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by Marja-Leena

about Baiki

issue_25.jpg
Cover of issue 25 of BAIKI, with image of sculpture: “NAA”, © 2003 Rose-Marie Huuva, reindeer hide and sealskin

I recently received a copy of BAIKI: the North American SAMI Journal, which ‘is a major English-language source of information about Sami arts, literature, history, spirituality, and environmental concerns. It also covers news of North American Sami community events. “BAIKI” [bah-h’kee] is the nomadic reindeer-herding society’s word for cultural identity and survival, ”the home that lives in the heart. […] Today the Sami are incorporating new technologies into the revival of their language [and culture], and they are in the forefront of the worldwide post-colonial Indigenous renaissance. Moreover, having their own parliaments in Norway, Sweden and Finland, the Sami relationship with their former colonizers is improving as well.’

There is a huge amount of fascinating information in the magazine and online. I’m surprised, for example, to learn that: ‘At least 30,000 people of Sami ancestry live in North America. Some are the descendants of Sami people who emigrated to the United States and Canada as Norwegians, Swedes, and Finns and some are the descendants of “Lapp” herders from the Alaska Reindeer Project who introduced reindeer husbandry to the Inupiaq and Yup’ik peoples’. These latter people are featured in a travelling exhibit The Sami Reindeer People of Alaska. I’m going to see this when it comes to Seattle next year.

Faith Fjeld is the founding editor and publisher based in Anchorage, Alaska, and has done an incredible and invaluable job in promoting the Sami cultural revival with this beautiful biannual publication begun in 1991 and now in its 25th issue. The current issue’s theme is “Sami Identity in Art, Film, Music and Storytelling” with examples of works by many ami artists.

I’m excited by the wonderful abundance of inspiring material that has opened up for me. As regular readers may know, I have been slowly learning and writing about the Sami or Saami (incorrectly called Lapps or Laplanders) branch of the Finno-Ugric family, the Indigenous People of the Nordic and Northeast Russian Arctic regions called Sapmi (incorrectly called Lapland).

I’ve written about their siida and the Skabmagovat film festival (one is being planned in Alaska in 2005), and about some of their music and their sacred stones or seidas.

Further Links:
Lands of the Sami
Oktavuohta digital magazine of Sami culture
Samediggi – the Sami Parliament in Finland and in Sweden
The Norwegian Sami parliament link does not seem to work, but there is this on the Sami of Norway

December 12, 2004 in Culture, Ethnicity, Finland, Estonia & Finno-Ugric, History by Marja-Leena 3 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

Finland’s Independence Day

Finland is celebrating its 87th Independence Day (Itsenäisyys Päivä) today, December 6th. Though I’m a proud Canadian, I’m also proud of my birth country.

Finland was part of the Swedish realm for some 600 years up to 1809 and then attached to the Russian empire for just over a century. The Grand Duchy of Finland, as part of the Russian Empire enjoyed extensive autonomy. Gradually Finnish nationalism grew and in 1906 “Finland acquires its own national parliament, elected by equal and universal suffrage, a development that makes Finnish women the first in the world to be granted full national political rights, that is to say suffrage and eligibility to stand for election to their national Parliament.” Shortly after the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917, Finland declared Independence.

If you’d like to learn more about Finland, Virtual Finland* is the excellent main portal with very good history pages. Wikipedia is good too.

Later: On a side note, this just came in on BBC: Finland is rated the best in education in math and reading. Canada is third.

* The Virtual Finland site no longer exists so link has been removed.

December 6, 2004 in Culture, Finland, Estonia & Finno-Ugric, History by Marja-Leena Comments Off on Finland’s Independence Day

by Marja-Leena

more about Elvish

Shelley at Burningbird wrote this about a Guide to Elvish**: “If you’re a Tolkien fan, or interested in linguistics, David Salo’s new book on the linguistics of Elvish, Gateway to Sindarin, A Grammar of an Elvish Language from J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings is out now.”

“From the 1910s to the 1970s, author and linguist J. R. R. Tolkien worked at creating plausibly realistic languages to be used by the creatures and characters in his novels. Like his other languages, Sindarin was a new invention, not based on any existing or artificial language. By the time of his death, he had established fairly complete descriptions of two languages, the “elvish” tongues called Quenya and Sindarin.”

I’m tickled pink about this, having posted some time ago about Elvish study in a UK school, and about the surprising connection to the Finnish language.

In fact, a Finnish IT student (probably graduated by now) Harri Perälä did very extensive research (in English) into Quenya, the other language created by Tolkien that resembles Finnish. Fascinating stuff!

More about Tolkien’s languages.

Addendum March 21.05: Tolkien’s Elvish prayers** – This site reveals some Elvish words and text. Found via mirabilis**

Edited March 12th, 2012: Sadly many links marked ** no longer exist and have been removed. However here is an interesting wikipedia page on author David Salo with information about his research and book. The name “Salo” is a very common Finnish name so I wonder if he has Finnish roots?

November 23, 2004 in Books, Finland, Estonia & Finno-Ugric, Linguistics by Marja-Leena Comments Off on more about Elvish

by Marja-Leena

Rare Sami Music CD

This is very interesting – ” Sámi singer releases CD in waning language”- from Helsingin Sanomat. Here are some excerpts, but do read the whole fascinating article.

Palgah, a new CD by Inari Sámi singer Aune Kuuva, contains what is perhaps the rarest music in the world. She has composed the songs and written the lyrics in the language of the Inari Sámi people in the eastern part of Finnish Lapland. It is apparently the only recording in a language that is teetering on the brink of extinction. The musical traditions of the Sámi (Lapp) people in the Inari region are also in danger of disappearing.

Aune is an Inari Sámi, one of the fewer than 1,000 who are left. They are a minority among the Sámi minority, and they live along the shores of Lake Inari and in Nellim, near the Russian border. With local people leaving their villages and getting dispersed around the world, the number of people speaking the Inari variant of the Sámi language has declined to about 300.

Kuuva’s CD does not have any of the traditional Sámi “joiks”. “We are not joik people”. Kuuva says that the Inari Sámi are natural singers and storytellers. The melody is important for them. The recording was sponsored, and it is being sold by the Association for the Inari Sámi language.

I emailed Helsingin Sanomat and they have provided me with the email address of a contact person, from whom one can order the CD. Email me if you are interested.

More about the Sámi in this earlier post, in Wikipedia, and about”joiks”.

Update Oct.30.04: Just came across this interesting page on the Sami of Norway, via Torill Mortensen

Update Dec.27.04: I ordered this CD for ourselves as a Christmas gift and I’m pleased to write that we enjoy it very much!

October 28, 2004 in Ethnicity, Finland, Estonia & Finno-Ugric, Music by Marja-Leena Comments Off on Rare Sami Music CD

by Marja-Leena

Lord of the Rings musical

Helsingin Sanomat* has a story that really tickles my Finnish funnybone as it makes the intriguing connection between Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and Finland.

The makers of London’s West End musical Lord of the Rings (Flash webpage) have gone to Finland for inspiration. Finnish culture is going to be present in the musical on several levels, particularly the music of folk group Värttinä, and inspiration even from old Finnish jewelry and handicrafts.

But the producers had a surprise in store – Tolkien had got here first, by at least half a century. ‘It was not until we had decided to invite Värttinä into the project that we discovered that the Finnish language had been a source of inspiration for Tolkien himself. It felt then as though we had instinctively come to the right place’, says co-producer Kevin Wallace enthusiastically. Read about this connection in an earlier post.

Don’t miss the many links at the bottom of the HS article, about the production and about some Finnish cultural sites.

And, here’s a fun post about Tolkien’s Elvish language.

* Updated 27.08.2015 – expired links removed

October 3, 2004 in Culture, Finland, Estonia & Finno-Ugric, Folk Legends & Myths, Music by Marja-Leena Comments Off on Lord of the Rings musical

by Marja-Leena

Flying stones of Lapland

I have been having an interesting email correspondence with Vyacheslav Mizin, a Russian in St. Petersburg who found my site and wrote to me about his interests and research into Arctic stone cultures. His research trips around the St. Petersburg region, Murmansk region and Karelia are the subject of a report he is preparing for the Russian Geographical Society in St. Petersburg and for a book he is writing. Vyacheslav sees many parallels between the northern European Saami and Canada’s Inuit and hopes to put together a website on this.

He has kindly allowed me to share some of his writing and photos here in the hope that these Russian Arctic megaliths will be of interest outside Russia. (By his request, I have edited the English, but only minimally and I hope correctly.)

“Flying stones of Lapland”: Northern megaliths of Russian Arctic Region.

In the Karelia and the Murmansk region of north-west Russia are many ancient places of power with sacred stones from pre-historic ages. The Saami (Lapps), who are the most ancient Finno-Ugric people of northern Europe, named these stones “seidas”. Their weight can be up to 20 tons, some lie singly, some are in complexes of hundreds of stones. One of the riddles concerning seidas is their similarity with dolmens of Western Europe, Canada and Korea. If these stones were not in the Arctic but instead in England, they would be named dolmens. Near seidas there are often other megalithic forms – stone circles, stone heaps, square “altars”.

In Russia the known seida complexes are on Mount Vottovaara, in the national park of Paanajarvi in the Kuzova Islands in the White Sea. On the mountain seidas were put on other rocks, on marked tracks and in water, and in some places are in lines and circles. Some are located among contorted dead trees and this place is a “place of power”, the centre of an ancient earthquake and with a bad reputation.
Lapland has legends that seidas could fly – that has given it the second name Laplandia – “country of a flying stone”. Another Saami legend is when the spirit departs from a stone, the stone shatters.

Photos by Vyacheslav Mizin:

votto03.jpg platoseidas.jpg votto01.jpg

left: Note the delicate balance where the top stone actually keeps the lower ones from falling.
centre: A plateau of seidas in the hundreds in the Murmansk region
right: This Vottovaara seida weighs more than 10 tons.

seida4.jpg dm_tree1.jpg dm5.jpg

left: UFO-like seida in the Murmansk region
centre: Vottovaara trees, a Karelian place of power
right: Line of seidas in the Karelian woods on Vottovaara

I also have thought about these connections between the seidas of the Sami in NW Russia & Finland and the inuksuit in northern Canada. I was surprised that Korea was mentioned so he has provided this Korean site. The expression “places of power” seems to be common in discussions of the sacred rock art of the north!

Related to this is an earlier post I wrote on Karelia’s rock art, which has a page on seidas, including these Vottovaara photos (the top right photo here is Vyacheslav’s).

Visit Vyacheslav Mizin’s interesting site which has more photos, but unfortunately for now has little English and is very slow to download, and this site. Thank you for sharing!

Addendum Aug.28.04. Vyacheslav has just sent this newly translated page on Russian places of power.

Addendum Sept.17.04. Still more English pages on arctic megaliths.
(thanks Erika for helping me with the photo placement! )

August 25, 2004 in Finland, Estonia & Finno-Ugric, Rock Art & Archaeology by Marja-Leena 3 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

Music in Finland

As a lover of opera and all things Finnish, I’m surprised and thrilled by today’s post on ionarts “Music in Finland”. Charles Downey writes about how active opera is in Finland today as well as its history: “It took the Finns a while to create their own national opera”, but now “Finland is probably the leading country for the production of new operas”.

I’m pleased also at the mention of Karita Mattila, a wonderful singer and actress, whom we were very fortunate to see in concert here in Vancouver about a year ago.

Charles Downey teaches music and art history in Washington, DC and his blog reflects his excellent knowledge and passionate interest in these subjects. My own music knowledge is spotty so there is a wealth of information here that I will be poring over.

Virtual Finland**, by the way, is an excellent site on everything about Finland, that I go back to frequently and have linked to before in certain posts.

PS. Note my comment on the Finnish language as being Finno-Ugrian not Magyar. See these pages in Virtual Finland**

** Virtual Finland sadly no longer exists and links have been removed.

August 20, 2004 in Culture, Finland, Estonia & Finno-Ugric, Music by Marja-Leena 2 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

World Congress of Finno-Ugric Peoples

“Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, will host the Fourth World Congress of Finno-Ugric Peoples from 15-19 August 2004. The theme of the congress is “The Youth Is Our Future” and it will bring together approximately seven hundred delegates, observers and guests from Russia, Scandinavia, and Central and Eastern Europe. The Congress aims at developing and protecting the ethnic identities, cultures and languages of the Finno-Ugric peoples; promoting the co-operation between Finno-Ugric peoples; discussing and finding solutions to their most urgent problems; and promoting the implementation of their right to self-determination in accordance with the norms and principles of the international law.”

This Congress is convened every fourth year. Previously it was held in 1992 in Syktyvkar (Komi Republic, Russia), in 1996 in Budapest (Hungary), and in 2000 in Helsinki (Finland). This event is currently underway with Finnish President Ms. Tarja Halonen attending along with other heads of states, guests from UNESCO, ECOSOC, the European Council, the Nordic Council of Ministers and so on.

This is interesting news for my Finnish, Estonian and possibly Russian readers, and anyone interested in linguistics and ethnology, and for me in that I did not know such important and extensive meetings have been and are taking place.

Some related links:

  • Official site of the IV World Congress of Finno-Ugric Peoples and the association pages.
  • A chart of Uralic languages showing the numbers of speakers, note how many are endangered.
  • More about Finno-Ugric people especially of Russia.
  • My archived articles under the category of ethnology, such as this on preserving languages and about Fenno-Ugrian people.

    UPDATE: Current news on this event, such as the opening address by Prof. Janos Pusztay
    UPDATE Sept.13.04: Speech by President of Finland Tarja Halonen – This is excellent – well worth reading!

    • August 17, 2004 in Culture, Ethnicity, Finland, Estonia & Finno-Ugric, Linguistics by Marja-Leena Comments Off on World Congress of Finno-Ugric Peoples

    by Marja-Leena

    Karelia’s Rock Art & History

    Andrew Heninen is a Karelian (Finnish-Russian) programmer with a keen interest in the history of lost Finnish territories. Karelia (or Karjala in Finnish) is a territory which straddles the present-day border between Finland and Russia, and is home to the Karelian people, related to Finns. Heninen’s site has numerous pages in English, Finnish and Russian about Karelian history that is like walking into a museum.

    These pages about the area’s rock art fascinate me the most:
    Karelian petroglyphs in drawings and photos
    The Stone Labyrinths
    Sami Sacred Stones or Seidas

    Another interesting note, when on the home page, if you click “refresh”, the photos change.

    In case you missed it, I wrote a related post some time ago called visiting Karelia.

    Read about the sad history of the Many Karelias** from which this quote:

    Karelia holds an important place in Finnish cultural history. The material for the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala and numerous other collections of folk poetry were gathered mainly in the northern parts of Finnish and Russian Karelia. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries Karelia provided the inspiration for many of Finland’s leading artists, composers and writers and played an important role in the 19th century national awakening and the development of a Finnish national identity. (link added by me.)

    ** expired and removed link

    July 6, 2004 in Ethnicity, Finland, Estonia & Finno-Ugric, Folk Legends & Myths, History, Rock Art & Archaeology by Marja-Leena 4 Comments »

    by Marja-Leena

    Finnish Rock Paintings

    Finnish rock paintings are an unique link to the world of the Stone Age people. The paintings are made 6000- 3000 years ago in vertical rock surfaces. The nearby lake was an important waterway, These pages introduce some of the over 90 rock painting sites in Finland. The photographs are digitally retouched to make the paintings more visible. In nature they are much weaker.

    This is the introduction to Ismo Luukkonen’s extensive site of photographs of Finnish rock paintings with accompanying text in both Finnish and English. Ismo Luukkonen is an award winning photographer and teacher with a passionate interest in the ancient marks of Finland’s early people.

    Click on the place names in the left navigation area to view the many sites of the paintings. Read about their possible meaning, and how he digitally retouched his photographs to enhance the images, shown with lots of detail! A great site that has captured some of the spiritual feeling of these places!

    (Ismo Luukkonen’s site was updated in early 2005, so above links have been adjusted accordingly.)

    July 3, 2004 in Finland, Estonia & Finno-Ugric, Photography, Rock Art & Archaeology by Marja-Leena 5 Comments »

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