Revitalization of the stigmatized roots. How sami yoik and shamanistic symbols appear in Christian discourses from the early modern age

Tamás, Ildikó (2018) Revitalization of the stigmatized roots. How sami yoik and shamanistic symbols appear in Christian discourses from the early modern age. Ežegodnik finno-ugorskih issledovanij / Yearbook of Finno-Ugric Studies, 12. pp. 28-42. ISSN 2224-9443

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Abstract

Yoiking is a vocal singing tradition of the Sami and it involves many sacred and profane symbols. Medieval and early modern sources all mention the yoik as a symbol of paganism, as a magical, diabolical song constituting part of the shaman’s ritual ceremony. One of the external categories, the stigmatizing concept of “pagan” became firmly embedded in the notion of yoiking over the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. These negative undertones regarding the Sami were accentuated by a new (political and scientific) discourse unfolding at the beginning of the twentieth century (as an offshoot of evolutionism and racial theory), separated from religious institutions, in which yoiking was described as an inferior, despicable and shameful custom. Although the fear of punishment was very successful in repressing the practice of the yoik, the sermons of the much-respected and popular Laestadius, and the Christian Awakening movement that he had launched resulted in an even stronger repression of this vocal tradition. After that it was not out of fear that many Sami did not yoik, but because they were convinced that it was a sin and an instrument for ‘conjuring the Devil’. Most of the Laestadians rejected the yoik also nowadays, but many among the Christian Sami youth desire to reconnect with their culture’s music, while rejecting the pagan interpretation of yoik. Some of them not only try to relieve the yoik of its pagan connotations, but they specifically invest it with new, Christian meanings. In some places, the yoik has already become part of the liturgy in spite of the reluctance of conservative Christians.

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