| Summary: | The focus of the dissertation is on the performance of the yoiks, what the yoikers tell the audience and what the yoikers mean with their narratives. The results demonstrate that the verbal art of yoik includes both song and spoken messages. The analysis of the yoik tradition is couched within performance theory. The discussions of the performance give keys to understanding storytelling, oral history, verbal art and a means to recognize when a yoiksong, vuolle, begins or when it stops and why the performer yoiks its vuolle the way he or she does. I argue that an inside perspective in conjunction with performance theory, provides a highly fruitful method to research in yoik tradition. In order to understand the tacit knowledge in the performance, it has been highly relevant to discuss the seminal work by the Sami author Johan Turi and to compare his theories with Sami scholars like Israel Ruong, Nils Jernsletten and Harald Gaski. In the 1900s there were three broader documentation projects of yoik tradition in Sweden. The first one was conducted in the 1910s by Karl Tirén, who used the phonograph and wax cylinders. In the 1940s the Institute of Language and Folklore (ULMA/SOFI) undertook a documentation project and in the 1950s the Swedish Radio did so too. Now, it was now possible, with the modern technology, to analyse the yoik tradition in new ways. It enables re-listening to the stories that was told and to see them in a context where the performers’ artistic skill, together with their social background and their relation to their audience is made visible. It has been discussed if there was an epic yoik tradition in South Sami areas. One hypothesis says that epic yoik was found only in northern areas in close connection to Finnish culture. However, this study shows that there was an epic yoik tradition in southern Lapland and probably the last of these epic singers passed away in the 1960s. The yoikers presented here are all good representatives of an epic yoik tradition. Sara Maria Norsa, Nils Petter ...
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