What's that look upon your face
It seems you've got a lot to say
But no words come
The flow seems to be gone
Let's sing the way through it
How about a new way to pray
Too much pressure on your back
Fever's high when you payback
But freedom is here and come
And hope seems to hold on
Let's love the way through it
How about a new way to pray
I see worries burning inside your chest
It's hard to let them go
You belong to somewhere
For some reason
'cause hope seems to hang on
Let's dance the way through it
How about a new way to pray
Melanie De Biasio, The Flow
A "joik" is a personal song
within the Sami culture, that you are assigned by people you know well and that
evolves with your own history.
It is an a capella music genre that is
characterized by existing or self-invented words to evoke a subject, aimed at
expressing a certain state of mind or the essence of a subject.
It has no beginning and no end like the
wind.
Sofia Jannok is a Swedish Sami who enjoys blending influences from jazz,
pop and joik and describes her own music as "dancing somewhere between the
mystic of the northern light and the warmth of the comforting fire”
She is
inspired by the vastness of the land, the people and the meetings between these
elements.
You can also consider a joik as a
portrait or a photo album, a collection of facts and testimonies that refer to
who you are, publicly performed with your strong and weak sides displayed.
As soon as you are greeted somewhere
with your own joik, you know that you are with people who know you well.
It is a recognition of your existence:
you are accepted, you are at home.
A joik is a source of comfort and memory
after the death of a loved one.
Singing helps to experience the
emotional connection with the deceased.
In traditional Samireligion it was
believed that both living beings and lifeless objects had a soul.
A priest or shaman acted as a mediator
between the material and the spiritual world he consulted by bringing himself
into a trance by the rhythm of magical drumming and joik music.
Was it an ode, a reproach, a loss or a
longing that the Sami woman vocalized with
her eyes closed?
Or was she expressing homesickness to
the ancient Sami culture, the injuries of the past and the hope of recovery of
a new identity?
The original inhabitants of Northern
Scandinavia are the Sami, better known to us as Lapps, a term that seems rather
derogatory to them.
They live in "Sapmi", an area
that stretches across northern Sweden, Finland, Norway and the Russian Kola
peninsula.
Their population consists of about
70,000 to 100,000 people, about half of whom live in Norway.
The genetic origin of the Sami is still
largely unknown and appears to be unique which correlates with a very long
period of geographical isolation.
Imposing rock paintings on the Altafjord
date from 4200 BC and refer to religious themes and ritual ceremonies connected
with their hunting culture.
During the Middle Ages, the Sami traded
intensively with the Vikings and later with European merchants.
They mainly sold animal skins in
exchange for salt, coins and metal and developed their own monetary system.
But many armed kingdoms and nations
demanded taxes in terms of leather, feathers and bones from whales, which meant
that the Sami had to pay two or more governments and often even additional
fines for paying taxes to another people.
This led to an overcrowded hunting,
which caused the number of reindeer to decline and around 1500 the Sami began
to settle down on the coast, the fjords or the lakes where they founded
communities (siida) engaged in reindeer farming combined with hunting and
fishing. .
About 10% stayed in the nomadic life and
lived in tents (lavvu) that were easy to break up and transport.
Was the conversion to the Christianity
of the Sami an alibi for destroying their animistic faith, their holy sites,
their language and even their joiks?
Or was it just an excuse to levy heavy
taxes on their livestock and fishing activities and to pick up and colonize
their land as we see it today in the West Bank?
During the Second World War, the
"East" and "Western Sami" were placed opposite each other
because their "mother countries" had ended up in different camps.
Although the Sami culture was
assimilated very strongly in the Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish societies
during the last century, in recent years there has been an improved recognition
and protection of their language, their faith and age-old customs. They
celebrate their own independence day and have a flag and a parliament.
Together with Finnish, Estonian and
Hungarian, the Samitaal belongs to the Ugrian languages and is only spoken by
less than 20,000 people.
They have a different word for reindeer
that differ in color, size, antler, coat, character, strength and life phase.
There are hundreds of words for snow
depending on depth, density, hardness and age. For example, there is a word for
powder snow, snow that fell yesterday, for snow that is soft at the bottom and
has a hard crust.
The Samitaal is also rich in words that
describe family relationships.
On
the other hand, most Sami learn English and Norwegian at school next to their
mother tongue and Icelandic, Finnish or Danish as the fourth language
(Norwegians and Swedes understand each other quite well).
This is of great use to them in tourism
with which they can increase their financial status and at the same time
cherish and protect their cultural and natural heritage.
I'm gonna leave you
Yes I'm gonna leave you cause I wanna
And I'll go where people love me
And I'll stay there cause they love me
Melanie De Biasio, I’m Gonna Leave You
Although
the tribulation and culture repression of the Sami in the course of the last
decades has given way to a revival of their language and habits, they are still
often molested in a pub by a certain group of Norwegians, especially when thery
are dressed in national costumes.
The Sami suffered greatly from the
consequences of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster with contamination of their fish
and drinking water but they never received any compensation.
In 1993 the Swedish government abolished
the exclusive right of the Sami on reindeer hunting and a year later their
exclusive fishing rights on the lakes in their autonomous area were also
withdrawn.
The Norwegian government tries to push
them back to an ever smaller area and does so by limiting the number of
reindeer, because there are too many animals in function of the land but if
they then reduce their reindeer, the land is also reduced to be used for energy
production (for example windmills or dams) or mining.
So in the last year there were 4
processes of Sami against the Norwegian government, all without success, the
last one because they wanted a young farmer to limit his herd to 75 animals
which is absolutely unlivable.
He has now stepped to Strasbourg to
plead his room before the Court of Human Rights.
Most of the Sami still dream of an
independent Lapland over the Scandinavian and Russian borders but there is no
such a thing as a militant movement.
"Reindeer carry antlers that waste
once a year and then grow again," said a Lap who has 7000 beasts: "In
non-castrated males it happens once a year after mating because testosterone
production then decreases and in castrated males this happens in the spring.
The females also have antlers.
There is always a leader, usually the
largest and/or oldest reindeer, but when he loses his antlers, he (temporarily)
also loses his dominant position."
"Ever the Norwegians will lose
their antlers", he added delicately.
I feel you
A deep echo in me
A strong appeal for that mystery
I know you know
The wind is blowing much too hard
And for love there's no reward
A strong appeal for discovery
I know you know
Melanie De Biasio, I Feel You
Tromso is a bustling metropolis with
75,000 inhabitants almost 600 km above the Arctic Circle
It originated almost 11,000 years ago as
a small settlement and turned out to be the mecca for expeditions in
the Arctic North in the 19th century.
During the Second World War, Tromso was
the capital of "free" Norway for a few weeks.
It has a university with 10,500 students
and a internationally reputated healthcare system.
The city center is located in Tromsoya,
an island connected by bridges and tunnels with the mainland and other islands
that surround it.
Once outside the city's protective
prosperity and maritime climate, the domestic temperature drops rapidly by
around 10 degrees to exceptionally -40 ° to -50 ° in winter with meter-high
snow walls.
The Sami protect themselves with special
shoes, gloves and a hood made of animal skins such as the arctic fox and the
seal.
The snowman tells us that the sun leaves
both the city and its surroundings on 21 November and will return on January
18th
Tears are rivers across this valley of gold
My roots wither and mourn for you
From light years away
The wailing tree moans
It's time to let it go
As an illwind sweeping on my day
Oh my lord
Help my please
Is that fair and far enough for you
I suffer along the way
Many good ways for me to grow
Yes an illwind sweeping on my day
Oh my lord
Help my please
Is that fair and far enough for you
I suffer along the way
Many good ways for me to grow
Yes an illwind sweeping on my day
No deal with love
No deal with the rest
Melanie
De Biasio, No Deal
The Ishav Cathedral was designed by Jan
Inge Hovig and built in 1965.
Its shape symbolizes the icebergs, the
pole nights and the northern lights.
The building was made of concrete and
aluminum.
The organ of the church dates from 2005
in a modern style with a French-romantic touch.
It refers to the form of ice floes and
sails in association with the Arctic Ocean and perhaps also to the icy wind
that you bump along on the slippery Tromsobrug when you want to pull the
cathedral from the city center near to you.
The house was bare of Christmas
lights
It came down hard that year
Outside in our overcoats
Drinking down to the bitter end
Trying to make things right
Like my mother did
Last year we were laughing
We sang in church so beautifully
Diana Krall, Departure Bay
A man stumbles and slides in a hurry over the Lappish snow.
It is four o'clock in the afternoon and it
would have been pitch dark in Tromso without the light symphony performed night
and night by the hotels and the shops and their streets in Christmas time.
He is just in time in this Silent Night to worship in Norwegian the newborn Emmanuel in the Domkirch.
A few hours later, still digesting a lonely
Christmas dinner, he walks into the city, along a cemetery, on his way to the
"Lake of the Priest".
Together with a Mexican, a Montenegrin and a
German and a Chinese couple, he is greeted by an elongated green star who tells
in the north that Jesus was born.
Peace on earth to all people of goodwill and it
is the unknown internationals who wish him a Merry Christmas.
On the way back he thinks about the previous
Christmas and the one before and those many years before and before.
He meets the child he was himself, the children
he raised, the children that will hopefully come later.
Aurora can not reveal the look of the next
Christmas.
The polar light or Aurora Borealis is associated with
eruptions (protuberances) on the sun where large quantities of charged
particles are thrown into the universe.
The earth's magnetic field ensures that the particle flow is
deflected in the earth's environment and in an acceleration penetrates the
atmosphere near the north and south poles.
When such an energy flow is ejected to earth, it hits the
various atoms in the upper air layers, about 3 days later resulting in the
evocation of magical polar light.
The zone in which this happens is like a 2000 km wide ring
around the magnetic north and south pole that includes countries such as
Northern Scandinavia, Iceland, the south of Greenland, Canada, Alaska and
Siberia.
Where the star stayed still
Was it the snow or the
suddenly rising northern lights above his hotel a few minutes before midnight,
which led him to a place where he had never celebrated Christmas: never so
alone and yet a feeling of coming home.
I just get home and then I leave again
It’s long ago and far away.
Diana
Krall, Departure Bay
Light as a crystal that flows to sea
You slip like sand away from me
You slip like sand away from me
Pray the gods will grant me air
Tell them I may follow there
Whisper your name and I will hear
Tender the dawn I will be where
Love
waits for me
Patricia Barber, Romanesque
Weddings at the Sami are exuberant both in terms of time (days) and in terms of number of guests (500 is on the low side).
When a boy wants to marry a girl, he
will drive to her house by reindeer together with a witness, ringing at the
girl’s parents door to introduce him.
When the girl comes out and puts the reindeer
in the stable, it is a signal that the boy is welcome.
He was
focussing on her at the snowshoe trip, but she had hardly noticed him.
A few
hours later she moved behind him at the grocery store but she didn’t pay
attention on him.
On
Christmas she took a table at the steakhouse on the other side because she did
not see him.
He drove
to her with his reindeer and asked her to join him.
She got
up, brought his reindeer to the stable and sat at his table.
She was
of Lebanese-American origin; she was a Muslim with Jewish roots and she worked
for Unilever in Saudi Arabia but he forgot to ask her name.
Her story
was as "sami" as his.
For a
moment they were "samen" (dutch word for
“together”)
They just got home and then they left again
So far as Aurora can be
So long as you have to wait for her
Thanks to :
-Nordic info and Dominicus Noorwegen
