This anthology of folk tales, legends, joik-songs, proverbs, riddles, and omens represent the most comprehensive collection of Sámi oral tradition available in English to date. Collected in 1886 by A.V. Koskimies in the small arctic village of Aanaar (Inari), Finland, and later augmented by Toivo Itkonen and Lea Laitinen, it includes more than 150 stories and songs, and hundreds of proverbs, omens, and riddles, from nearly two dozen storytellers. It paints a picture of late nineteenth-century life in Aanaar, showing important changes occurring within the community, the hopes and fears of local people, and the complex web of social relations that existed both inside and outside the community.

A rich multivoiced anthology of folktales, legends, joik songs, proverbs, riddles, and other verbal art, this is the most comprehensive collection of Sámi oral tradition available in English to date. Collected by August V. Koskimies and Toivo I. Itkonen in the 1880s from nearly two dozen storytellers from the arctic Aanaar (Inari) region of northeast Finland, the material reveals a complex web of social relations that existed both inside and far beyond the community. First published in 1918 only in the Aanaar Sámi language and in Finnish, this anthology is now available in a centennial English-language edition for a global readership. Translator Tim Frandy has added biographies of the storytellers, maps and period photos, annotations, and a glossary. In headnotes that contextualize the stories, he explains such underlying themes as Aanaar conflicts with neighboring Sámi and Finnish communities, the collapse of the wild reindeer populations less than a century before, and the pre-Christian past in Aanaar. He introduces us to the bawdy humor of Antti Kitti, the didacticism of Iisakki Mannermaa, and the feminist leanings of Juho Petteri Lusmaniemi, emphasizing that folktales and proverbs are rooted in the experiences of individuals who are links in a living tradition.

The Sámi are Europe’s only recognized indigenous people living across regions of Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Russian Kola peninsula. The subjects of a history of Christianization, land dispossession, and cultural assimilation, the Sámi have through their self-organization since World War II worked towards Sámi political self-determination across the Nordic states and helped forge a global indigenous community. Accompanying this process was the emergence of a Sámi music scene, in which the revival of the distinct and formerly suppressed unaccompanied vocal tradition of joik was central. Through joiking with instrumental accompaniment, incorporating joik into forms of popular music, performing on stage and releasing recordings, Sámi musicians have played a key role in articulating a Sámi identity, strengthening Sámi languages, and reviving a nature-based cosmology. Thomas Hilder offers the first book-length study of this diverse and dynamic music scene and its intersection with the politics of indigeneity. Based on extensive ethnographic research, Hilder provides portraits of numerous Sámi musicians, studies the significance of Sámi festivals, analyzes the emergence of a Sámi recording industry, and examines musical projects and cultural institutions that have sought to strengthen the transmission of Sámi music. Through his engaging narrative, Hilder discusses a wide range of issues—revival, sovereignty, time, environment, repatriation and cosmopolitanism—to highlight the myriad ways in which Sámi musical performance helps shape notions of national belonging, transnational activism, and processes of democracy in the Nordic peninsula. Sámi Musical Performance and the Politics of Indigeneity in Northern Europe will not only appeal to enthusiasts of Nordic music, but, by drawing on current interdisciplinary debates, will also speak to a wider audience interested in the interplay of music and politics. Unearthing the challenges, contradictions and potentials presented by international indigenous politics, Hilder demonstrates the significance of this unique musical scene for the wider cultural and political transformations in twenty-first-century Europe and global modernity.

This is a modern reference work about the Saami, a northern indigenous people living in four states -- Finland, Norway, Russia and Sweden. It is the outcome of a project launched and co-ordinated by the Saami Studies Work Group of the University of Helsinki. The work presents the national character of the Saami and its manifestations from a point of view located within the Saami culture itself. It is thus part of the great change in scholarship about the Saami which began in the 1970s: the shift from Lappology to Saami Studies. In general and specialised articles, the encyclopaedia presents not only the languages, history, mythology, folklore, music, economy, livelihoods and media of the Saami but also the indigenous peoples' movement, human rights questions, education, art, social conditions, and so on. The nature and environment of S�pmi (Saamiland) are also dealt with as important background factors. Cultural words and concepts that are characteristic of Saami culture are defined, and there are etymological articles about many Saami words. The work is illustrated with numerous photographs and maps. Particular emphasis has been given to information about minority groups within the Saami people, such as the Saamis of the Kola Peninsula and the Inari and Skolt Saamis, who have hitherto been largely ignored by mainstream Saami Studies, and it has been the committee's concern to ensure that the voices of the different Saami groups themselves are heard.

It was the Kalevala that initiated the process leading to the foundation of Finnish identity during the nineteenth century and was, therefore, one of the crucial factors in the formation of Finland as a new nation in the twentieth century.