Mari Boine – Hear the Voices of the Foremothers

Suorvajaure from Vakkotavare, in Stora Sjöfallet Park, northern Sweden.

I think that’s where the gods are.

I have a new favorite singer. I just saw this over at ThorNews. Mari Boine is a Norwegian folk artist, who is also Sami (what we typically call Lapp, which is something of an insult). You can read a bio of her at the ThorNews site. She sings in a traditional folk style, using the yodelling ‘yoik’ voice.

From Wikipedia:

The Sami people, also spelled Sámi or Saami, are the indigenous people inhabiting the Arctic area of Sápmi, which today encompasses parts of far northern Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Kola Peninsula of Russia, and the border area between south and middle Sweden and Norway. The Sámi are the only indigenous people of Scandinavia recognized under the international conventions of Indigenous peoples, and hence the northernmost indigenous people of Europe.^[6] Sami ancestral lands span an area of approximately 388,350 km² (150,000 sq. mi.), which is approximately the size of Sweden, in the Nordic countries. Their traditional languages are the Sami languages and are classified as a branch of the Uralic language family.

The term “Lap” or “Lapp” or “Laplander” is considered by most Sami to be pejorative.

The origin or meaning of the term is unknown, but however it came to be, the term was picked up by other countries and was the common term for the Sami. Like indigenous peoples in many other places, are a despised minority (although I hope that has lessened some). The bottom photo is from 1900.

While she’s quite prominent in the European folk music scene, I think I can safely say Mari is largely unknown here in the U.S. What a shame. Such powerful music. I’ll be listening to this a lot.