SKÁBMAGOVAT 08
REFLECTIONS OF THE ENDLESS NIGHT
ANÁR . INARI. FINLAND
Within the frame work of Northern Cultures and Societies programme we visited the Skabmagovat 2008 film festival, where as ‘reflections of the Endless night’ an interesting group of documentaries were shown; starting with native American youth short films which are an intent to build positive representations of native American youth by youth itself; followed with ‘a hell of a yoik’ at the Siida Auditorium the Friday 25th of January, this venue screened the documentary by Jorun Collin ‘A Bloody Yoik’, 2006, 28’, and one by Rosella Ragazzi named ‘Firekeepers’ 2007, 57’.
As the ‘Native American went revolutionary to the northern lights theatre, an amazing maze like theatre on the verge of a forest behind the Siida Museum, we were awed by an incredible screening under the starry night at the outside snow theatre where we have a pick view of the Canadian Torontonian ‘133 Skyway’ directed by Randy Redroad, and we tasted the Quebecois flavor with the ‘Coureurs de nuit’ directed by Shannok Newashish, both short films deal with native American issues as indigence, racism and dreams in a very poetical way; and in representation of U.S. We had the Choctaw director Ian Skorodin with his animated short film ‘Crazy In’dy’ which comes to be a parody involving mythic “Geronimo’s” skull and President Bush.
Finally we had the most important documentary on Saturday 26th of January, it was the life time story about Marie and Carrie Dann, the elder sisters from the Western Shoshone tribe; they had become activist defending their right over their ancestral land in the valleys of the state of Nevada. This last film was powerful, envigorating, clear and straightforward depicting how the imperialist inland politics of the U.S.A work. The Bureau of Indians Affairs axing the sisters Dann, intending to expropriate their ancestral land; the state is acting against the well being of the aboriginal people in this case the Western Shoshone sisters.
It is important to highlight the aim of the festival which is to create and consolidate a positive image about aboriginal people, images made and produce by aboriginal people. The same sounded idea that the Native American association had; it calls my attention that the videos of Native American youth were highly meditative, and they borderline with the parody and the ‘noveaute’ of having a camera in their hands. Nevertheless, those are the first steps for them and I think at the right time they will become aware and be critical, maybe then they’ll find their true identity.
I. MIGHTY YOIK
On the other hand the videos presented at the ‘Yoik is like the Wind’ venue depicted a most profound way of living and facing cultural alienation, their production is professional and aimed to inform as they discovered issues about their main subject using tools as cultural anthropology and ethnographic approaches. The two documentaries about Yoik singers ‘A hell of a Yoik’ directed by Jorun Collin, presented Lars Ánte Kuhmunen who composed his first yoik at age 5 ; his life goes between two worlds, Reindeer Herder where Lars is just another Sami trying to gain a living, and Yoik Singer, a sensitive artist that become impressive on the stage. The main point of this film is to show how identity is a complex conjunction of situations. The artist/herder has one identity built on several levels, those levels are explain as we follow his life, as a herder he keeps his traditions, attachment to the land, to his mother reindeer marking, and though bring to a common point his passion for music and traditional yoik.
In contrast the documentary ‘the Firekeepers’ present cosmopolitan and modern yoik singers Lwara Somby and Sara Marielle Gaup, both of them are from Norway, Lwara has lived most of his life in Oslo, feeling himself more of a city boy, he understood that his identity and artwork are valuable for his generation.
II. MUN JA MUN BY ADJAGAS
I was curious about the visual imagology that the group creates around them, so I Google their video Mun Ja Mun; the video shows Lwara singing in front of the camera, he is standing against a dark background, a close up to his face shows us his trouble feelings with a subtle look, as we reframe the view we can see that Sara is singing in the back. Gradually an instrument sound as part of the melody but not superposing the voice of the singers, we see different shots of Sámi people and in white characters we read:
Sémiej dajve les vijries diese goviesovva Noorje, Sveerge. Sâeviemie jih Russlaantie
Sampi is the Sámi area of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia
Daate vuelie, Mun ja Mun, les áargel saamien djvaste
This Yoik, Mun ja Mun, is from the southern area of Sapmi
Åarjel saemich’leah dovletjstie saemiestamma
This southern Sámi people have had their language for thousands of years
Esh gujht man galles man daelle saemiestieh
Only a few people still speak the language.
As the music continuous the image of a woman dressed up with a dark coat and underneath it she wears Sami traditional clothing, she zips up the dark western looking coat hiding her traditional outfit, then the music stops.
The video shows Adjagas concerns about their identity which has been wrapped by the majority language. In the case of the group the South Sámi language is threaten by Norwegian, and its enforcement on the educational system. However through the documentary we listen to two ways of living these of Lwara and the one of Sara, two views that touches different strings. Lwara shows his grieve for losing his capacity to speak the southern Sámi language, this feelings is feed with the histories that his ants tell about him being a child able to speak it.
In the other hand, Sara has been shown with her mother’s friend, she is telling her about the history of the yoik, its power, magical influence on her, how she felt like lifted above earth when herself had heard her mother yoiking in an open space nearby the forest. She recalls how powerful it was that she still remembering.
Sara at her own has to cope with the feeling to be an Outsider from their own generational ‘tribe’; she recalls how she was left aside and being called names by her classmates. Her life goes from cleaning and being patronized, to be a Yoik singer having the power to influence people when singing on the stage. These two aspects of her life seem not to meet a common end.
Sara has learn the traditional way of Yoik, she has been singing since she was a little girl, contrasting with Lwara, who self-taught to yoik, after his father took him to a Yoik festival, Lwara’s father was the host of the festival and recall the importance of Yoik, and wonder how possible such a powerful cultural manifestation was left a side by younger generations. So Lawra recalls thinking… ‘I’ll learn it… and I will show him’, so in this way he rescued the south yoik.
III. CONCLUSION
“ADJAGAS describes a state of mind between awake and sleep where inspiration for new yoiks may appear”, then we have to get up and start working clarifies Lawra.
The Fire keepers have their beginning on the folk tales of Sámi people as:
The underground people taught us how to yoik […]
Governments and the church have tried to make the yoiks vanish […]
The yoiks have so much power that has been impossible to make them vanish […]
Lawra Somby clarifies at the beginning of the documentary, images of group work are shown in a kota within a cozy environment which reminds us a community gathering to create storytelling, this very simple way of make their stories and to educate the youth is reflected in the theory and the hesitation that Haral Gaski develop on Yoik.
“Yet even though yoik is so collective in its essence, it nevertheless demonstrates a distinct concept of ownership. It is not the one who composes a yoik who owns it, but rather that which is yoiked. The producer, in this sense, loses the right to his or her product, while the subject assumes dominion over this same creation.”Gaski (http://www.hum.uit.no/nordlit/5/gaski.html)
This concept about the yoik goes hand by hand with the ethnographic concept of artistically production where the piece of art is not own by the artist but is share as a integral part of the community where it has been imbedded.
In the case of Adjagas, they translate into the yoik a personal feeling a personal experience common to their generation, as Norwegians and Saamis, they portrait a communal experience.
In the beginning they retrieve the folk story of the keepers of the fires, and the shamanistic drum, themselves became drums, and fire keepers as the folk tales, and their aim is to heal and to reveal the underground people Their own forefathers.
The analysis that Gagki produce on the work of Nils-Aslak Valkaepää, about the primary function of yoik, ‘it was never the understanding that yoik should be presented as art’ (1984:45) their aesthetic essence is clear but the importance of the Yoik actually reside on its social function. In a society where Yoik was doom as evil or signal of evil, the action itself was defiance to the colonialist force.
However, even if the yoikers presented their yoik as a political view of the Norwegian colonialism on their ancestral land and their customs, their yoik serves them as a way to heal, personally and socially.
In this case, the Yoik is important not just as a merely form of art or folklore, but the integration of new ways of representation that attempt to build a positive image of the traditional way of living, as Yoik itself is in the most conventional way ‘to bring to the life the absent’.
The tradition of the yoik is a representation of awareness not just as an artistic production but as well a political message. It is not pure entertainment but a narrative tool, aspects of storytelling, oral tradition and abstraction that help to build resistance against pressure executed from outsiders; the yoik is a strong tool to channel human frustration or joy in a creative way, transmitting first hand experiences to the community. The Yoik Challenges colonialism, and has been alive, aiming to preserve a cultural identity that has been cracked.
The documentary ‘Firekeepers’ touches sensitive points of identity, colonialism, ethnography, and rescue of identity.
The group takes a path toward identify what happened in their history, confronting the power of the state, and building a positive and sometimes sad face of the new generation, a generation that is both Norwegian and Sámi, that has to deal with encountered feelings regarding the National state, and their playing part in a minority group that has being neglected.
