#yoik

How Elsa Found Herself (Musically) & Why It's Amazing

A very interesting video you should watch!

’Cantus’ - Vuelie 

Vuelie is the South Sámi word for “a yoik”. Yoik is both a type of Saami song, and a unique vocal style used to perform this (often referred to as “chanting”). Filmed at Cantus launch event in the gorgeous Holmenkollen Chapel, in Oslo.

This song deserves more attention, and it felt appropriate to salute the Sami week here in Umeå finishing with this post. This is a beautiful part of a unique culture that today is fighting to not vanish after years of discrimination and oppression. I wanted to share the translation of this beautiful song with the world because this is an ancient living language and it’s powerful and amazing.

Swedish translation from Sami by Oscar, second post in the comments of this video, and English below by me. Song by Jon Henrik Fjällgren, whose debut album Goeksegh (2014) is a gem.

Are you still walking by me, my dear friend,

Even though I no longer see you?

Are you still on this Earth,

Like you are still in my heart?

The Ijahis idja festival of indigenous music is on this weekend in Inari, so I'm sharing some songs by the people who are performing there.

The Ijahis idja festival of indigenous music is on this weekend in Inari, so I'm sharing some songs by the people who are performing there.

This one is not exactly a song in the same sense as the earlier ones, this is an actual joik (or yoik).

I was so lucky to participate at the gathering for the Nordplus Cape Network at the Faroe Islands in June 22. There were students and lecturers from all over Europe and all students presented projects from their field of education. It was interesting and enriching to learn about all the projects, and to see in what different ways educational institutions are including sustainability in their work. There was a mix between workshops and lectures, which was really good, so we got to experience the work of others as well.

I shared two of my projects at the seminar. And my way of including sustainability is by focusing on my Sami cultural heritage that for generations have been invisible in my family and which I am now trying to retrieve through my music. I presented my latest album and music video. I am an assimilated Sami woman and the whole album evolves around the assimilation policy carried out by the Norwegian government against the Sami people. I tell stories about my grandfather who was a Sami, forced to stop speaking his mother tongue, my mother who lost the Sami language and culture, me and my sister, and our way through shame, exclusion, alienation leading up to now feeling proud and joyful about being a Sami in Norway today. It is a painful topic, but as I see it, the truth has to be brought to mind, yet we must also learn how to live with it. Reconciliation is what we need so that our people can start looking forward.”

I also spoke about and performed some of my master’s degree project: The Yoik and the Framedrum, where I am exploring my yoiking vocals along with different ways of playing the framedrum. I did some traditional yoiks as well as my own yoiks. I also reflected upon the sociological and social aspects and challenges I am facing working with this art form, being an assimilated Norwegian Sami.

It felt good to come to the Faroe Islands to talk about these things – the crowd was quite enthusiastic, and I felt that my musical stories make a difference. Many interesting people gathered this week in June, and some of us might work on projects together in the future.

(via WHEN THE YOIK (JOIK) CAME TO ME - Beneath Northern Lights)

Written by guestblogger Stéphane Aubinet, a researcher from Belgium.

“The yoik first came to me long before I started to do “research” about it, when I was a teenager living in Belgium. I was immediately struck by its immediacy, its roughness, its originality, its wildness. The yoik I heard was chanted without lyrics, only with meaningless syllables, I knew nothing about its practice, and I had no idea that a community called “Sámi” existed. And yet the vocalisation still had a powerfully evocative quality. Listening to it was like watching a distant horizon: even if you do not really know what lurks behind it, the horizon can have a powerful appeal, calling you to explore it.”

by Stépane Aubinet at the Nord University studying joik. 

JOIK or YOIK : Originally, joik referred to only one of several Sami singing styles, but in English the word is often used to refer to all types of traditional Sami vocals.

• LUOHTI, JUOIGGUS – Northern Sami

• VUELIE – South Sami

• VUOLLE – Lule Sami

• LEVD – Eastern Sami (Russia)

“In Skandinavian and English language the word joik/yoik refers to the verb “juoigat” which means “to joik/yoik”. From this verb the substantive “joik/yoik” was made. In Sami language the words luohti, vuelie, vuolle and levd are only substantives, – and juoigat is the verb.

The Sami verb for presenting a joik (e.g. Northern Sami juoigat) is a transitive verb, which is often interpreted as indicating that a joik is not a song about the person or place, but that the joiker is attempting to evoke or depict that person or place through song – one joiks one’s friend, not about one’s friend (similarly to how one doesn’t paint or depict about a flower, but depicts the flower itself). – From wikipedia.

And there are more words used in connection to joik. Here are two examples:

DOVDNA – a joik for children (usually more simple melody).

ÁRMME – A lament.

The oldest vocal tradition in Europe

As the Sami culture had no written language in the past, there are no references to how or where joik originated. According to oral traditions, the fairies and elves of the arctic lands gave joiks to the Sámi People. Just Quigstad, who recorded the Sami oral tradition, has documented this legend in several works. Music researchers believe joik is one of the longest-living music traditions in Europe.

The sound of joik is comparable to the traditional chanting of some Native American cultures. There are also features shared with the shamanistic cultures of Siberia, which mimic the sounds of nature. – From Wikipedia

I would also add that joik is comparable to Greenlandic way of using the voice. I think that another description of joiking is that in sound it is in-between song and Mongolian throatsinging.

Part of the daily life

Originally joiks where used in everyday life. It is not until the later years that the joik has been adapted so that it is suitable to perform on a stage.

Originally the Samis would joik impulsively in any occasion. A joik could be a part of telling stories, when alone on the mountain, to the reindeer, or to a beloved one.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=12&v=lz0WV2z5N6w&feature=emb_title