Satu Gröndahl

In search of the Sámi

Hirvonen, Vuokko
Voices from Sápmi: Sámi Women’s Path to Authorship
Guovdageaidnu / Kautokeino: DAT, 2008. 263 p.
English translation: Kaija Anttonen
ISBN 978-82-90625-58-5
NOK 160 (€ 19,90), paperback

The original work in Sámi:
Sámeeatnama jienat — sapmelas nissona bálggis girjecállin (DAT, 1998)
and in Finnish: Saamenmaan ääniä. Saamelaisen naisen tie kirjailijaksi
Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 1999. 296 p.
ISBN 951-746-0873
€ 26,90, paperback

When I interviewed the Sámi author Ellen Marie Vars a few years ago, she told me that she had forbidden translations of her novels into Norwegian, or into other majority languages for that matter. Vars began her literary career in 1986 with the immensely popular novel Kátja, which tells the story of a young Sámi woman’s childhood and adolescence. According to Vars, the Sámi people ought to practise their skill in their mother tongue and read books in Sámi instead of taking the easy shortcut via the majority languages.

Sámi is spoken in Norway, Sweden, Finland and northern Russia. The Sámi population is estimated to number between 75,000 and 100,000 individuals, but there are fewer who actually speak the language. Unfortunately, non-Sámi speakers have no access to the work of one of the most productive Sámi authors.

The language of literature provides a good illustration of the problems faced by indigenous peoples. Authors from these groups have often learned to write in a language other than their mother tongue, but it is the mother tongue that is culture-bearing and best suited to conveying the experiences the authors write about. To allude to the classical work in post-colonial literary studies, The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures (1989/2002), it may be said that Sámi authors, too, find themselves in the ‘gap’ between their own experience and the language that is available to describe it.

Ellen Marie Var’s commentary focuses on a central dilemma that confronts all writing from minority perspectives. How can minority literatures be created and strengthened while living up to the demands of internationalisation and globalisation at the same time?

Fortunately for the international reader, not all Sámi authors are as strict as Vars’s in their outlook on language politics. There are English translations of works by several Sámi authors, including those of Nils-Aslak Valkeapää (1943—2001), who is often called the greatest Sámi poet of all time. One can also find anthologies like Beyond the Wolf Line: An Anthology of Sámi Poetry (1996, Pekka Sammallahti and Anthony Selbourne) and In the Shadow of the Midnight Sun: Contemporary Sámi Prose and Poetry (1996, Harald Gaski).

Vuokko Hirvonen’s dissertation Voices from Sápmi: Sámi Women’s Path to Authorship (1999/2008), now published in English, is also an example of successful communicative strategy employed in a minority context. The book has proven to be communicative work in the sense that is has reached a wide range of readers outside of academia. Its theoretical roots in post-colonial research and gender studies have been successfully combined with a deep and personal understanding of Sámi culture. The English edition has also been updated with references to new fiction and some biographical details.

Certainly recent research in Sámi literature such as Kathleen Osgood Dana’s Áillohas — the Shaman-Poet and His Govadas-Image Drum: A Literary Ecology of Nils-Aslak Valkeapää (2003) has made a contribution with in-depth studies of important Sámi authors. But Voices from Sápmi: Sámi Women’s Path to Authorship is nonetheless a solid source in the field. The material in Hirvonen’s dissertation is comprehensive: the women’s literature it examines spans over a hundred years, and the work also contains a general survey of Sámi literature since the 17th century. It can be used as a reference work, as it deals with Nordic Sámi policy and Sámi culture, with special emphasis on the traditional contributions that women have made. Perhaps above all, the dissertation offers an exciting read about a different understanding of the world, where a traditional way of life exists hand in hand with modern thinking.

Hirvonen has divided Sámi women’s literature into four periods or generations: literature written by foremothers (born in the late 19th century), grandmothers (born between 1900 and 1939), mothers (born between 1940 and 1960) and daughters (born after 1960). This chronological arrangement definitely makes the book easier to read. One of the work’s merits is that literary production is always analysed in relation to the prevailing minority policy and the ideologies that have guided Sámi policy.

Most of the authors examined in the work began by learning to read and write in a foreign language. Hirvonen restricted her study to authors who live in the Nordic countries; the written language of Russian Sámi has only recently taken shape, and not all the Sámi languages possess a written variant even today.

Hirvonen demonstrates in an interesting way how the so-called ‘foremothers’, like the South Sámi activist Elsa Laula (1877—1931), already introduced emancipatory ethnopolitical programs. As early as the beginning of the 20th century, Laula expressed the view that in order to survive as a people the Sámi would themselves have to define their needs regarding questions about education, language and culture.

The author sees these ideas as an answer to social-Darwinist ideology, expressed in phrases like ‘Lapps should be Lapps’ — during this period the Sámi were seen more or less as uneducated savages who ought not to mingle with civilised people. This policy also led to segregation, and the Sámi’s chances of receiving education were limited.

Among the significant features of literature written by ‘grandmothers’ Hirvonen includes the fact that these authors began to write late in life — basic literacy and education were far from easy for Sámi women to attain.

Sámi women’s writing achieved its most important breakthrough in the 1970s, when female writers began to mobilise globally along with minorities in general. The work of Rauni Magga Lukkari (born 1943) are, Hirvonen says, a clear example of the complexity that is an innate characteristic of modern Sámi women’s literature. Since the 1980s Lukkari’s poetry has developed from a more general expression of Sámi identity into a more specific portrayal of women’s experiences. The phenomenon is familiar to many minority women. The issues that affect the group on a general level are perceived has having a higher priority than so-called ‘women’s issues’ — it has often been forgotten that this may actually mean a one-sided focus on the concerns of men, male domains and literature written by men.

Through literature, Sámi women have dealt with questions relating to their place in the community and in economic life. The duality involved in shaping of female identity emerges in issues like the view of handicraft. Skill in handicraft is portrayed as a constituent factor in the Sámi woman’s identity and is thus a source of pride, but it is also a trap that ties women down to a traditional and also oppressive role.

Post-colonial literary research, like gender studies, is concerned with reassessing and deconstructing the history, ontology and ‘truths’ about the world we live in that have been formulated by the majority society. A particular feature of Voices from Sápmi: Sámi Women’s Path to Authorship is that it succeeds in offering a fresh perspective by making this inner context visible.

The definition of Sámi literature, like that of ‘Sámishness’, is a recurrent problem for researchers. Hirvonen has solved the problem by using the way the authors define themselves as her starting point. This method of defining the material works well, and the selection is sympathetic, in the sense that the author does not ascribe an identity to the authors which they might not recognise. The sometimes rather artificial discussion about how researchers can or ought to define socalled ‘minority literature’ clearly indicates that identity politics are a sensitive area. I myself have begun to use the rather neutral term ‘intercultural literature’ and have thereby possibly avoided being accused yet again of taking a condescending view of the authors in question.

The construction of ‘Sámishness’ is also a topical issue in contemporary fiction written by Sámi women, as in Annica Wennström’s (born 1960) novel Lappskatteland. En familjesaga (‘Lapptax Land. A family saga’, 2006). The book portrays a young woman’s search for her roots in Northern Sweden and Norway. In a painful way, the narrator discovers that her Sámi identity is called into question by the Sámi community because she doesn’t know the language. Her appearance also works against her, as she is blonde and blue-eyed.

Wennström’s novel — not yet included in this edition of the English translation — may nonetheless be said to illustrate the dissertation’s central theme. Even though the loss of the Sámi language and the family’s rejection of its stigmatised Sámi background is described as ‘death’ for the young protagonist, she is ultimately able to create a secure self-image in which her Sámi identity has a definite place. The Sámi of the daughters’ generation seem to be able to form a pluralistic identity that reflects both ‘traditional Sámishness’ and the modern world they live in. A positive identity is also undoubtedly founded on one’s own chance of being able to choose and define it.

Norwegian publishers like DAT and Davvi Girji do their best to reach an international readership, and their efforts have also produced results. The work of Nils-Aslak Valkeapää has been a success in English — particularly TheSun, My Father (1997). The original version of this book, which is often called the Sámi national epic, sold out long ago. Valkeapää’s Trekways of the Wind (1994) has also become popular around the world. If one wants to become acquainted with Sámi juvenile literature, Harald Gaski’s Seven Kinds of Water (2004) is a good place to start. The book’s title alludes to an old Sámi tale reinterpreted in the novel. Davvi Girji — which on its web site has presented a five-year ‘strategic plan’ for its future output — has published books in Norwegian, Finnish, English, German, Spanish and Mayan.

Although most of their titles in the major languages are nonfiction titles, particularly focused on linguistics, this publishing activity helps to make Sámi culture better known. In her trilingual poetry collection, The Time of the Lustful Mother (1999), Rauni Magga Lukkari, who may be considered one of the foremost Sámi female authors of short prose fiction, provides insights into the world of Sámi women.

It is very likely that Vuokko Hirvonen’s dissertation will provide inspiration and much-needed information, so that more translators can tackle this literary treasure. Much of Sámi literature is still waiting for its translators. At its best, Sámi literature can be seen as both international and global. In addition to universal human themes, it can offer insights into the holistic and ecological world view which characterises the work of many Sámi authors.

Translated by David Mcduff