The Sámi of northern Norway, Sweden, Finland, and northwestern Russia are recognized by the World Council of Indigenous Peoples and the International Labour Organization as the first settlers to this territory and, therefore, maintain special political status as an indigenous people. Veli-Pekka Lehtola, literature studies scholar and senior research fellow at Giellagas, the Sámi Institute of the University of Oulu, Finland, has authored a well-researched and thoughtful publication exceptional for providing a concise account of Sámi cultural history from the perspective of a Sámi academic for an intended audience both broad in educational background and international in scope. The book has been released in several languages (the English version was translated from Finnish by Linna Weber Müller-Wille). It is unique in its accessibility and breadth of coverage, ranging from settlement and subsistence patterns, language groups, and political history to long-established and newly developed artistic traditions.
The opening chapter, “Multifaceted Sápmi” (Sápmi refers to Sámi homeland), situates the Sámi geographically, linguistically, and as subjects of ethnographic scholarship. Lehtola cursorily introduces cultural policies of the 1970s designed to achieve material objectives such as land and language use rights, a theme to which he returns in chapter 3. In the second chapter, “Milestones of Sámi History,” Lehtola presents competing perspectives on Sámi settlement patterns, concluding in favor of a theory placing the Sámi in Fennoscandia around 11,000-10,000 BC. He introduces the siida system for land use and early subsistence methods leading to the development of large-scale reindeer herding. He also addresses the encroachment of nation-states through religious missionization (he includes an extensive section on the enormously successful Sámi-Swedish missionary Lars Levi Laestadius), colonization, and restrictive border treaties; and a consequent Sámi uprising in Norway. Lehtola chronicles the development of Sámi newspapers and the publication of a Sámi national anthem and concludes by examining Sámi military service during World War II.
Chapter 3, “Participants of Modern Society,” takes up Sámi history after World War II, examining national assimilationist policies such as compulsory boarding houses. Lehtola introduces linguistic minorities with a brief focus on the Aanaar, Skolt, and Kola Sámi. The 1970s and 1980s mark the “Sámi Renaissance,” a period of fervent social, political, and artistic self-exploration. Here, Lehtola focuses on political activity, which peaked with the Áltá Conflict of the 1980s (in protest of a dam construction project that would flood the Sámi village of Máze), but included the establishment of pan-Sámi political administrations, parliaments, social and artistic networks, and education systems. Chapter 4, “Sámi Art--New and Old Limits,” focuses primarily on recent examples of literary, visual, plastic, and performing arts. Lehtola includes an introduction to yoik, a Sámi vocal tradition, and Sámi mythology, followed by outstanding examples from literature, historical research, handicrafts (duodji), pictorial arts, theatre, and film. The author reexamines the Áltá Conflict as a critical turning point for Sámi artistic self-consciousness. A subsection titled “Music Between Tradition and the Stage” will be of particular interest to the musicologist; it opens with a declaration of the wide range of musical styles mastered by Sámi artists, including “yoik, hymn, melody, rock, country, jazz” (106), and others. Lehtola introduces influential musicians, including the late Nils-Aslak Valkeapää, Mari Boine, Wimme Saari, and the duo Angelit.
The fifth and final chapter, “Nils Aslak Valkeapää’s Two Lives,” serves as both epilogue and epitaph, of sorts, in honor of the fallen “Sámi ambassador” (130). Known by his Sámi name as Áillohaš or Áilu, Nils-Aslak Valkeapää was born in March, 1943, to a reindeer-herding family. As an artist, his work ranged the breadth of media, including poetry, literature, yoik, popular music, photography, and painting. He was also a political activist and prominent advocate of the Sámi Renaissance. His untimely death in 2001 was mourned throughout Sápmi, and given the book’s original publication date (and Lehtola’s personal acquaintance with Áillohaš), the concluding chapter is a timely and appropriate tribute to this lost cultural icon.
Additional features of note include a superior map of the distribution of language groups in Sápmi (chapter 1) and a good, supplemental bibliography including many English-language texts. The book is beautifully designed, and the significant number of historic photographs and examples of pictorial art not only contribute to the book’s aesthetic appeal, but also serve the author’s dual intellectual goals of celebrating Sámi heritage and educating a non-Sámi audience about Sámi history, lifeways, and arts. The book’s organization may prove challenging to some; the author tends to jump from one topic to the next without a clear narrative thread--although this may be a side-effect of translation or design.
The Sámi People is a short book, best employed by an academic scholar either as assigned course reading in the social sciences or history or as a springboard from which to explore one of the various topics mentioned in more depth via the number of theses, dissertations, and academic publications in the Sámi and Scandinavian languages. No citations are included, so a scholar will find it difficult to cite the text itself without consulting primary resources on his or her research topic. The text’s import may wane a bit now that more in-depth (and still broadly accessible) English language resources in Sámi Studies are available, such as the searchable database maintained by Helsinki University’s Sámi Studies department, The Encyclopedia of Saami Culture (http://www.helsinki.fi/~sugl_smi/senc/en/index.htm) and the new publication The Saami: A Cultural Encyclopedia (2005, available in the U.S. from Finnbooks). The implicit political aim of the book, however--to reclaim representation of the Sámi by a “cultural insider”--as well as the political and social history it elucidates, will interest scholars concerned with indigenous politics or heritage rights issues. Lehtola productively highlights Sámi indigenous status while simultaneously laying claim to the right to self-determination this status is meant to facilitate. Further, as a result of its historical accuracy, accessibility for a general audience, and availability in multiple languages and through multiple presses, this book will continue to contribute positively and widely to knowledge about Sámi culture, in northern Europe and beyond.
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[Review length: 996 words • Review posted on January 19, 2009]