Indigenous people’s philosophy

In addition to philosophy Nils-Aslak Valkeapää wrote essays. His first book was an artistic and political pamphlet in Finnish Terveisiä Lapista, 1971, translated into New Norwegian in 1979 Greeting from Sápmi. In an essay Valkeapää expresses primitive people’s philosophy of life in this way: “Another factor that unifies primitive people is their philosophy of life. Man is part of nature. Making things by hand is part of life. The cultural concept need not necessarily embrace separation and limitations. There is no ‘art’ or ‘music’. Yoik is not just music.” Both in the book The Earth, My Mother and in the play The rime-haired and the Dreamseer man’s relationship to nature is the central theme.

(Harald Gaski 2014)