“Många i Stockholm tror …” börjar Hanne Kjöller, och precis så slår hon fast att den tidning hon skriver för dels aldrig varit ämnad för hela landet, och dels att den publik hon riktar sig till är den som alltid sett och fått se sig själva som normen, och som nu i en tid då fördomar, hets mot folkgrupp och vardagsrasism välkomnats in med öppna armar på tidningarnas ledarsidor, återigen känner sig trygga nog att uttrycka sin avsky mot alla de som inte passar in i deras bild av “Sverige”.

“Den här texten är för er“, säger mellanrummet mellan hennes rader, “er som vill få er vardagsrasism accepterad.”

Hanne Kjöller skriver vidare att man måste födas eller gifta sig in i en sameby, för att på så sätt få renskötselrätt. Hon har utan att öppet medge det utvidgat kriterierna sedan sin förra ledare, men har fortfarande fel i sak, då renskötselrätten tillhör det samiska folket, men, på grund av statens lagar så måste denna rätt utövas inom ramen för samebyarna.

Men du behöver inte födas i en sameby för att få renskötselrätt.

En av våra mest kända samiska artister är både adopterad och renskötare. Kanske är Hanne ändå så pass upplyst att hon förstår att adopterade barn i samiska familjer också är samer och därför räknar dem som födda in i sina samebyar, men argumentet håller ändå inte, då alla samer har rätt att söka medlemskap i en sameby. Det betyder inte att det är enkelt, på något sätt, och interna konflikter kan leda till djupa sår, men möjligheten, rent objektivt, finns där.

En av de finaste nyheterna från de senaste åren handlar om Daniel Barruk, som en oktoberkväll i pandemin fick ett samtal från renskötaren LeIf Lundberg, en för honom i princip okänd man, med en enkel uppmaning:

“Jag har hört om din önskan och sett hur du strävat. Sök till vår sameby, så ska du få mitt renmärke och alla mina renar.”¹

Och just så blev det. Det samiska samhället är öppnare än vad Hanne vill hävda.

Samtidigt så far Hanne med direkta osanningar. Hon skriver att det finns 3700 renskötare i landet, de flesta av dem i Stockholm och barn, men det är inte sant. Runt 4600 människor har renmärken, och äger renar, och rennäringen i Sverige genererar i sin tur 5200 årsanställda per år, med en sammanlagd bruttolön på runt 1 miljard kronor.²

Det Hanne Kjöller egentligen borde skriva är att av dessa renskötare så är runt 3700 direkt involverade i renskötseln, medan rennäringen totalt, med familjer inräknade samlar ca 7200 personer. Räknar man in den totala tillväxtindustrin som genereras av renskötseln så pratar vi om 31,000 anställda.

Faktum är att rennäringen är Norrbottens tredje största arbetsgivare, och att det bara är NLL och inlandskommunerna som har fler anställda i dag.

Gruvorna i Norrbotten har 5100 personer anställda. Det är 100 färre än de som har ett renmärke, ändå talar ingen om att avskaffa dem för att deras markanvändning allvarligt påverkar tillgången på marker för jakt, fiske och övrig turism.

Jag är 36 år gammal, och därmed äldre än den frisläppta småviltsjakten i den svenska fjällvärlden. När folk pratar om Girjas-domens konsekvenser från ett svenskt perspektiv glöms detta bort.

Att som turist jaga i fjällen är inte en naturlag.

Samtidigt som Hanne Kjöller ondgör sig över samiskt arrangerad jaktturism glömmer hon att det inte går att jaga fritt i resten av landet, och att kostnaden för jaktsafarier i resten av världen vida överstiger de priser hon, utan källhänvisning, nämner i sin text.

För nio år sedan såldes 167 ha jaktmark i Tomelilla. Priset? Totalt 34 miljoner.

Hanne Kjöller har ett begränsat antal ord, men lyckas ändå fylla sina rader med alldeles för många halvsanningar och anekdoter som delats för att underblåsa ett antisamiskt narrativ i samhället.

När hon nämner de anläggningar som STF stänger i fjällen, så glömmer hon att dela att detta beslut fattats av ett enigt STF.³ Dessutom så finns de flesta anläggningarna, tro det eller ej, ändå kvar. Att ifrågasätta detta beslut vore lite som att kritisera Max om de valde att stänga restaurangen på Kungsgatan 44 i Stockholm, när restaurangen på Sergels Torg 600 meter bort finns kvar.

Det blir helt enkelt tendentiöst.

Men kanske är det den underliggande frågan om vad ett urfolk får eller inte får göra som skaver mest. Hanne Kjöller fortsätter samma argumentation som förts med framgång av populister som Bolsonaro i närtid och Herman Lundborg historiskt: ett urfolk är primitivt, och så fort de får smaka på modernitetens bekvämligheter så går de under.

Att det, i sig, är fel borde varje människa förstå.

En svensk som använder en Samsung blir inte mindre svensk, för att hen inte höll kvar vid sin GH172 Ericsson-mobil från 1989.

På samma sätt gör en skoter inte en samisk renskötare till mindre medlem av ett urfolk än den samiska renskötare som istället på skidor hållit hjordens kant.

Hanne Kjöllers text är en ledare. Den uttrycker hennes åsikter och fördomar, men utgör inte ett vetenskapligt underlag för att på allvar kunna diskutera samiska rättigheter.

Istället för att belysa komplexitet så bidrar den till vardagsrasism som i sin tur slår mot hela det samiska folket, oavsett var man befinner sig på skalan från icke-renskötare till renskötare.

Hanne Kjöller slår nedåt, och bidrar till näthat, men kommer med stor sannolikhet pausa sina sociala medier i närtid för att slippa höra den rättmätiga kritik som hennes skrivande genererar.

Hon vill vara fri att slå utan ansvar, för det är nog ändå så i slutänden så som den umesamiska pionjären Karin Stenberg skrev på 1920-talet:

“Svensken säger, att han är frihetsälskande — och det är sant. Han älskar sin egen frihet. Men han vill däremot gärna vara förmyndare för andra. Han säger, att han älskar kultur och upplysning. Det är sant. Han älskar den så länge den är hans.”

—

1. https://www.svt.se/nyheter/sapmi/daniels-barndomsdrom-att-bli-renskotare ↩︎
2. jmf. https://www.svtstatic.se/image-cms/svtse/1411478331/nyheter/lokalt/norrbotten/article2343850.svt/BINARY/Renn%C3%A4ringen%20officiell%20slutrapport.pdf ↩︎
3. https://www.svenskaturistforeningen.se/om-stf/stfs-hallbarhetsarbete/markupplatelse-jamtland-harjedalen/ ↩︎

vi träffas runt elden
för att hitta ditt språk

i kåtans mörker
vilar dina händer i stilla bön
runt björkens späda knoppar

så reser du dig med ens
händernas knotor rätar ut sig

rytmiskt brer du ut berättelserna
över den kala marken

låter vårregnet
föda den sovande jorden

ett knippe för varje minne
ett knippe för varje bild du målat

lukten av nyutslagna löv
fyller himlen med skira penseldrag

du sjunger bondsonens armar
om dina axlar

barnens skratt
på vinterlandets stigar

barkat skinn
och isade stavtag över snötäckta myrar

soldaternas stelfrusna läppar
och fjällens blå vidder

jag frågar om orkidéerna
och ser elden forma kronblad framför oss

till och med här
där mörkret målar skuggor på våra kinder
fångar du markernas drömmar
med bränd umbra och utvaskad kobolt

jag frågar igen

du svarar med en handfull stjärnstoff från en gränslös himmel

vuoi dát suoladuvvon dievdu londonis
gean raddevuovda ain váillaha
ceavccageađggi oahpes bálgáid

this is a song about
repatriation

an open letter to the hunterian museum in london
a call for action and redemption

a song drawn from the stained soil
of those who walked these lands before us

this is a song to 554
to lost skulls
coveted crania
and muzzled ancestors

this is a song to the unearthed children of vuonnabahta
of unjárga and várjjat
sent as gifts
and memoranda to museums far away

so

i weave fireweed into questions
stolen ribs into boat-shaped vessels
proofed with pine resin
wrapped in birch bark
and silent resistance

on paper
you’ve been reduced
to a series of numbers and letters
one of many unnamed in a closed archive

and i long for a story to be told
beyond the price of your body
broken into parts
and sold for six pounds
due to the perceived purity
of your unmixed skull

when nordvi dragged you
from your grave
in ceavccageađgi

a field of sacred stones
covered in seal fat
and cod liver
and stripped your bones from your gods
he marketed you and ten others as

ancient pagan lapps

assuring flower
the museum curator
that

genuine lapp skulls
are only to be found in heathen tombs

and that

any skeleton he could find would be sent gratis
along with the skull belonging to it

thus explaining your woeful existence
as an afterthought in the museum collections

and i hate that we know more about
the ones who defiled your graves
than we know about you

that their letters talk of your unnamed descendants
resisting your defilement
to no avail

that the skis you used
were treated with more respect
when the merchant opened your graves in the 1850’s
than the ribcages that used to hold your souls

by the time he had to sell his parents’ trading post
nordvi had turned your graves
into a thriving business
each skull earning him a week’s salary or two

he had taught german academics
the importance of stealing your bones in the middle of the night

as

their people consider them sacred
and guard the graves from all intrusion
with superstitious care

he had made a name for himself around the world
taking out ads in boston papers
on the other side of the planet
to proclaim that he was selling

skeletons and skulls of Lapps
from heathenish tombs in Lapland

all collected by himself

in 1878 nordvi sent you
and nine others from ceavccageađgi
to the royal college of surgeons in england

the letters talk of your grave robber
as the world’s foremost dealer
a man selling our people
to washington
copenhagen
strasbourg

to stockholm
berlin

and now london for profit

years later
keith would use your ribs to define our people as

aberrant

dwight in turn would refer to you as a specimenin his studies on

the significance of the third trochanter

talk of your body’s

roughish lines

only to conclude that

in wild and in but slightly civilised races
there are great discrepancies
between different individuals

so this is a song to 554
to the one not on public display
to the one who remains

to counter the silence
and guide you home

This essay was originally written by Johan Sandberg McGuinne and Anne Wuolab and published by Versopolis Review in March 2023. The original can be accessed here: Musings on Saami Poetry Part Two

TO TRANSLATE ONESELF IS AN ACT OF SURVIVAL

I.

You ought to survive, or you will die.[1]

II.

Johka.
Gáicarássi lieđđu.
Ii mihkkege danne leat summal geavvan.[2]

III.

How does a language heal?[3]

IV.

The heteroglossia of contemporary Saami poetry is both a defining characteristic of a literature that defies preconceived, Western notions of what poetry is and should be in order to be valid, and a decolonial response to decades of fierce assimilation politics aimed at stripping the Saami of their languages.

In this essay, we posit that Saami writers, whether they want to or not, are forced constantly to consider what it means to be or not to be writing in an endangered indigenous language, and that this choice, in turn, has been implicitly linked to Western ideas of authenticity from the outset. In addition, Saami poets are constantly being told that their art is intrinsically political, and thus primarily gestural, but, to quote the Maori scholar Linda Tuhiwai Smith, ‘problematizing the indigenous is a Western obsession’.[4]

Since the early 1900s, Saami writers have repeatedly argued against stereotypical depictions of our people and, in a certain sense, of our autonomy which acknowledges our own worldview and languages. This is true both of poets and others. In 1920, the Ume Saami agitator Karin Stenberg stated that we, as Saami, ‘do not want to be seen as guinea pigs,’[5] echoing Elsa Laula, who sixteen years earlier pointed out that the Swedish state had gone so far as to deny the Saami ‘our right to exist.’[6]

Despite a literary void in the wake of the 1920s, due to decades of fierce assimilation politics throughout Sápmi, these arguments found a new audience at the beginning of the 1970s, in particular through the newly founded ČSV movement which argued for Saami self-determination, clearly inspired by the Civil Rights Movement in the USA. ČSV started both as a political and as a literary movement that sought to revitalise not only our languages but our culture as well, ‘functioning as a process of awakening and of the formation of a common [Saami] identity.’[7]

In 1972, one of the movement’s founders, Anders Guttormsen, said of ČSV, that the letters ‘mean nothing on their own […] they do not translate as ‘life’ in Saami, but they can give life to so many things if they’re being interpreted correctly.’[8]

Čájet Sámi Vuoiŋŋa.

Show Saami Spirit.

Is it possible to show Saami spirit through the medium of a colonial language?

Čohkke Sámiid Vuitui.

Gather the Saami and lead them to victory.

Is this theorised victory problematic to a Western mindset because it gives the subaltern agency where the majority previously has afforded it none?

V.

Saami literature is far too often dismissed as peripheral, and Sápmi itself is either envisioned as stagnant, or peculiarly picturesque by the majority. This statement is easily backed up by the fact that ethnographic books about the Saami, written by self-appointed experts on our culture and well-meaning tourists alike, heavily outnumber actual books by Saami writers. Thankfully, contemporary Saami writers and poets have long fought against this, and they often redefine the very borders of our culture, by challenging preconceived notions of ‘Saaminess’ and what a Saami can or cannot write about.

While written Saami poetry in many ways can be said to function as a natural extension of yoiking, contemporary Saami poetry is at the same time characterised by an oftentimes postmodern approach to language and literature. Not only that; where Western poets may have been easily defined as belonging to a certain literary period or style, Saami poets have a tendency to fuse different styles and techniques in order to create something that is both uniquely Saami, and at the same time both global and local in its outlook.

Indeed, Saami poets like Inger-Mari Aikio, Sigbjørn Skåden, Rönn-Lisa Zakrisson and Timimie Märak try their hand today at haikus, free verse and strict metric lines, drawing upon the style of Shakespeare, Milton and Matsuo Bashō alike, in order to write about everything from miners’ protests and language loss to oral sex and stage fright.

Or, to quote Sigbjørn Skåden, ‘Lord, please, if I have to puke / keep my Saami clothes clean at least!’[9]

VI.

To weave oneself back and forth between tongues is both a blessing and a curse.

To write in a language often predicted to disappear, long before your own bones have been laid to rest, does something to you.

VII.

Language is both art and identity.

It functions as a basic mode of communication as much as a powerful tool of subversion. To paraphrase the Saami poet Paulus Utsi; a language can both be ensnared and used to ensnare others.

Contemporary Saami poets approach the issue of language in a number of different ways. This is partly because of the symbolic value speaking a Saami language has earned in Sápmi, both as a way to assert and express a sense of Saaminess, and partly because the choice to write or not to write in a Saami language continues to be seen as a highly political one.

To some poets, like the North Saami artist, artivist and writer Niillas Holmberg, writing in a Saami language is the undisputed norm. To him, writing in North Saami constitutes an act of both self-love and resistance.

At the same time, Holmberg is acutely aware of the importance placed upon colonial majority languages, as tools of assimilation and as ways of reaching a wider audience. In Assimilašuvdna Blues, he questions this unequal relationship between a colonised people and its colonisers, by pointing out the ways in which the educational systems throughout Sápmi historically have functioned as willing and active perpetrators of a cultural and linguistic genocide, going as far as to ask ‘if school is really the solution / if you have the assimilation blues?’[10]

Throughout his writing, Holmberg frequently returns to the issue of language, both as a mode of communication and as a way to assert his own Saami identity from within. On the one hand, he criticises the state policies that have rendered his and other Saami languages critically endangered – ‘what can I say / to you who tend gardens / making a flowerbed of my mouth / ready for the big sleep’.[11] On the other, he does not shy away from uneasy questions of personal responsibility, asking if the writing of a piece called ‘assimilation blues’, by virtue of giving it an English name, would not also be a form of assimilation in itself, betraying his fidelity to his mother tongue.[12]

To overcome these issues, Holmberg, alongside many other Saami writers, has turned to self-translations that border on rewriting and re-imagining Saami thoughts through the medium of the majority language.

Some poets, like Juvvá Pittja, even make us question the difference between a translation and an interpretation.

On the one hand, Juvvá Pittjá tends to offer fairly literal translations of his poems, produced in close relationship with his grandmother, the renowned poet Inghilda Tapio. Thus, when he asks ‘manne du álbmot oažžu duolbmut /mu álbmoga,’[13] the Swedish translation resists the urge to rephrase or explain, and instead comes across as rather plain. In many cases, however, such as in the Swedish translation of the poem ‘Beaivvaš vel rattis’, his verse-translations work just as much as poems in their own right, for instance through the clever use of rhyming schemes and alliteration, thereby transcending the limitations of one language to give voice to a similar, yet slightly different thought in another language.

VIII.

Translation, at its core, both entails and ultimately demands transformation. Not only that, a translation constitutes a series of biased, subjective choices, and as such nothing is ever truly objectively speaking translatable.

To many Saami writers, the loss of language within our own community, continues to be one of the key issues that affect their style of writing. In Iŋgos Máhte Iŋgá’s poem ‘Sáme nissonolbmot’, which functions both as a critique of colonialism, Western patriarchal definitions of womanhood, and lateral violence, this becomes clear when the Saami identity of several of the women described is questioned because they do ‘not have / the right accent’ or, even if they ‘want […] to be a Saami / [… they do] not speak the language.’[14]

Today, the majority of Saami literature written in Saami languages remains untranslated. A precious few writers have managed to find an international audience, and most of them have chosen to write their prose in Swedish, Norwegian or Finnish, rather than in a Saami language. It may then come as a surprise that a large number of contemporary Saami poets actively oppose translation into a majority language. One of them is the poet Helga West, who has said that her poetry collection Gádden muohttaga vielgadin was too personal for her, too concerned with a Saami response to an intercultural divorce, to allow it to be translated into or rewritten in Finnish. To this day, the poems remain largely untranslated, and when translations have been produced, they have been made in close collaboration with the poet herself.

The choice not to translate oneself also speaks to a certain sense amongst contemporary poets that the Saami voice finds itself in a dangerous position where outsiders still try to co-opt and redefine what it means to be a Saami. Thus, by not translating oneself, these writers maintain a sense of power and control over their work, which has often been denied Saami artists, writers and musicians in the past.

Other poets have started a conscious shift from translating themselves into rewriting themselves. Rather than offering up a translation of a poem that was originally written in a Saami language, they write their own versions of the poem in the majority language instead. One could, of course, argue that this strips the reader of the potential to fully engage with a poem’s linguistic ambiguity, but as the majority of readers, whether Saami or not, do not read Saami, we argue that, at a time when more and more people want to engage with Saami stories for numerous different reasons, this decolonial approach to translation is a sound and, in many ways, necessary one.

Having said that, whether contemporary Saami poets continue to write and rewrite their own poems in different languages, or end up working with translators to reach a wider audience, one thing is certain – the future of Saami literature is bright.

---

[1] Elsa Lindholm Blind, from ‘Polar Zoo’. Bágojda Báddnum – Beroende av Ord, 2022, edited by Anne Wuolab and Anna H Degerman. Quote translated by the essay authors.

[2] Sigbjørn Skåden, from ‘Notahta 1’. Beležke kralja čevljarjev, 2016.

[3] Linnéa Axelsson, p. 601, from Ædnan, 2018. Quote translated by the essay authors.

[4] Linda Tuhiwai Smith, p. 91, Decolonizing Methodologies, 1999.

[5] Karin Stenberg, p. 25, from Dat läh mijen situd! Det är vår vilja! En vädjan till den svenska nationen från samefolket, 1920. Quote translated by the essay authors.

[6] Elsa Laula, p. 5, Inför Lif eller Död: Sanningsord i de lappska förhållandena, 1904. Quote translated by the essay authors.

[7] Johan Klemet Hætta Kalstad, p. 48, ‘ČSV – sámi nationalisttaid dahje sámenašuvnna

doaimmalaččaid muitun’. Sámi dieđalaš áigečála 1/2013, 2013.

[8] Anders Guttormsen, from ‘Samer, bruk ČSV!’. Ságat (28. 9. 1972). Quote translated by the essay authors.

[9] Sigbjørn Skåden, from ‘Backstage, Sámi Grand Prix’. Prekariáhta lávlla, 2009. Quote translated by the essay authors.

[10] Niillas Holmberg, from ‘Assimilašuvdna blues’. Assimilašuvdna blues, 2014.

[11] Niillas Holmberg, from ‘Indigenous Manifesto’. The Way Back, 2016.

[12] Niillas Holmberg, cf. ‘meinasin kirjoittaa …’ Jos itseni pelastan itseltäni, 2015.

[13] Juvvá Pittja: duođain in dieđe – vet verkligen inte, p. 113, 2018.

[14] Inga Ravna Eira (Iŋgos Mahté Iŋgá), from ‘sáme nissonolbmot’. INGA RAVNA EIRA – Poems in Sámi, Norwegian and English, translated by Inga Ravna Eira and Kari Wattne.

This essay was originally written by Johan Sandberg McGuinne and Anne Wuolab and published by Versopolis Review in March 2023. The original can be accessed here: Musings on Saami Poetry – Part One

TO ‘BIRGET’ AS A MULTIDIMENSIONAL ART PRACTICE AND WAY OF LIFE

I.

Muitte don geat su leat oahpahan
Muitte don maid son lea vásihan[1]

II.

Dál – šaddá bajándálki
Ja visot álgá duinna
Don it mana čiehkádit
Čájehat sámi vuoiŋŋa[2]

III.

To ‘birget’ is to survive in a changing environment.
To be the change.
To ‘bergget’ is to speak a tongue deemed moribund.
To ‘bearkadidh’ is to pass on teachings that tie us to this land.
To walk in reverence of Our Mother.
To ‘birggit’ is to make new yoiks to dammed rivers.
To remember gods, replaced by wind turbines.
To protect the sacred.
To ‘bierggit’ is to resist.
Or, in the words of Nango and Sara[3], to deal.
To heal.

IV.

Saami literature finds itself in a peculiar spot. On the one hand it embodies a voice that has been passed on orally by storytellers for millennia, influencing major literary periods worldwide. On the other hand it is repeatedly referred to as a literary movement in its infancy by members of the majority societies that have come to colonise and settle the vast expanses we call our home.

This ambivalence has often been addressed by contemporary Saami writers, such as Áillohaš who in a poem from 1983 stated that ‘Sápmi is after all / greater’[4], as well as more recently by writers such as Mary Ailionieida Sombán Mari, who said that ‘if we hadn’t been subject to Norwegian assimilation politics / our libraries would have been / full of writers from bygone eras / indeed our own Ibsen’.[5]

This essay sets out to introduce the reader to the contemporary poetry scene in Sápmi, but in order to do so, we first need to define the borders of that scene by allowing Western understandings of literature to be questioned and ultimately dismissed altogether.

Saami poetry is interdisciplinary at its core.

It encompasses everything from traditional yoiks to performance art, while simultaneously making up the largest portion of our written literature. At the same time, the clear link between our oral storytelling and yoiking tradition and contemporary Saami poetry has come to give rise to an indigenous, indisputably Saami literary style, championed by pathfinders such as Áillohaš, Rose-Marie Huuva and Inghilda Tapio and carried on in the works of young poets and yoikers such as Niillas Holmberg, Marja Mortensson and Juvvá Pittja.

Today, Saami poetry functions both as a tool for liberation, and as an aesthetic expression of a Saami epistemology, which centres pluralistic interpretations of what it means to ‘birget’.

And if poetry is art, and art is resistance, contemporary Saami poetry in all its forms has spent the past decades on formulating a decolonial poetics of sorts, a Saami specific form of Indigenous Futurism which seeks to visualise an alternative way forward, where Saami rights are being not only acknowledged but respected by the majority.

Or, to quote the poet and artivist Juvvá Pittja, ‘it’s time to swallow the shame / my friend / we only long for our rights’.[6]

V.

The blurring of conceptual borders between activism and poetry as an art form to address our future problems, struggles and possibilities has become particularly strong in recent years. This could be seen, for instance, at the 2018 Markomeannu Festival which tried to present a dystopian global future where ‘indigenous people have found a way to create their own sanctuaries’.[7] At the same time, whilst engaging with indigenous futurism, contemporary writers both long for the return a certain spirit that permeated our society at the beginning of the 1970’s and acknowledge that their own engagement with current social and political issues, while similar to, is still different from previous periods in our history.

The writer Elin Anna Labba highlights this marked change in a recent poem from 2021, by stating that ‘I am not like the artists during the Alta Controversy / who tied themselves to yoiks […]’[8] and later ‘my heritage is a hotchpotch of sorts that I long to finish / and nothing is ever finished this I know / it just takes time to accept one’s own parts / that I am but one half of my memory’.[9]

Another example of how contemporary writers engage in acts of poetic artivism is Sámi Manifeasta, a poetic decolonial call to arms written by a Saami artivist collective in 2015. Originally presented as something of an intermarriage between a flash mob, an act of non-violent resistance and a piece of performance art at the 2015 Jokkmokk Winter Market, in front of a visually moved Swedish Minister for Culture. It finishes with the following two lines:

Let our voice be followed by the waves of echoes. Let courage encourage courage![10]

In many ways, the futuristic Sámi Manifeasta was an echo of its own, harking back to the first days of the ČSV Movement.

Čájet Sámi Vuoiŋŋa. Show Saami Spirit.

Čállet Sámi Verddet. Write, Saami Friends.

VI.

Contemporary Saami poetry is multilingual and vociferous.

It plays with the natural plurilingualism of the Saami society, in the face of decades of assimilation politics throughout Sápmi, by seamlessly crossing the borders between languages. Johanna Domokos states that Saami ‘authors and readers make poetic decisions based not only on their knowledge of their mother tongue, but also in relation to the languages that surround them’.[11]

From this it follows that a Saami writer is a Saami who writes.

Indeed, a Saami poet is just that, a poet and a Saami, regardless of their choice of language.

This can be seen, for example, in the heteroglossia of duojár Anna-Stina Svakko’s 1991 debut anthology which demands a premeditated knowledge of not only North Saami from its readers, but also a cultural grounding, when faced with lines such as ‘around your / nuvttagiid / swathes of freshly fallen snow’.[12]

In recent years, Anna-Stina Svakko has switched to writing in North Saami entirely, but she does not shy away from the challenges and unspoken historical connotations that this change brings forth. In a recent poem from 2022, she writes that ‘some words / are still lost’,[13] echoing other Saami writers who have had to reclaim their language, such as Ann-Helén Laestadius who writes of ‘turn[ing] silent in the middle of a sentence’[14] or David Kroik, a South Saami writer and linguist who has chosen to pass on the language of his father to his own children, despite the fact that it would be ‘easier to just go with the flow, to allow oneself to be assimilated, to choose the easy way out and speak Swedish’.[15]

Far too often, however, a distinct line is drawn between writers who grew up speaking their Saami language and those who did not, serving no one but our colonisers and those who find joy in perpetrating literal violence. Indeed, trying to define Saami writers as more or less ‘authentic’, based on their use of language, ignores basic ideas of linguistic fluidity within Sápmi, and strips Saami writers of the linguistic freedom we automatically afford writers from a majority culture.

Instead we must, to quote the scholar Gunvor Guttorm, remember that ‘[n]evertheless, people survived, mobilised themselves, in order to be able to rise up, and here we are,’ and that ‘[s]ome of us have been able to maintain our language [and] we haven’t taken it from anyone.’[16]

Contemporary Saami poets are polyglots, used to treading the border between languages in many different ways, to writing about everything from love to resistance. This, we hope, will continue to be the case for many years to come.

VII.

Saami literature is multi-faceted in and of itself. This is particularly true of Saami poetry, which confidently rejects the one-dimensional scope of a page in favour of a strong sense of orality, where words exist in parallel dimensions, as read, spoken or yoiked. Because of this, when talking about Saami poetry, we need to take into account not only written poems but songs and examples of spoken word as well. The prolific yoiker and writer Áillohaš was one of the first to do this, and was followed by Saami musicians such as Mari Boine, whose debut album, it could be argued, featured a number of decolonial poems set to music.

In other words, when Mari Boine tells the listener of mearrasápmelažžii to ‘remember the ones who taught [your mother] to feel like this, to remember everything that she has experienced,’ she does so through the medium of a song turned poem that embodies the activist spirit of the time she was writing in.

Indeed, Mari Boine goes even further in this blurring of poetry and Saami music throughout her career by incorporating the poems of other Saami writers, such as Rawdna Carita Eira and Risten Sokki in her songs.

But is music really poetry?

In Why Indigenous Literatures Matter, Daniel Heath Justice writes about the many ways in which ‘assumptions about what is or is not “literature” are used to privilege some voices and ignore others’.[17]

Saami poetry denies these assumptions altogether. It denies the very existence of literary borders.

Sápmi does not acknowledge borders at all.

VIII.

We posit that in order to understand contemporary Saami poetry, we need to understand both the political and societal changes that have influenced our communities for centuries.

Contemporary Saami poetry would be nothing without the pioneering work done by the founders of the ČSV Movement. They, in turn, saw their work and the importance of constantly highlighting and supporting the Saami culture as the only possible reaction to the discrimination the Saami were facing from the states at the time. At the same time, members of this leaderless disestablishmentarian, movement were frequently dismissed as terror poets,[18] which led to the Norwegian paper Dagbladet going so far as to refer to ČSV as a terrorist group, an assertion that was fiercely challenged by several Saami at the time, but without much success, as mainstream media refused to publish these rebuttals.

Consequently, when talking about contemporary Saami poetry, we also need to look at the literal – in the word’s both senses – void created by a lack of written Saami literature between the late 1920s and 1970s. It is of paramount importance to understand that the flood of poetry, both sung and written, that has subsequently exploded onto the scene, partly spurred on by the ČSV movement, represents not only a wish to put down oral stories into words, it is also a form of resistance which to this day continues to influence and inspire contemporary Saami poets.

Long may it last.

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[1] Mari Boine, excerpt from ‘mearrasápmelažžii’, Jaskatvuođa maŋŋá, 1985.

[2] Ella Marie Hætta Isaksen, excerpt from ‘Mihkkalii’, Mihkkalii, 2023.

[3] Carte Blanche, Elle Sofe Sara and Joar Nango: Birget; Ways to Deal, Ways to Heal, 2023.

[4] Áillohaš, from ‘Avvil 3. 5. 1983’, 1983.

[5] Mary Ailionieida Sombán Mari, from ‘Govadas baldon olbmot’. Beaivváš Mánát / Leve blant reptiler, 2020. Quote translated by the essay authors.

[6] Juvvá Pittjá, from ‘heitet mohkohallame historjjá nu …’, p. 114. duođain in dieđe / vet verkligen inte, 2018.

[7] Markomeannu, from ‘Sáŋgárat máhccet’. Márkomeannu 2018 Program, 2018.

[8] Elin Anna Labba, from ‘två dikter’, p. 163. Inifrån Sápmi – Vittnesmål från ett stulet land, 2021, ed. Patricia Fjellgren and Malin Nord. Quote translated by the essay authors.

[9] ibid., p. 165. Quote translated by the essay authors.

[10] Anders Sunna, Niillas Holmberg, Jenni Laiti, Timimie Märak, Maxida Märak and Max Mackhé, quote from Sámi Manifeasta, 2015.

[11] Johanna Domokos, from ‘On Sami poetics’, p. 451. L’Image du Sápmi, Vol II, edited by Kajsa Andersson, 2013.

[12] Anna-Stina Svakko, from ‘Unna vielljažii’. Virvelvind, 1991. Quote translated by the essay authors.

[13] Anna-Stina Svakko, from ‘Čáhppesvilges govva’. Bágojda Báddnum – Beroende av Ord, 2022, edited by Anne Wuolab and Anna H Degerman. Quote translated by the essay authors.

[14] Ann-Helén Laestadius, from ‘Rötternas tålmodiga väntan’, p. 137. Inifrån Sápmi – Vittnesmål från ett stulet land, 2021, red. Patricia Fjellgren and Malin Nord. Quote translated by the essay authors.

[15] David Kroik, from ‘Min pappas språk – mitt pappaspråk’. Hjärnstorm: Samisk Vrede, No: 128, p. 52, 2017. Quote translated by the essay authors.

[16] Gunvor Guttorm, from ‘Dál lea min vuorru – Now it is our turn’, p. 111. Arctic Highways, edited by Gunvor Guttorm and Yvonne Rock, 2022.

[17] Daniel Heath Justice: Why Indigenous Literatures Matter, p. xviii, 2018.

[18] cf. Kristin Jernsletten, p. 10, in The hidden children of Eve – Sámi poetics – Guovtti ilmmi gaskkas, 2011.