samegilli samegilli samegilli samegilli

The Yoiker and the Yoiks

Yoik is the Sami or Laplandic Way of singing or chanting. There are yoiks for persons, animals and landscapes. The musical modus of yoiks is totally different from what is known in Euro-American music. Some say that yoiks are the oldest musical tradition still alive in Europe
I have worked with yoiks in many respects. I have been producing some records with traditional yoiks. My very first production was an LP with my mother and father. Later - in 1992 - I produced a CD with Inga Juuso and in 1998 I did a CD with Nils Porsanger (
I have been performing on stage since I was very young, when I was young and I guess I will remain young as long as I live - by yoiking in public. For me it it is very important that our own people get the chance to hear their own ancient music. It is also important that people from other cultures get the chance to know the world they share with us a little bit better - like we do by listening to their songs.
For me yoiks are not just music. They are drama and literature - poems and stories. They are a way of understanding the world - who we are - what knowlegde is - what is important with life. I have tried to approach these aspects of yoik in a very brief scientific article that I once wrote.
Yoiks were very important in our ancient religious practices. In the old times the shamans used yoiks and drums to travel to different worlds. At the time beeing yoiks are totally vocal phenomenons. Our drums were collected and burned by the Christian missionaries. Now they just represents fragments of dreams. Foreign types of drums and other instruments are used more and more by the more or less commercialized NEW YOIKers.
The yoik you hopefully hear in the background is the yoik of the nuclear bomb which I composed 12 years ago. If you are interested to hear some more samples, then you can hear me yoiking some yoiks. But then we have to clear some formalities first.


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