Powerful video of old sami singing style

Thought I had to share this video.

The Sami people, also spelled Sámi or Saami, are the indigenous Finno-Ugric people inhabiting the Arctic area of Sápmi, which today encompasses parts of far northern Norway, Sweden, 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 and protected under the international conventions of indigenous peoples, and hence the northernmost indigenous people of Europe.

The video is about a boy who lost his best friend four years ago, and the joik he sings is a tribute to his friend. He explains that he's had a tough childhood, being adopted from Colombia to northern Sweden, and being a sami.

When his best friend passed away four years ago, he went to his friends cabin and sat down outside and prayed. His friend then answered him with this joik, and it stuck in his head.



I see a lot of resemblance too the indigenous people of america, which makes me wonder if there are any connections there...

Anyhow, I thought the video was very touching, it feels like he's singing from his heart, and I wanted to share it!
The joik starts at around 2:30.

My grandmother is Sami. When her mother came to America and was living in a farming community, she was so in touch with the world and nature that the community called her a shaman and my grandmother always talked about the good relationship that her parents had with the local tribe. I think there's some distinct cultural similarities between the Sami and the Tribes here in the US. How much of that culture was passed down to me, I have no clue. I had the colorful outfit when I was a little girl and learned to read the weather from the skies. That's about it though. Kind of makes me sad that I don't recall ever meeting my great-grandmother as my grandmother said that she and I were so like each other.

This Sami song is one of my favorites:

The Sami were probably brought back by the vikings long ago by one of the Odin kings. I read they may have been from near Mexico.

Of course, that is from controversial sites with no proof backing the theory so it is total speculation.

The Sami DNA is unique. They may be aliens too, coming here in a big sled pulled by reindeer. Now that seems more believable.

reply to post by rickymouse


The Sami mtDNA, iirc, is believed to be West Asian/Siberian. I believe that, too, as many children born in my family are born with an epicanthic fold. When I was a baby, my mother said that a Japanese couple freaked out to see me because I looked like a blonde Asian. I passed that trait onto my own children and my youngest, who is half Nat Am, was frequently mistaken for being Asian as an infant. Guess her look was more believable because she had the dark hair and eyes. On me, it just looked freaky as a baby. I grew up looking okay though.

The tribes in the Americas, also iirc, have their origins in Siberia, Mongolia, and Central Asia. Odds are that either we do have the same root in the distant past with some of the tribes or were, at the least, neighbors.

reply to post by Zyril


Ahh, well... It's always the Sami old story....

Thanks for sharing.

reply to post by rickymouse


Sami people were here before others moved in from the east and south and forced Sami people to move northern parts in Scandinavia.

I believe there has been some connections as Sami people are/were still living like hunter/gatherers just like their forfathers did. We have no idea how long distances they have moved or where they have been to be where they are now, propably connection is through mongolia and Alaska but these people do not have genetic similarities with samojedis in Siberia.
Sami people have always lived isolated from the other world. What they do say is that Sami people are protoEuropean.
Sami as a language is Fenno-Ugric language and bases in protofinnish.

You need to keep in mind that Sami people are arctic people. There is not much knowledge of people populating Fennoscandia after the ice age only some linguistic references that they were not the first. The fact anyway is that they were here before the other Scandinavians came to inhabit here. .. and Vikings have nothing to do with this. They were hunter/gatherers before they stayed a bit more in certain areas when they started to reindeer husbandry.

reply to post by dollukka


One of the haplogroups for the Sami, Haplogroup Z, is common in Siberia/NE Asia/Volga-Ural populations. Source So it's there in the Sami population and I'm guessing that's where the occasional epicanthic fold comes from. I know I've got it and it seems to be somewhat dominant in my family though it seems to be losing strength with each generation.

In the present day, Sami aren't simply living in an isolated pocket though. Like any indigenous culture, sometimes the young leave and move to the cities or out of the country and they've been doing that for a while. That kind of thing drives me nuts a bit. It's like her school teacher teaching her class about how the Navajo dress in rug dresses or broomstick skirts (most dressed like everyone else in the US, the kids loved hip hop clothes) and live in hogans (hogans are rarely lived in these days but are used for ceremonies. most live in houses or trailers) on the Navajo reservation while my daughter is sitting there in the classroom saying "nuh uh" as a half-Navajo. There's traditional *insert ethnic group here* and non-traditional *insert same ethnic group*. My grandmother immigrated here to the US with her family when she was just a baby about 80 years ago if that tells you how long Sami have been moving around and how far. There's a few areas in the US where the Sami population is heavier, North Dakota and Minnesota being two of those states.

Totally agree that Sami are not Viking. I was taught that not all Norwegians (and not just Sami) are descended from Vikings. Vikings were a class of people within Scandinavian society according to my grandparents.

reply to post by WhiteAlice


I was very moved by the song you posted. Absolutely gorgeous!

I wish there were subtitles for the video in the OP but worth watching anyways!

reply to post by WhiteAlice


Even in 1970´s Sami people pretty much lived isolated in northern parts of Scandinavia called Lapland. Do you happen to know how big distances are in lapland? Lapland is very sparsely populated area for example finnish lapland is 100 369,18 km² in size and there are 182 522 people( this is 3,5% of total population of Finland ) now you need to understand that Sami people are not majority in towns in lapland , in Finland there is 3 towns in lapland, Rovaniemi ( 60 000 people ) Kemi ( 22 000 people ) Tornio (22 000 people ) and several small municipalities where population varies from 966 ( pelkosenniemi "home place of Andy McCoy from band Hanoi Rocks " ) to 8800 ( sodankylä which is largest municipality in Lapland). According to registry office of Finland there is 0,166 % Sami people in Finland this means there are about 9000 Sami people in this country.
Since when information era started about 1980+ Sami people have come closer to "mainland" but still about 50% of them still live in rural areas of lapland.
Schooling is mandatory and even today some Sami kids have to travel 190km a day to go school and back, more and more home schooling is approved as the the distances these kids have to travel is actually against the law here..

hope you get the picture

reply to post by dollukka


Actually, I do get that. I remember looking at the area where my family was from on a satellite map and kind of laughing because it didn't even look like there was a settlement. Not disagreeing there. My point was that some Sami have left those areas and entered into more populated, urban areas or even outright left the country. In the US, there are supposed to be like 30,000 people that are Sami or of Sami descent. Saying that all Sami are isolated isn't true. 50% still living out in the more remote areas is still only 50%.

reply to post by WhiteAlice


You are forgetting that 50% who have moved out happened not so long ago.

These numbers comes from Sami newspaper
Sami languages in Scandinavia, area 5 has most Sami speaking people about 20 000 totally its called northern sami, Kolta´s sami is speaked in area 6 and amount of them is only 300-400, Inari sami is spoken in area 7 and there are 300 of them, Kiltinä´s sami is spoken in area 8 and there is 700 people speaking it, Turja´s sami area 9 and less than 10 people speaks it, Luleå sami area 4 has 2000 people speaking it, Piitime sami number 3 has 20 people speaking it, Umeå sami area 2 is going down estimated 5 speaking, south sami area 1 about 500 speaking.
According to Sami people and their reasoning why sami people are now moving out is because children back in 70´s and 80´s had to stay away from their homes in boarding schools because of the long distances and were at home only in summer vacations and christmas vacations, they got used to modern living and technology.

reply to post by dollukka


They were leaving the area long before the 70's and 80's though. The US government actually sponsored an emigration of Sami in 1894 due to their reindeer herding prowess. That break in culture due to the boarding schools, however, doesn't surprise me in the slightest. Similar happened as a result of boarding schools here in the US and the tribes. The boarding schools basically acclimated the children to a different world from that of their parents and nearly eradicated both the language and culture of many tribes here in the US.

Personally, I never have gotten a straight answer out of my grandmother as to why her parents chose to come to the US. What she has said was that they moved to Oslo to try to have a better life and then left Oslo for the US due to "hardships". I've asked her in the past if she ever wanted to go back and she had no interest in the idea. Really dead set against it and that's a pretty pervasive attitude with my dad and his siblings to boot. My guess, based on what my grandmother has long said, not said, attitudes and recently clarified information was that it was probably discrimination related.

It's an interesting and sad thing that it seems like any indigenous culture experiences no matter where you look on the globe, isn't it?