The music of the Sámi people of Lapland. The inhabitants of Lapland prefer to be known as Sames or Sámi (from Samish sab’me: ‘man’) rather than Lapps, since the latter means people who have gone or been driven to the end (lappu or lappi) of the world and might thus be thought to refer to people who are considered rough or barbaric outcasts.
The original homeland of the Sámi and the date of their migration to Finno-Scandinavia are in doubt. Modern investigations suggest that they gradually shifted the nucleus of their territory from the White Sea coast to northern Norway, under pressure from stronger peoples. The first Sámi groups probably migrated to Finno-Scandinavia in the middle of the 1st century bce. Today the Sámi number about 20,000 in Norway, about 8000 in Sweden, about 3000 in Finland and less than 2000 in Russia. Their language is classed as Finno-Ugric.
The Sámi have for many centuries been subject to colonization and development of their territory by foreign merchants, royal officials and settlers and to conversion to Christianity by missionaries. They have always suffered from being an alien minority with a different appearance, language and culture from the rest of the population. They have lived mainly by hunting, fishing, agriculture, reindeer breeding and (until the 16th century) fur trading.
The Christian influence became stronger in the 16th century. Sámi beliefs about nature and natural phenomena were subject to particular attack. In most Sámi rituals a noaidi (shaman) participated in collective singing and drumming: these rituals, and eventually all singing, were prohibited and most shamanic drums were destroyed. Missionaries and travellers between the 17th and 19th centuries provided the first reports of juoi’gat (‘singing in the Sámi way’), but gave conflicting views about it: some thought it was hideous screaming, while others described it more sympathetically. The adverse reaction was probably due to disapproval of ritual song and of its possible effect on other song.
At that time the Sámi way of life still depended on the influence and power of the shaman. Singing by both the shaman and the other participants played a central role in shaman meetings. Loud repetitive singing employing voice disguise, with accompanying gestures, must have been an essential feature. Songs played an important role in other social occasions, and the performance style of these songs and shamanic songs probably influenced one another, so that it is not easy to make a strict division between the two. For this reason, and also because according to Sámi traditions they learned to sing from the uldas (creatures who live in cliffs, woods and lakes), the missionaries’ ban on all song was understandable. The influence of ritual song introduced heathen and forbidden elements into other song, besides an unusual performance style. Some early authors condemned all such singing out of hand; others took exception to some aspect of it; and a third group was unprejudiced and enjoyed it.
This ban and the harsh penalties for any infringement was completely successful in abolishing ‘heathen’ (shamanic) song, but it is difficult to measure its effect on other singing. Juoi’gat almost disappeared from the public scene, but it still exists, even if in schools and at public events it may not be done in ‘the Sámi way’.
The musical instrument most often mentioned in the source writings is the shamanic drum, commonly of frame or shell type (fig.1). The reindeer hide stretched over the frame or shell was richly painted with symbols and a hammer-shaped piece of reindeer horn served as a drumstick. The drum was used extra-musically to produce a trance and for fortune telling (see fig.2). A few examples are preserved in museums. Apart from other formerly common sound instruments such as rattles and bullroarers, there was one chief melody instrument, the fadno (idioglot oboe), made from a fresh stem of Angelica archangelica, with three to five finger-holes. This, like other melody instruments (such as the Finnish kantele, and the bark trumpet and flutes from Sweden), was probably adopted from neighbouring peoples. Ex.1 shows a typical fadno melody, collected before 1942. Although this instrument is no longer played the others are still occasionally used.
Juoi’gat (mainly solo singing without instrumental accompaniment) has since the 1970s been the sole form of traditional musical expression. Newer musical styles based on traditional juoi’gat and retaining some of its features are also found. There is considerable regional variation in meaning of the words juoigos or juoigam, luotte and vuolle. In northern Norway the terms juoigos and luotte mean ‘text with melody on persons, animals and things in an appropriate situation’ (the word luotte is generally found only in this area); in the provinces of northern Sweden both vuolle and juoigos mean simply ‘melody with or without text’. It is risky to draw conclusions from these differences of meaning, although some, such as Ruong, interpret this to mean that the main emphasis is on verbal content in the north and on melodo-rhythmic delivery in the south. But, if the different interpretations are considered together, juoi’gat may be taken to mean ‘to sing in the Sámi way, with a definite melody, with or without text and on an appropriate occasion’.
The ‘Sámi way’ of singing relates to the vocal technique of the songs and to their structure, which is distinguished by its formal construction, melodic contours and rhythm, and by the way the texts are arranged. The peculiar Samish vocal timbre is marked by frequent use of glottal stops (the strained sound which is caused by rapidly and strongly flexing, and firmly closing, the vocal cords) and, above all, by ornamenting the melody with appoggiaturas, terminal notes and double glides (ex.2). In these double glides the initial upward glide is caused by an increase in breath pressure: a sudden relaxation follows and the pitch falls again.
A juoigos is composed from a definite sequence of two, four, six or more phrases equal in length, but melodically distinct: the melody is repeated at least once, usually three to six times, frequently with added variants. During performance an orderly system of repetition is established to build what Tirén has described as a ‘chain song’. Most melodies are based on anhemitonic pentatonic modes and show a preference for disjunct movement. A small category of pentatonic melodies contains clearly emphasized and definitely sounded semitones. There is a variety of rhythmic organization. The basic beat may be divided into two or three with a variety of accentuation and the beats themselves grouped to give simple and compound forms of duple and triple metres or additive metres (see exx.3, 4 and 5).
The juoigos repertory can be grouped into four categories according to content. Songs of the first group relate to landscapes and such specific features as lakes, mountains (ex.3), rivers, forests and reindeer pastures, as well as to transient natural phenomena and impressions (the midnight sun, rainbows, the appearance of the sea). Such songs are common mainly in Sweden (in the region around Pitea and Luleå) and are comparatively rare in other regions. The second group comprises juoigos for all the animals of Lapland: animals of the water, land and air (ex.4). The third and largest group of juoigos concerns people (ex.5). The likely subjects are the singer’s close relatives and friends, acquaintances and such local characters as priests, officials and merchants. A further and more recent category consists of songs about modern objects and technical achievements. What Ruong has called ‘complex joiks’ combine themes from different groups and are mainly epic in character. They are typical of Swedish Lapland and the Skolt Sámi in north-eastern Finland. The repertory must once have been much more extensive; but after the shaman meetings and rituals disappeared, the music focussed mainly on the three groups described above, although Tirén found ‘magic songs’ – songs about supernatural creatures, sacrificial songs and incantations – surviving in the 20th century.
Syllables and particles form the basis and often the entire text of a juoigos melody. In earlier times they were thought to be magical interjections and were believed by the shaman to derive from the language of the spirits. There are many ways in which the texts could be made up from the now ‘meaningless’ syllables and particles. In many songs only the name of the person or animal concerned is given (exx.4 and 5). But other words or whole phrases may be woven in or a coherent syntactical text may be used.
There are two main ‘appropriate occasions’ for singing: work (dealing with reindeer, hunting and fishing – situations which ensure immediate contact with nature) and social activity (particularly any kind of gathering associated with the sii’da system). On these occasions the Sám not only sing old and well-known melodies, but also invent and develop new ones. The community plays an important part in disseminating songs. Where the older forms of work, such as reindeer breeding, hunting and fishing, have been replaced by other sources of income and the sii’da system has disintegrated, the juoi’gat is rare or has disappeared entirely.
Turi believed that to sing ‘a definite melody with or without text’ was to give meaning to a melody and to remember it (Demant). The community provides the ‘appropriate occasion’, which consolidates the feeling of fellowship. For the Sámi juoi’gat also means to sing spontaneously, in order to keep their environment in mind and to know that their community is secure. Missionary bans may have outwardly eliminated shaman meetings, drums, shamans and their functions; but they have not prevented spontaneous song, nor have they erased memories or broken up communities.
Juoi'gat is predominantly a solo vocal genre without instrumental accompaniment, and is the only traditional form of musical expression among the Sámi. However, since the end of the 1960s new musical trends have built on traditional juoi'gat singing. Nils-Aslak Valkeapää of Finland influenced musical practice when he began performing juigos songs with guitar accompaniment. The subsequent extension of the range of accompanying instruments, and the reintroduction of the Sámi shamanic drum in the 1980s, made Sámi song a mixture of the traditional and the modern, while also popularizing it and bringing it into the broad spectrum of popular, film, dance and meditative musics. Today juoi'gat is an important integrating force in world music, due in part to the efforts of singer and drummer Mari Boine Persen of Norway.
O. Donner: Lieder der Lappen (Helsinki, 1876)
A. Launis: Lappische Juoigos-Melodien (Helsinki, 1908)
A. Launis: ‘Die Pentatonik in den Melodien der Lappen’, IMusSCR III: Vienna 1909, 244–8
E. Demant, ed.: J. Turi: Das Buch des Lappen Johan Turi (Frankfurt, 1912)
T. Lehtisalo: ‘Beobachtungen über die Jodler’, Journal de la Société finno-ougrienne, xlviii/2 (1937), 1–35
E. Manker: Die lappische Zaubertrommel (Stockholm, 1938–50)
K. Tirén: Die lappische Volksmusik, ed. E. Manker (Stockholm, 1942)
B. Collinder: The Lapps (Princeton, NJ, 1949/R)
Å. Campbell: ‘Herdsman’s Song and Yoik in Northern Sweden’, JIFMC, iii (1951), 64–7
R. Graff: ‘Music of Norwegian Lapland’, JIFMC, vi (1954), 29–31
E. Haeger: ‘Om de första jojkningsuppteckningarna i Sverige’, STMf, xxxvii (1955), 146–55 [with Eng. summary]
W. Danckert: ‘Tonmalerei und Tonsymbolik in der Musik der Lappen’, Mf, ix (1956), 286–96
E. Wustmann: Klingende Wildnis (Eisenach, 1956)
H. Grundström and A.O. Väisänen: Lappische Lieder, Texte und Melodien aus Schwedisch-Lappland (Uppsala, 1958)
E. Lagercrantz, ed.: Lappische Volksdichtung, iv: Seelappische Gesangsmotive des Varangergebiets (Helsinki, 1960)
C.G. Widstrand: ‘Skolt Lapp Songs of North East Finland’, JIFMC, xiii (1961), 73–4
H. Grundström and S. Smedeby: Lappische Lieder, Texte und Melodien aus Schwedisch-Lappland (Uppsala, 1963)
E. Emsheimer: Studia ethnomusicologica eurasiatica, 2 vols. (Stockholm, 1964, 1991)
R. Günther: ‘Zur Musik der Lappen’, Kölner ethnologische Mitteilungen, iv (1965), 71–88
E. Lagercrantz, ed.: Lappische Volksdichtung, vii: Sonagraphische Untersuchung lyrischer lappischer Volkslieder aus Karasjok und Enontekiö mit Noten und Erklärungen (Helsinki, 1966)
I. Ruong: The Lapps in Sweden (Stockholm, 1967)
M. Arnberg, I. Ruong and H. Unsgaard: Jojk: Yoik (Stockholm, 1969) [Swed. and Eng., incl. 7 discs]
S. Aikio, I. Kecskeméti and Z. Kiss, eds.: Lappische Joiku-Lieder aus Karasjok gesungen von Anders Ivar Guttorm (Helsinki, 1972)
G. Szomjas-Schiffert: ‘Traditional Singing Style of the Lapps’, YIFMC, v (1973), 51–61
A. Lüderwaldt: Joiken aus Norwegen: Studien zur Charakteristik und gesellschaftlichen Bedeutung des lappischen Gesanges (Bremen, 1976)
K.-O. Edström: Den samiska musikkulturen: en källkritisk översikt (Götebord, 1978)
T.G. Svensson: ‘Culture communication and Sami Ethnic Awareness’, Ethnos, xliii (1978), 213–35
D. Stockmann: ‘Symbolism in Sami Music’, Tradition and its Future in Music: Osaka 1990, 263–73
D. Stockmann, ed.: Volks- und Popularmusik in Europa (Laaber, 1992)
D. Stockmann: Musik der Samen (Stockholm, 1994)
J. Penrikäinen: Die Mythologie der Saamen (Berlin, 1997)
ANDREAS LÜDERWALDT