Indigenous Aesthetics: Add Context to Context

Sámi Art and Aesthetics Contemporary Perspectives Sámi Art and Aesthetics Contemporary Perspectives © The authors & Aarhus University Press 2017 Graphic design and cover: Jørgen Sparre Type: Joanna Nova Paper: 130 g Galerie Art Volume Cover art: Ja, lihkastat gitta doložis (And, the movement from the past), Daban Da (Asbjørn Unor Forsøget and Gjert Rognli), 2005, video Cover photo: Gjert Rognli Drawing on pages 2 and 3: Johan Turi, Reindeer with packsaddles. Printed by Narayana Press, Denmark ISBN 978 87 7184 252 4 Printed in Denmark 2017 Aarhus University Press Finlandsgade 29 DK-8200 Aarhus N Denmark www.unipress.dk International distributors: Gazelle Book Services Ltd. White Cross Mills Hightown, Lancaster, LA1 4XS United Kingdom www.gazellebookservices.co.uk ISD 70 Enterprise Drive, Suite 2 Bristol, CT 06010 USA www.isdistribution.com Published with support from the Research Council of Norway and the Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences and Education, The Arctic University of Norway. Indigenous Aesthetics Indigenous Aesthetics: Add Context to Context By Harald Gaski In this essay, I want to focus on three perspectives that are important to Indigenous research.1 First, this essay will present this fast-growing discipline by describing a few pivotal approaches to the wider field of aesthetics seen from an Indigenous point of view. Secondly, I intend to introduce Sámi aesthetics as both a mode of and an instrument with which to (re)consider what aesthetics is all about in an Indigenous setting. Finally, these deliberations will be dealt with from the perspective of the general context of Indigenous research on art. The issue of how to theorise Indigenous knowledge or make it an object of academic research carries with it the question of how to communicate such knowledge to new users or make it applicable to broader scholarly research beyond the original, specific field of reference. Adapting such concepts can prove challenging. ‘Western’ academic terminology often proves ill-suited to describe the worldview and attitudes of an Indigenous culture; likewise, the norms of behaviour and value systems of an Indigenous culture can seem strange for someone operating within a Western sense of the world and self. Nevertheless, it is quite possible to adapt ways of understanding and modes of analysis from within a given community so that they can be applied to larger contexts. A linguistic and culturally-based translation that exceeds the limits of a merely linguistic rendition is possible; however, in a postcolonial setting this often implies an anti-imperial translation.2 Even if a concept has developed within a highly localised and intimate arena of activity, it may possess transcendent aspects that make it potentially generalisable to a much wider set of situations. Researchers in the field of Indigenous methodology have taken up such issues, particularly as they focus attention on concepts and understandings that operate within Indigenous cultures themselves. Many scholars within this field have argued for the notion that Indigenous cultures possess their own epistemologies, ones that can provide alternatives to Western scientific discourse.3 In this text, I will be using context both as historical, cultural, political and linguistic competence with the aim of improving the possibility of more thoroughly understanding the subject matter. It also covers the need for, and the 179 benefit of, extended comparative perspectives. I argue that we can learn from each other, not only from the trans-Indigenous sharing and exchange of ideas but also from general cosmopolitan debates within the humanities and social sciences. So the answer to the question ‘Why add context to context?’ is ‘In order to always understand more’. I will also be introducing a few Sámi terms as part of the context building. This is partly to indicate that an aesthetic discourse is taking place within Sámi cultural practices and to illustrate the presence of a terminology that, in its foundation, is aesthetic, although it may not always have been regarded as such. This is the case for many Indigenous cultures. Aesthetic practices have not primarily been viewed and classified as having to do with what is generally regarded as the field of aesthetics, but rather as part of functionality and practicality. My objective in discussing Sámi terms in this context mirrors what Chadwick Allen is attempting to achieve with his Trans-Indigenous approach: One of the multiperspectivist strategies of Trans-Indigenous is to place contemporary Indigenous literature in dialogue with other Indigenous arts and aesthetics.4 Allies For the advancement of Indigenous scholarship it is very important to have allies, people who think congenially and evaluate our activities favourably, people who try to understand what we are doing and why we are doing it, but who, at the same time, also dare to guide and criticise when needed. In order to celebrate these allies, I want to acknowledge their role early in this paper. Allies do not necessarily consist only of those people who have declared themselves to be supportive of Indigenous matters within academia. This group may also include a lot of people who, in their dealings with Indigenous peoples and cultures, have contributed to wider, fact-driven and correct information about the issues, and who treat indigeneity open-mindedly and fairly in their writings and teaching. We also find allies among scholars practicing postcolonial studies, postcolonial ecocriticism, human-animal relation studies, etc. Sometimes one gets the impression that some of the non-Native scholars seem to seek out disciplines like ecocriticism more or less in order to escape being classified under the rubric of Indigenous studies, because they either are not Indigenous themselves or because they find the Indigenous field too narrow in mind and scope. Cases like that present a challenge to look critically at how the discipline or study group or research unit actually defines itself and invites ‘others’ to join in. For the Indigenous side, we might want to ask ourselves whether we have become so exclusive that we, in fact, end up excluding non-Native 180 Critical Terms scholars. Is it fair that Indigenous scholars deserve and should keep some areas only to ourselves? I will let the question linger, not least because I know there is no easy answer. Still, I feel, there is a growing tendency to create meeting spaces between individual researchers, but institutional limitations often hinder our ability to include Indigenous views and values within formal scholarship and the daily life of universities and other institutions of higher learning. To my knowledge, the non-Native writer and now a professor emeritus of literature at Sarah Lawrence College in New York City, Arnold Krupat, has never expressed a wish or ambition to act as an ally. His interest in the field is first and foremost scholarly. His writings have been instrumental in the development of Native American literary criticism. They have also generated a lot of important critical study that, in turn, has contributed to the field both theoretically and methodologically. This is particularly interesting when seen in the light of a tendency among some Indigenous people to keep non-Native scholars outside, a situation hinted at in this quotation from Krupat: We often say ‘we’, most usually implying, I think, anybody who reads this stuff and/or participates in its production. But this can be tricky in Native American literary studies where, as I’ve noted, a certain residual identity politics makes some of ‘us’ more ‘us’ than others of ‘us’.5 Krupat spent the better part of his career studying Native American literature. The fact that he is not an Indigenous person himself made it even more important for him to clarify the ground, review the premises and explain how and why he became interested in the field. Over the years, this has led to quite an extensive body of written material, both his own theoretical contributions and all the responses his work has generated. Responses to his work have included heated discussion papers, analytical criticism, problematising of the premises as well as a great deal of support and encouragement. Before moving on, let me just add another dimension of context. I am thinking of the shoulders that I am standing on, the people who have inspired me with their research and publications. I will list just a few of them: Linda Smith and Craig Womack’s ground-breaking books from 1999, Graham Smith’s authoritative writings on turning away from a re-active politics into a pro-active praxis wherein ‘we’ are at the centre, Marie Battiste’s reclaiming of Indigenous voice and vision, and Shawn Wilson’s celebration of research as ceremony, along with several others. So plentiful are the contributions made in the last few decades that I could fill an entire chapter simply by naming all of the important recent publications within the wide field of Indigenous research. Indigenous Aesthetics 181 Four different perspectives My point of departure is that of a literary scholar. For that reason, it makes sense to refer to a researcher of literature, although I would contend that several of the points mentioned below should be relevant to other disciplines as well. Krupat’s book Red Matters (2002) is where he first introduced his three different perspectives on Native American scholarship, which, over the last two decades, has grown to four perspectives: the nationalist, the transnationalist, the trans-indigenist, and the cosmopolitan (the original three were nationalist, indigenist, and the cosmopolitan). I will not delve into a purely theoretical presentation of these perspectives; rather, I will give you what I hope can function as a demonstration of how each of these approaches can work together in an analysis that opens up the potential for the interpretation of the subject matter in order to gain a richer understanding of cultural expressions than could be had by using only one of these approaches. The illustration is mainly developed on the basis of Krupat’s Red Matters and an essay published in 2013 in which he extends the three perspectives into four.6 Nationalist Nation, Nation — people, (Sovereignty) Transnationalist Transcultural, Tribal cultural nationalist Trans-Indigenist Earth, Geocentric worldview, Traditional knowledge, Cross-Indigenist, Comparative Indigenism Cosmopolitan Comparative, anti-imperial translation, Ethnocritical comparativism A more extensive historical account of the evolution of the four perspectives can be read in Krupat’s 2013 essay.7 One idea that has been central to deliberations on nationalism in Indigenous studies, and perhaps most so within Native American scholarship, is the notion of sovereignty. For the nationalist perspective, it is important to keep in mind that for the most part in Indigenous discourse on the subject there is a significant difference between European concepts of sovereignty deriving from the idea of a nation-state relation and Indigenous conceptions instead of a nation-people relation. In Scott Lyons’ words, ‘It has always been from an understanding of themselves as a people that Indians have constructed themselves as a nation’.8 The term nationalist is used in relationship to the terms indigenist and cosmopolitan for perspectives on scholarship in an Indigenous context. This per- 182 Critical Terms spective is grounded in the cultural background and the reservoir of knowledge possessed by each individual tribe or people as a community. The term itself is theoretical and expresses a chosen approach to research, but it has also, over time, been connected to Indigenous peoples themselves conducting that research. As a continuation of the nomenclature discussion one might suggest using the term Indigenism for the entire field of study, as a reference to the theoretical discussions within the field of Indigenous studies. The cosmopolitan perspective has, as its name suggests, a global aim. It seeks to be international and comparative. It can also be presented as cosmopolitan comparativism,9 i.e. as an attempt to discover what the common values among different Indigenous cultures are, and perhaps also, what it is that differentiates them from the general Western/dominant discourse.10 For the Sámi, the nationalist perspective aims to include the entire Sámi people as an entity or community without emphasising the details that divide and focusing, instead, on that which binds together. A cosmopolitan perspective includes an analysis grounded in a common disciplinary and methodological approach to the subject matter that is simultaneously aware of specific linguistic and cultural conditions that affect the analysis. It would, for instance, be feasible to use Sámi terms and a so-called ‘Sámi understanding’ in a cosmopolitan analysis, but these things would then have to be explicated and made accessible to an international reader. In order for the Indigenous perspective to be interesting as a global scholarly resource, it is necessary that Indigenous scholars be willing to communicate and function as mediators in our practice of indigenist and cosmopolitan comparative scholarship, as Winona Wheeler also asserts: As scholars we are expected to be mediators, translators, and bridges between Indigenous communities and the larger academic world which often places us in the position of meeting two, often disparate and contradictory, sets of standards. […] While some would scream “not fair!” the requirement that we meet two sets of standards should not be much of a surprise, after all, we are ‘citizens plus,’ we do want the best of both worlds.11 In keeping with Margaret Kovach, I would also like to note the distinction between tribal knowledge and Indigenous knowledge in that ‘Tribal knowledge refers to a specific tribal way of knowing, the term Indigenous knowledges, however, acknowledges both the shared commonalities and the diversity of many tribal ways of knowing’.12 Indigenous Aesthetics 183 Trans- could be the next post-: Trans-Indigenous studies In his book Trans-Indigenous: methodologies for global Native literary studies (2012), Chadwick Allen suggests leaving the concept of ands and comparative, and starting to experiment ‘with the idea of global literary studies (primarily) in English that are trans-Indigenous’. This perspective, he claims in a later article, ‘will not follow a simple program of instructions or abstractions, but rather will develop through a practice of focused interactions across, beyond, and through juxtaposed works of Indigenous self-representation’.13 My proposal is thus not that literary studies should follow established models for Indigenous comparisons. Rather, I propose taking up methodologies that are trans-Indigenous, a broad set of emerging practices designed explicitly to privilege reading across, through, and beyond tribally and nationally specific Indigenous texts and contexts. [. . .] [S]uch practices decenter the settler nation-state’s articulation of standards for determining literary value (what counts as a legitimate approach to reading, contextualization, interpretation, and theory). [. . .] We are talking about the possibility of literary scholarship that is Indigenous-centered on a global scale.14 As we can see, Allen, too, is focusing on the need to read text and context together, as well as giving a greater emphasis to Indigenous self-representations in dialogue with other Indigenous arts and aesthetics. ‘Literary scholars, I argue, ought to join writers, artists, and art scholars to engage in Indigenous-centred conversations across the boundaries of traditional disciplines’.15 While Allen gives a lot of credit to the paradigm-shifting works of Linda Tuhiwai Smith and Craig Womack, both published in 1999, he still poses the challenge to other disciplines about how, for example, scholars working within text-based humanities and arts disciplines, including literary studies, should appropriate Smith’s ideal ‘decolonizing’ methodological practices. These practices were developed within the context of education and other sociologically based research, typically conducted on individual human subjects and in human communities.16 It is against this kind of backdrop and challenge that I hope a version of Sámi aesthetics can be developed (and that is actually the project I am currently working on). Sovereignty to exert Indigenous understandings In order to further explain some of the reasoning behind the emphasis on the need to take an Indigenous-centred interpretation seriously, let us turn to two 184 Critical Terms quotations from one of the paradigm-shifting works mentioned by Chadwick Allen, namely Red on Red by the Native American scholar Craig Womack: Native literature and Native literary criticism written by Native authors is part of sovereignty: Indian people exercising the right to present images of themselves and to discuss those images. A key component of nationhood is a peoples’ idea of themselves, their imaginings of who they are. The ongoing expression of a tribal voice through imagination, language and literature contributes to keeping sovereignty alive in the citizens of a nation and gives sovereignty a meaning that is defined within the tribe rather than by external sources.17 My argument is not that this is the only way to understand Creek writing, but an important one given that literatures bear some kind of relationship to communities, both writing communities and the community of the primary culture from which they originate. In arguing, then, that one viable approach is to examine Creek authors to understand Creek texts, or, more generally, Native authors to understand Native textual production, this study assumes that there is such a thing as a Native perspective and that seeking it out is a worthwhile endeavor.18 Although there may be many issues to discuss concerning Womack’s arguments and their implications, they still demonstrate the kind of sentiment behind the thinking of how to practice sovereignty in a contemporary Indigenous academic institutional setting. My primary intention with these quotations is to illustrate some of the reasoning of Indigenous scholars when they (we) attempt to construct an alternative to the ‘Western’ curricular catalogue with which we were presented in the late 1900s. At present, the exciting call to Indigenous scholarship is how to evolve methodologies that are fully able to meet the situation of Indigenous ‘otherness’ as an experience of confronting the ‘self’ in a new way, that is, of seeing the Indigenous self from a different Indigenous perspective.19 While embarking on this worthwhile enterprise, it is important to keep in mind the advice that the Torres Strait Islander and professor of education Martin Nakata and his co-authors gently present in regard to borrowing concepts and meanings across groups. What they say, essentially, is that this needs to be done with caution. [...] in the context of the international field of Indigenous Studies scholarship, the borrowing of concepts and meanings across groups [...] also generalises from the specific inter-relations between traditional knowledge practice, colonial experience, and contemporary concerns and goals that exist in local spaces. This need not be a problem if brought to awareness in analytical accounts; knowledge re-working routinely involves Indigenous Aesthetics 185 utilising other ideas. It is a problem if this knowledge production is not transparent and mystifies its sources by a practice of homogenising or universalising the Indigenous.20 I fully agree, although I would not want this to forestall the very positive possibilities that the careful and respectful borrowing and application of terms across ethnic and cultural borders may provide in a productive and progressive use of all possible aspects of a transcendent practice in Indigenous research. In Krupat’s words, I would like to distinguish the move from an indigenist to a trans-indigenist position like this: For the indigenist critic, it is not the nation, but rather, the earth — nature, the ecosphere, or biosphere — that is the source of the knowledge and values a critic must bring to bear on literary analysis. [. . .] indigenist criticism, at least for literary studies in the U.S., has become more nearly trans-Indigenous; it has moved, this is to say, to comparative indigenist studies that note but do not take much account of matters of nationality, boundaries, and borders.21 For the cosmopolitan critic, it was also important to ‘see the ways in which the literatures of many peoples around the globe operated in opposition to colonial domination’.22 It is appropriate here to mention that all the activity, the intense deliberations on perspectives, approaches, identity matters, the questions of who is fronting what kind of view, demonstrates, in its totality, the extent to which Indigenous scholars and views have actually entered the stage and been included in theoretical and methodological discussions. This also means that the Indigenous voice has developed from simply claiming its own space to actually making itself heard on the same terms as all the other voices. We no longer have to ask to mute the ‘White’ noise in order to dare speak. We are, on the contrary, ourselves becoming just as noisy as all the others. Therefore, there are very good reasons to celebrate the success of Indigenous scholarship globally and toast its continued success. Because no victory is forever, one always has to fight on to keep what has been gained. One of the interesting things that Indigenous research represents is cross-disciplinarity. In keeping with my previous references to the different perspectives of Native American studies, my assumption is that a major contribution of Indigenous methodologies to the world is sharing and promoting the wisdom of Indigenous peoples’ stories that life itself, and our existence on this earth, is not divided into sections. We live our lives fully, holistically, and therefore the research that is connected with us should do the same. Whether we name it cross- or trans- or inter-Indigenous may be of less importance. What this idea expresses is the will to see human existence in relation to the world 186 Critical Terms surrounding us, a world wherein we share our Earth with the rest of its inhabitants. This cross- and/or interdisciplinariness is, of course, very relevant to any kind of aesthetic evaluation with regard to Indigenous expressions of art. Dåajmijes vuekie — Sámi aesthetics I will spend the remainder of this essay discussing the concept of aesthetics among the Sámi. It is my firm conviction that aesthetics will prove to be the next big thing within Indigenous research, because aesthetics create an opportunity to use a holistic approach to the research subject. This provides an opportunity for the application and demonstration of the full potential of the Indigenous research paradigm. There are several concepts in the various Sámi dialects that can be linked to notions and practices pertaining to what is regarded as aesthetic. I am speaking here of aesthetics in a much wider context than the common dictionary definition of what is regarded as ‘beautiful’ — a problematic concept since the notion of ‘beauty’ is relative and contextual.23 For example, in Kristoffer Sjulsson’s book, a work based on oral interviews Sjulsson conducted with O.P. Pettersson during the period 1904–05, we can find a number of examples of the fact that Sámi had no desire to categorise human activities or one’s environment in any rigid either/or dichotomy but rather on the basis of an array of choices of varying utility. Value judgments are not based on outward appearance so much as the relation of a thing’s form to its intended purpose. Concerning objects made by people, for instance, Sjulsson notes that ‘“ugly” objects are those which are scruffy, uneven, with corners or edges that stand out…Most objects are neither beautiful nor ugly’. ‘Beautiful’ things, Sjulsson characterizes as ‘symmetrical and streamlined, with no protruding corners or edges, well adapted for their intended purpose’. 24 It is an interesting question in the study of aesthetics: whether one can describe the good or less good aspects of an object or idea without resorting to the concepts of ‘ugliness’ and ‘beauty’.25 Sámi artists felt it necessary a few decades ago to coin a separate concept for ‘art’ in order to distinguish it from applied art or traditional artistic practices. Dáidda became the term for modern art, while duodji designates traditional activities. This view reflects a discipline-limited understanding of Sámi aesthetic practices reminiscent of the tendency in ‘Western’ scholarship to compartmentalise every activity into narrow boxes representing the academic’s view of specificity, rather than being open to the interaction between the specific and the general. Duodji has been regarded as an applied art with its own measures and traditions for mimicking, but there was, and is, no statement that prohibits providing new content to a traditional term in Sámi. On the contrary, there are several examples of well-functioning extended definitions of traditional terms. Indigenous Aesthetics 187 An indigenist methodologist might well argue that the proper thing to do would have been to extend the meaning of duodji to also encompass new art as dáidda. However, this might have provoked the duodji practitioners, because they are inclined to keep their handicraft concept clear and limited to traditional practices. Let us, however, spend no more time on this issue. It is sufficient to state that in an Indigenous understanding no term can exist in a vacuum; it has to relate to the wholeness of what is being regarded as an accepted and functional /‘beautiful’ way of living and behaving. The concepts chosen are expected to simultaneously describe and prescribe a holistic approach to life in general, and more specifically how to live a life in accordance with traditional views of respect and beauty. In other words, when trying to describe aesthetics in an Indigenous setting, one automatically, and naturally, ends up explaining much more than the limited dictionary explanation of the term. As stated at the beginning of my essay, one needs to add context to context (another expression borrowed from Arnold Krupat) in order to understand more. This obviously represents an important dimension of Indigenous methodology as an overarching conceptualisation for guidance, interpretation and understanding. Turning the aesthetic table I have chosen to talk about Sámi aesthetics in full awareness of the associations readers may have with the term aesthetics. One might actually view this as a variant of an Indigenous re-appropriation of the term, in the sense that it is imbued with Sámi content similar to its original meaning. There is no doubt that the Sámi have had conceptions comparable and pertaining to aesthetics. In order to stay within the same context and understanding, it is only proper to use the corresponding international term to describe Sámi aesthetics. In the subtitle above, I have suggested the use of the South Sámi term dåajmijes vuekie for Sámi aesthetics. This corresponds to a definition of aesthetics similar to Sjulsson’s explanation. In this way, the reader’s mind will immediately turn in the right direction for understanding the discussion of ‘beauty’ in a Sámi setting. If I attempted to turn the tables, I could contend that aesthetics in ‘Western’ traditions lack the full implication of what Sámi mean when we talk about aesthetics. Historically, things were the other way around. Indigenous cultures were usually explained as lacking this and that idea, concept or tradition. Going to the majority schools and learning about one’s own Indigenous culture always meant hearing that Sámi is a ‘lacking’ language compared to Norwegian. Thus, we grew to believe that Sámi was an inferior language. The truth, as I learnt later, is that Sámi is just as rich as any other language on earth. Our terminology is, however, developed for life experiences in an Arctic climate, which means that the vocabulary may have a different set of references compared to, for instance, a Mediterranean 188 Critical Terms language. However, the ability to describe and discuss human experiences and behaviour is just as much an integral part of Sámi as it is in any other language. Once again, the issue is not better or worse, richness or poverty of terminology, but rather difference. In Sámi tradition, making something beautiful entailed making it functional, ensuring that it was grounded in a solid foundation of knowledge, competence and technique, but also in a humility that signalled awareness of others and a cognisance of one’s role in a wider collective. If you allow me, just briefly, to return to the Sámi term duodji, I would assert that traditionally all of the above was implied in the term. In an extended, modernised use of the term it would be possible to furnish it with the content of current expressions of art. In terms of ethics and philosophy, drawing carefully on traditional knowledge to create things of effectiveness and usefulness was the correct Sámi way to behave, the aesthetically ideal way, the most beautiful course of action. These are also the unwritten conditions of dåajmijes vuekie, which I would call a Sámi equivalent of Indigenous methodology. It comprises a holistic approach to being human and acting accordingly, i.e. paying respect to fellow citizens, traditions, nature, and one’s own surroundings. Dåajmijes vuekie contains a scholarly perspective (a rich vocabulary of concepts pertaining to all kinds of human activity), an ethical perspective (approach and conduct) and a community responsive perspective (implying a requirement of returning the knowledge to your local community). This last perspective is a variant of Jace Weaver’s claim to Native American scholarship of communitism, a combination of community and activism.26 Dåajmijes vuekie is in no way a new discovery. It has always been around, although not necessarily as a concept used to explain aesthetics. One might say that dåajmijes vuekie unifies tradition and innovation in establishing the foundation for a critique based on ethically responsible approaches to interpretation and analysis. It establishes future forms of evaluation based on historical consciousness and respect for traditions and cultural values; in its own way, it intellectualises an oral culture’s ways of acting and being together. Do traditional values have any utility in a postcolonial world? All of these considerations can prove challenging when attempting to create a culturally informed system of aesthetic appraisal and interpretation for modern works of art that may not have been produced in accordance with traditional values or perhaps not with reference to social or cultural values whatsoever, as in the example of dáidda as opposed to duodji. Matters prove much simpler when the object of analysis belongs to the category of ‘traditional cultural product’ in Indigenous Aesthetics 189 which the producer’s grasp of established cultural norms and techniques can be appraised by experts possessing similar knowledge. It is also intriguing to examine the extent to which such analyses can be applied to non-traditional items of cultural production as well, for instance, in the areas of visual art, literature and music. Do traditional values and perspectives still have utility in the analysis of postmodern or postcolonial products?27 This question is of great relevance to researchers in Indigenous studies. Another Sámi example, here, could have been the terminology, or rather epistemology, pertaining to different ways of performing juoigan (yoik), a genre of traditional Sámi singing. However, that would necessitate recognising a whole range of specific Sámi terms describing the variety of aesthetics in connection with yoik. While this would have been an interesting endeavour, it would bring us into another field of artistic expressions inhabiting its own rules and regulations. This would, of course, exceed the allocated space for this article. Conclusion: humans in nature in context In closing this essay, I would like to focus attention on the great Sámi multimedia artist Nils-Aslak Valkeapää (1943–2001), his understanding of the place of human beings in nature, what impact this view had on his aesthetic practices and viewpoints, and how these can contribute to our attempt to establish a viable Indigenous aesthetics. Eanni, eannážan (The Earth, My Mother) is the title of one of the three most important books written by Nils-Aslak Valkeapää. In many ways, it is his gift to the Indigenous peoples of the world, a praise poem in words and images. It is written in Northern Sámi — the native language of the north of Sápmi — but it addresses Indigenous peoples the world over. One wonders why Valkeapää chose to write one of his most internationally-oriented works in Sámi. This choice of language has certainly limited the work’s circulation and reception.28 To Valkeapää, however, the choice of language was obvious. One expresses one’s thoughts best in one’s native language, and it was those thoughts, those insights, that Valkeapää wanted to share with his fellow Indigenous readers in the wider world. Valkeapää’s choice reflects the value he placed on language, particularly on one’s native language, even when seeking to communicate beyond the local to the global. Eanni, eannážan shares with all of Valkeapää’s books a characteristic attention to the ways in which individual components of the work — its words, images, layout and associations — combine to create a larger unity, a mosaic in which the sum is greater than its parts. In Eanni, eannážan, this unity challenges the reader to contemplate broader questions of our place as individuals, as cultures and as societies in relation to an ambient environment that sustains all life, 190 Critical Terms including our own. It is a challenge to every person to view themselves as part of a larger cosmic collective, to live one’s life in a manner that demonstrates an Indigenous, aesthetic sense of life. The sequence ‘My Home Is in My Heart’ in Valkeapää’s collection of poems Trekways of the Wind is, perhaps, his single most widely known work of poetry. In this text, the classic Western notions of property and ownership are juxtaposed with a Sámi understanding of ‘home’ built upon an awareness of one’s relationship to the environment and its specific locales. It is a poem that enunciates an Indigenous respect for nature and a thankfulness for the gifts, as well as the challenges, that the earth presents to us. It is an Indigenous love yoik to the lands and waters and a poignant statement of the sorrows that one feels when one’s right to care for and live in relation to those entities is taken away. It is an elegiac work that gives voice to the sentiments of Indigenous people around the world, but it also stands as a call to action to resist the forces that seek to deny and destroy such essential and life-giving relationships in one’s personal life and in the wider struggle to protect and respect Mother Earth. Herein lies the most essential core of the aesthetic act of being mindful, particularly in contact with — in contract with — our Mother the earth. It is the particular role of Indigenous peoples to remind the rest of humanity of this crucial idea without which we cannot hope to survive. Indigenous Aesthetics 191 Bibliography Leuthold, S. (1998). Indigenous Aesthetics: Native Art, Media, and Identity. Allen, C. (2012). Trans-Indigenous. Methodologies for Global Native Lyons, S. (2010). 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Kappfjell deals with similar perspectives 1 in Southern Sámi. herself in Vuelieh jïh Tjïhtesh (2008), her book is only available 2 In this text, I use capital ‘I’ when speaking about Indigenous peoples as a common denominator in the same way one uses 26 Weaver 1997: xi. a capital letter for nationality; like Sámi, Native American, 27 Vizenor 2009. First Nation and so on. 28 Especially when we take into consideration how difficult Krupat 1996: 32; 2002: 65–66. it is to fund the printing and publication of the English Kovach 2009; Kuokkanen 2009, 2007; Smith 2012, [1999]; translation of the book. The translation has been ready for Wilson 2008. quite some time, but there are no funding possibilities for a 4 Allen 2012: xxii. Sámi book translated into English as long as it is published 5 Krupat 2013. in Norway. And there are, of course, no foreign publishers 6 Based on Krupat, 2013 and 2002. interested in taking a risk on a costly Sámi project since Sámi 7 Some of the problems surrounding these concepts are literature has yet to achieve much international recognition. explored in Allen’s essay from 2014. The question is, who will take the first steps to fund a long Lyons 2000: 454. needed work focusing on Sámi literature internationally? 3 8 9 Krupat 2002. 10 Compare this to the ‘stricter’ requirements of an Indigenouscentred approach in Allen’s trans-Indigenous concept below. 11 Wheeler 2001: 97. 12 Kovach 2009: 20. 13 Allen 2014: 392. 14 Allen 2014: 378. 15 Allen 2012: xxii. 16 Allen 2012: xx. 17 Womack 1999: 14. 18 Womack 1999: 4. 19 Allen 2014: 391. 20 Nakata et al. 2013. 21 Krupat 2013. 22 Krupat 2013. 23 I am fully aware that this kind of discussion is not only restricted to Indigenous research and this category’s use of concepts. In this essay I chose to remain within the limits of the chosen topic, meaning that I had to omit interesting discussions on the politicisation of aesthetics and the debate around the struggle to preserve the autonomy of art from all kinds of aestheticisation and commodification. 24 Bäckman and Kjellström 1979: 91. 25 I want to credit and acknowledge my colleague and coworker on the Sámi aesthetics project, Lena Kappfjell, both for providing the term dåajmijes vuekie as the most pertinent for describing the content and meaning of Sámi aesthetics, and also for making me aware of the descriptions by Indigenous Aesthetics 193