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SCRIPTED AND EMBODIED RITUALITY IN A YOIK-NOH PERFORMANCE
That is how people disappear
Like foam in the current of life
Just a wave, the great one
It too rolls in life’s ocean
Which now roars above us
And nobody knows
For how long anything
Lives
(translated by R. Salisbury, L. Nordstrém and H. Gaski)””
In Okura’s piece this poem is voiced by the chorus. It is part of a long dialogue
infused by yoiks and is performed in turn by the shite and the chorus. In
Okura’s imagination this must have sounded similar to the 1992 vocal record¬
ing of Valkeapää’s book: Beaivi, Ahcazan. In Valkeapää’s play it is the Frost¬
haired one (the shite) who repeats this motif in the following way:
and the sun turns in its circle, the moon wanders,
becoming days, months, years, epochs...
people come, leave, are born, die
but when the flocks grow bigger and bigger
they become huge and are filled up
like a tidal wave they wash away whatever stands in its way,
remove, crush, splinters, shakes,
shores exist no longer, no beaches,
not even flocks,
unless —
(translated by R. Eriksen and H. Gaski)"?
A HAIKU
This cyclic worldview of the Sami poet shows strong similarities to a specific
haiku of Basho’s, which Ökura first included in his piece. After Valkeapää
2 Nils-Aslak Valkeapää: The Sun, My Father, trans. Ralph Salisbury — Lars Nordström - Harald
Gaski, Guovdageaidnu, DAT. 1997.
133 Nils-Aslak Valkeapää: The Frost-haired and the Dream-seer, trans. Roy Eriksen — Harald Gas¬
ki, Unpublished, 2006. The author wants to thank the translators for putting their translation
at the disposal of this study. All later translations by Eriksen and Gaski are from this source.
Right after finishing this study the drama of Valkeapää was published as Ritnoaivi ja nieguid
oaidni — The Frost-haired and the Dream-seer — RFA ÉR6ÈE, Guovdageaidno, DAT,
2020, including the Sami original as well as the English and Japanese translations. Translation
into English by Roy Eriksen and Harald Gaski, translation into Japanese by Jun’ichiré Okura.
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