The Sámi novelist Jovnna-Ánde Vest has written the trilogy Árbbolaččat, where he writes about the lives of the people living in Máhtebáiki, a small Sámi village in Northern Finland, from the late 1950s until the early 1980s. This is a time when new great changes coming from the majority society also has impact on the living conditions in a society where agriculture and fishing are the main lines of work. The article focuses on the protagonist Heaika and how he interacts and what kind of coping strategies he chooses in his endeavor to become a writer. Heaika serves both as a witness and a mediator of how the characters in the local society meet the impacts of the new time
The article is a literary analysis of the satirical Sámi folk-song ”Elveland”. The song about about the road man, forester and river attendant Elveland on the west side of the municipality of Porsanger was made in the beginning of the 1900s, as a form of revenge on the part of the local community because he would not let them cut as much firewood as they needed. With irony as an important device, the text serves as a meeting point for dialogues between different voices, and where power relations and the political nature of cultural identity is revealed.
Various means for levels of hinting at things or making allusions in the interaction between people are part of traditional Sámi knowledge and communication, aesthetics and interpersonal communication. A reading of the novel trilogy Árbbolaččat ( The Heirs) (1997–2005), written by the Sámi novelist Jovnna-Ánde Vest, shows how the use of hinting and allusions is depicted as birgengoansta (coping skills), an essential art to master in the life of a small community, as a way to deliver a message in a softer tone rather than saying things directly and as a way to avoid conflicts. I especially emphasize the contextual part of the yoik tradition (the ancient Sámi chanting tradition) and how it has functioned as a social device in the Sámi community. It explains the individual’s place within the community, and what people’s worldview and life philosophy tell us about life in a small Sámi village.
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