Joik

The joik (pronounce: “yoïk”) is the traditional song of the people Saami. Resulting from the chamanic traditions, carried out cappella has, sometimes accompanied by the traditional drum, the joik is initially a song with spiritual vocation before becoming a mode of expression of the people saami at the end of the 20th century. The traditional joik is divided into three great styles of song: the “luohti”, the “vuolle” and the “leu' dd” according to the geographic origin of the tribes saami which have it create. The song can take extremely varied forms and leaves a broad place to the improvisation of the singer: the joiker.

A joik has as a function to describe the gasoline of a person, a place or an animal. Thus, each man or woman saami has his melody which is to some extent its “musical portrait”. The principal characteristic of the joiks is the use of syllables repeated on several occasions. So some joiks are made up true comprehensible texts, it exists also forms in which no word is distinct, but which is made up of murmurs, interjections and imitations of animal cries stressed on a pulsation. Built on a pentatonic scale, the joik carries the characteristics of the styles of gutturaux songs of the mountain people. It presents important similarities with the Amerindian traditional songs or with the songs of throat of the people Inuits or the people of Central Asia. Colonization operated by the Christian missionaries at the beginning of the XIXe century (to be started with that of Lars Levi Laestadius, which gave rise to a specific branch of Scandinavian Christianity, the branch “laestadienne”) placed Saami in front of the sad truth of the cultural genocide. In 1685, under the influence of the Church of Norway, the majority of the drums chamanic (single instrument of accompaniment of the joik), are flarings. Prohibition, during nearly 300 years of the joik and the drum chamanic could have been right definitively of the tradition saami. However, of many songs arrived until our days mainly thanks to the alcoholic saami which allowed the perpetuation of the joik because they continued to sing it in a state of intoxication in spite of prohibition.

The production discographic saami experiences a significant development since the publication in 1968 of the first disc recorded by an artist saami: the Joijuka album, of the Nile Aslak Valkeapää (“Ailohas” of its name same). Work of the Nile will be for much in the rebirth of the joik. At the end of the years 1980, the international recognition from which the singer Mari BOINE profited made it possible the saami cause to be made hear through its committed and militant texts and of the electroacoustic melodies. This new style of interpretation of the traditional songs saami will inspire a whole generation of new artists: Wimme, Transjoik, Ulla PIRTTIJÄRVI…

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