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SCRIPTED AND EMBODIED RITUALITY IN A YOIK-NOH PERFORMANCE
ON A PRECEDING TEXT,
A HAIKU AND THE YUGEN PRINCIPLE
Thanks to the insight provided by two essays recently published by the Japan
expert Jun’ichirö Okura, a close friend of Valkeapaa, we have learned that two
haikus by the sixteenth-century Japanese poet Matsuo Bas6 became part of
Valkeapää’s Sämi play.‘ Ökura also reveals that one of his own plays, which he
offered to Valkeapää for use in his performance, was an additional source of
influence. Okura’s play cited several of the yoik songs from Valkeapää’s LPs as
well as yoik poems included in his 1991 Nordic Literary Prize-winning book.’
It also included scenes where the protagonist — who bore a strong resem¬
blance to Valkeapää — appears as a wise spirit from the other world. Titled
“Elämän jojku”, meaning “The Yoik of Life”, this play symbolized the essence
of Valkeap&a’s poetry as it was seen and interpreted by Okura.’ It conveyed a
deep respect and devoted support of life in all of its different manifestations.
Although Valkeapaa politely declined Okura’s script, preferring to write his
own version, Okura’s text and its Noh theater spirit made a strong impression
on him. In fact, Okura’s text can be seen as a tangible bridge between Noh
theater and Valkeapää’s later piece, though we also know that Valkeapää had
a longstanding prior interest in Noh theater.
The demonstrable genealogical relationship between premodern and mod¬
ern Japanese ritualistic literary texts and the Sami liminal play is due in large
part to the transcultural viability of certain ritualistic patterns. While some
Japanese cultural, spiritual, and artistic ritual elements are difficult to imple¬
ment transculturally, others prove to be quite adaptable. The literary texts un¬
der present consideration could exemplify both instances; however, this essay
concentrates on patterns successfully adapted to the Sami text, and in doing
so, manifesting scripted rituality. Furthermore, no matter how elaborately
a pattern appears, the more universal it is, the easier it can be implemented
again.
Okura’s original performance script is, as he calls it, a yugen Noh play.’
With this genre specification Ökura refers to the mystical Mugen Noh theater
tradition, with emphasis on the yügen aesthetic principle. As he explains,
Noh plays can be divided into three groups according to the human and tran¬
scendental worlds they depict. One of these three sub-genres, Mugen Noh,
6 Jun’ichirö Ökura: Äilu Japanissa, in T. Valtonen - L. Valkeapää (eds.): Minä soin, 361-375.
Ökura: Japanilaisia piirteitä Ailun tuotannossa, in Ibid., 376-397.
7 Nils-Aslak Valkeapää: Beaivi, Ahédzan, Guovdageaidnu, DAT, 1988.
8 The original play written in Japanese, then translated into Finnish has not yet been published.
However, its Hungarian translation is available as Jun’ichiré Okura: Az élet jojkäja, trans.
Johanna Domokos, in J. Domokos (ed.): A szerencsefia. Kortárs számi drámák, Budapest,
Napküt Kiadö, 2017, 109-121.
° Okura: Ailu Japanissa, 368.