea behind joiking in The Palace of the Snow Queen and mentioned two powerful modern singers––Mari Boine from Norway and Wimme from Finland––who've taken the traditional form to new places, my descriptions aren't the same as experiencing the sound of the joik. Here are some links to sites where you can learn more and hear samples:
Arran has a comprehensive list of Sami musicians, both traditional and contemporary, including their web sites and Myspace pages where you can listen to streaming mp3 tracks and download. http://home.earthlink.net/~arran4/siida/sami-yoik.htm
Another possibility to hear joiking on-line is at Amazon: Folk Music In Sweden, Vols. 21, 22, 23: A Presentation Of Saami Folk Music
Although this 3-volume collection of traditional acoustic joik is not available for purchase, the nearly 200 songs, on everything from reindeer to weather to love, and sung by a rich variety of male and female voices, is there for the listening. It's a great introduction to the form.
On Amazon, you can listen to samples from the albums of Mari Boine and Wimme too. Better yet, you can go to the website of NorthSide, an independent music company based in Minneapolis. Their focus is Scandinavian folk and new music, and they have an awesome deal: three collection of Nordic music from all over Scandinavia, which includes some cuts by Sami singers. Nordic Roots 1, 2, 3. each only $5. They also carry the full discography of Boine and Wimme.
Friday, January 18, 2008
The History of the Snowman
Since my travel book The Palace of the Snow Queen was published last October, some readers and reviewers have said things along the lines of, "I have to admit that Lapland is not the first country that comes to mind in my quest for good travel literature," and "That's one place I'm never going." In the Seattle Times, Lynda V. Mapes wrote, "This is the coldest I've ever been reading a book, but it was worth it." I'm glad she qualified that.
Okay, so I haven't converted everyone to my fascination with the far north of Scandinavia. On the other hand I have heard from a lot of people who love the northern climes and who have stories to tell about Scandinavian forebears and Sami relatives who emigrated to Poulsbo, Washington and Nome, Alaska, and who harbor fantasies of their own about ice hotels and dark, starry nights brushed by the northern lights. People who for mysterious reasons don't mind the cold and who are drawn to the cultures and landscapes of the far north, whether watery or icy.
One reader recently wrote me, "I go on my trips alone because no one I know can afford to go and also no one I know wants to go to the north. They want the tropics and warm beaches." A woman after my own heart, she had recently returned from not only Lapland, but St. Petersburg, and Tallin in Estonia. She wrote she'd also been to Iceland, the Faroe Island, the Orkneys and all those other cool (and cold and wet) places I'd traveled to myself in writing The Pirate Queen a few years ago.
One of my favorite Christmas presents this year was a lively little book by humorist Bob Eckstein (whose cartoons appear in The New Yorker). The History of the Snowman: from the Ice Age to the Flea Market (Simon & Schuster, 2007). I love books about topics that are hiding in plain sight. It turns out there's a lot to say about snowmen as cultural icons, and this eclectic book is by turns hilarious and erudite, with chapters such as, "Early Belgian Expressionism," "Early American Snowmen in the Seventeenth Century," and "The Dean Martin Years." He sniffs out some of the earliest representations of snow people in art and ponders why snowmen also are seen to have a sinister side ("Number of movies with snowman in the title: 22. Number of those in which the snowman is the killer: 6").
Copiously illustrated with color ads, postcards, magazine covers, and with as many black and white illustrations, including a great selection of the best of the snowman New Yorker cartoons.
Okay, so I haven't converted everyone to my fascination with the far north of Scandinavia. On the other hand I have heard from a lot of people who love the northern climes and who have stories to tell about Scandinavian forebears and Sami relatives who emigrated to Poulsbo, Washington and Nome, Alaska, and who harbor fantasies of their own about ice hotels and dark, starry nights brushed by the northern lights. People who for mysterious reasons don't mind the cold and who are drawn to the cultures and landscapes of the far north, whether watery or icy.
One reader recently wrote me, "I go on my trips alone because no one I know can afford to go and also no one I know wants to go to the north. They want the tropics and warm beaches." A woman after my own heart, she had recently returned from not only Lapland, but St. Petersburg, and Tallin in Estonia. She wrote she'd also been to Iceland, the Faroe Island, the Orkneys and all those other cool (and cold and wet) places I'd traveled to myself in writing The Pirate Queen a few years ago.
One of my favorite Christmas presents this year was a lively little book by humorist Bob Eckstein (whose cartoons appear in The New Yorker). The History of the Snowman: from the Ice Age to the Flea Market (Simon & Schuster, 2007). I love books about topics that are hiding in plain sight. It turns out there's a lot to say about snowmen as cultural icons, and this eclectic book is by turns hilarious and erudite, with chapters such as, "Early Belgian Expressionism," "Early American Snowmen in the Seventeenth Century," and "The Dean Martin Years." He sniffs out some of the earliest representations of snow people in art and ponders why snowmen also are seen to have a sinister side ("Number of movies with snowman in the title: 22. Number of those in which the snowman is the killer: 6").
Copiously illustrated with color ads, postcards, magazine covers, and with as many black and white illustrations, including a great selection of the best of the snowman New Yorker cartoons.
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