MUSIC

Of the Finnish Sámi music traditions, the music tradition of the Inari Sámi has received the least amount of attention. This is partly due to the fact that Inari Sámi, as a minority language, holds a marginal position among minority languages. There are also very few Inari Sámi makers of music and this has reflected the assessment of the Inari Sámi culture. The most well-known are singer and composer Aune Kuuva, rap-artist Amoc as well as sisters Heli and Satu Aikio. Of the older generation of “music men”, Ilmari Mattus and Matti Morottaja, who performed e.g. at the Kaustinen Folk Music Festival in 1968, deserve mention.

In the last decades, the Inari Sámi music tradition has received less attention and the question as even arisen of whether it exits at all. With the help of archives sources from the 1800s and beginning of the 1900s it became evident that there has been a very lively Inari Sámi music tradition indeed.

The Inari Sámi music tradition takes shape from archives sources in the following parts: the primary position in this tradition is taken by the Inari Sámis’ livđe and animal livđe. The oldest known livđet texts have been written down by Mikko Aikio in the 1880s. An abundance of transcriptions were made in the 1900s. The broadest collection of Inari Sámi music has been written down by Anna-Briitta Mattus (née Morottaja).

The following are three texts to the Bear Livđe, which is one of the most well-known of Inari Sámi livđes. The oldest version is Mikko Aikio’s presentation from1886.

Frans Äimä’s account of the Bear Livđe makes it clear that the word “brother” refers to the situation when the bear wakes up his brother, another bear.

In 1946 Anna-Briitta Mattus presented the livđe in Helsinki to music researcher A. O. Väisänen; the Inari Sámi texts have been transliterated into modern orthography by Matti Morottaja.

Livđes are musically very similar to the North Sámi yoiks from Inari and therefore they are from the mere point of view of music difficult to differentiate from each other. In addition, the Inari Sámi tradition of singing has included North Sámi yoik; they are referred to in Inari Sámi with the term juáigus, (pl. juáiguseh).

The oldest descriptions of Inari Sámi music are from the beginning fo the 1800s and they are made by both priests and officials. These deal especially with the ability of the Inari people to sing hymns. The Inari Sámi term for hymn is salmâ (pl. saalmah) and the 1800s hymn-singing tradition is linked to the hymns in the so-called Old Hymnal Book. In 1993 the current Inari Sámi language hymnal was published.

In addition to livđes, yoiks and hymns, there are many Inari Sámi language songs. These are called in Inari Sámi laavlâ (pl. lavluuh). The most famous song is probably the so-called Engagement Song, which is also known as Mother’s and Daughter’s Discussion Song. The song is supposed to have been performed in engagement parties at the end of the 1800s and the beginning of the 1900s.

One reason for the weakening of the Inari Sámi music tradition in the 1900s was the Spanish Flu of 1920. About 200 people died in Inari and a great number of them were Inari Sámis. Because no one wanted to perform the livđes of the deceased, a significant part of the tradition disappeared, and with them also numerous traditional artists. The 1920s and 1930s was marked by a tremendous movement of Finns to Inari and this also influenced musical culture and certainly the effect of the war in Lapland even further weakened the traditional culture.

The Inari Sámi music tradition has been nevertheless registered after the war, especially at the end of the 1960s by the efforts of Matti Morottaja and Sámi Radio. Due to the abundance of archives materials and cooperation of old traditional with artists, it has been possible to revive the old Inari Sámi music tradition. At the Ijahis Ija Festival this year new Inari language songs as well as old livđes were heard in the Inari Sámi consert.



Marko Jouste

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