Adress:
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112 46 Stockholm
Telefon: 08-667 88 90
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E-post: council@klys.se
Kulturriksdag Visby May 16-19 2007
© - Rose-Marie Huuva artist / author Kiruna – Sweden
Ladies and Gentlemen,
first of all I want to thank you for inviting me to this Nordic Cultural Assembly.
The title “Om den samiska kulturen – About the Sámi culture”,
is very extensive, it would take some hours to present our culture.
I was asked to talk about my experience with the publication of this book Viidát-
Vidd – Wide, poems from Sápmi.
Very often I get the feeling that many people from outside think that our culture belongs to the past, the museums.
Why is it, that paintings, sculptures, and other artistic expressions of Sámi artists even today, often are exhibited with historical museum items?
Why is it, that the launching of a poetry book with Sámi authors must take place at a museum in 2006?
I think it would be unthinkable for a Swedish author to launch a
poetry book under the big statue of king Gustav Vasa at the Nordic Museum.
The publisher company Podium decided to publish a Sámi / Swedish poetry book and I was asked to write the book.
First I sad no, because I was working with the manuscript to this book in Sámi “Ii mihkkege leat – Nothing is”.
I suggested names of other Sámi authors, but Podium kept calling me.
After negotiations with Podium, the decision was to publish a book with four Sámi authors.
The reason for me to contribute was that I saw a chance for me to reach more readers, with a book in Sámi and Swedish.
I decided a theme that difference from the poems I had written before.
My poems in this book are based on historical facts from the year 1123, with the first border dividing our land, now we live in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia, up to what I have experienced myself during my time.
After sending the poems to the publishing company, I did not hear anything for weeks, so I thought that the content of my poems was too heavy to be published by Podium.
When the editor eventually called me, she sad that reading the poems was like getting a punch in the stomach.
After followed what seemed to be an endless journey, I did regret more than once that I had let me talked in to the project, and I must say that it is much easier to work with a publishing company with the same cultural values. You don’t have to be so strong, explain over and over again to get an understanding for your point of view.
For instance I had to take a fight to preserve the content in my poems.
Just before the book was ready for the press, Podium decided to engage a Swedish translator.
A new process started to change the first translation, made by the authors and two Sámi language advisers.
Without knowing Sámi the translator made her own translation and even suggested corrections in the Sámi version. For my own part I couldn’t accept the new Swedish version with a lot of misinterpretations.
It is difficult to translate Sámi if you don’t master the language.
The inflectional endings makes the Sámi language very precise, some times I need up to seven Swedish words for two words in Sámi.
When the book finally was ready, then came the next chock, the
publisher company had set the date to launch the book at the Nordic Museum in Stockholm.
First I thought it was a joke, for me to launch the book there was unthinkable.
The Nordic Museum has not exactly been associated with anything that benefits the Sámi people, on the contrary. The Museum is one symbol of the colonization
of our land, keeping thousands of old Sámi cultural treasures, our cultural heritance, the Nordic Museum stores the worlds largest collection of Sámi shaman drums, not accessible for us.
Podium started to persuade me. I had several phone calls and e-mails with them and the Museum, to make them understand why I didn’t think it was a good idea. If they wanted, they could go on launching the book at the Nordic Museum with the other authors, I could stand outside the Museum and read my poems.
Why not the Culture house in the centre of Stockholm – but no - that was not possible.
At that time I was so feed up with the hole thing so I suggested a Lávvu – a Sámi tent in the middle of Sergels square, outside the Culture House.
Then Podium came up with another Museum. The Ethnographic Museum was going to have a Sámi week, and launching the book would fit in to their program.
At least that Museum had a much better cooperation with the Sámi and they have a policy to return museums items to native people, for instance a Totempole was returned to the Haisla indians in Canada.
What we didn’t know was, that the Friends of the Museum, had planned a one hour panel discussion with a professor emeritus in the history of religions and a retired commissioner in Sámi rights in connection to our program, and that there was a entrants fee to the event.
The Sámi week at the Museum, was in the end only that evening program.
This is a copy printed from an internet site April 27, 2006, a comment to the event, I read a translation from the site:
The poems were so dreadful, so that the hair was rising on the head – the audience was chocked.
Rose-Marie Huuva started to read – and the hair was rising on the head of most people in the audience – so also for Goods angels. Terrible true stories.
After followed normal poems, about the power of the nature, the life and love,
end of the quotation.
The last comment is interesting, the theme in my poems was not normal
was not expected from a Sámi author.
Today I can say that all the trouble with this book in the end has been worth while, I have learnt a lot. I have reached my aim, to get out the message,
this because the book is in Sámi and Swedish.
My poems in the book Viidát, have been published in different publications, for instance this about reconciliation published by the Swedish church.
I have read the poems in radio and TV programs, at the Gothenburg's Book Fair last year, at the poetry festival Nuilersup Qilaap in Greenland coordinated by Jessie Kleeman who is here today, some of the poems have been translated to Greenlandic.
But the most important is that I have been able to use visual art, my installation “Object for research – how long” and the poems in Viidát in my campaign to return my ancestors craniums and skeletons to the graves where they were
stolen from, so has now also the Sámi Parliament in Sweden officially done.
The minister of culture Lena Adelsohn Liljeroths comment is that she was going to work to get the Sámi remainings back where they belong as soon as possible.
I am very glad and hopefully her comment is the first step, but I know that the Museums and the scientists are against it, they regard our ancestors remainings as their personal possession. In this issue their way of thinking and their arguments are the same as it was in the 1900th century, when the digging of Sámi graves was most intensive.
Recently I got a request from the Nordic Museum to use one of my poems from the book Viidát in the new permanent Sámi exhibition. I was surprised and I haven’t made my decision yet. The museum wants to use the poem in Swedish! I think, this reflects a lack of knowledge in their work with the new exhibition.
For me, to use only the Swedish version is out of question and I don’t know if I want to put my energy to fight, getting the poem in Sámi, at the Sámi exhibition.
I will end this story by reading one poem from the book Viidát – first in Sámi -
followed by a brief English translation.
In the poem I mention Leastadius. He was a priest in Karesuando in Northern Sweden 1826 – 1849.
From the book Viidát – Wide poems from Sápmi 1-2.
© - Rose-Marie Huuva 2006.
In those days
alcohol was a common trading goods
among the priests
Laestadius is preaching
exhorting the sinful Sámi people
to conversion
salvation
his commodity is
of another kind
Sámi craniums
the priest and his servant
are digging the graves
severing the skulls from the bodies
stuffing in big sacks
even the silver disappears
Laestadius goods
have a good sale
high market value
occasionally
he gets special orders
one racial scientist
demands the cranium
of a sámi infant
A sharp edge
cuts the head
from the childs cold body
the family is morning their child
2.
at the funeral
the mother and father
are spared from the knowledge
that the priest
is blessing their child
without a head
to Goods blessedness
Sámi craniums
were in great demand
among racial scientists
the research institutes
and the museums collections
are filled with craniums
Isn’t it time to return them
Our ancestors remainings
without their heads
are waiting in the graves
at the resurrcetion