Johan Turi, born Johannes Olsen Thuri also spelt Johan Tuuri or Johan Thuri or Johan Thuuri (12 March 1854 – 30 November 1936) was the first

Sami Acronyms * SAMI, ''Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange'', a closed-captioning format developed by Microsoft * Saudi Arabian Military Industries, a government-owned defence company * South African Malaria Initiative, a virtual expertise ne ...

author to publish a secular work in a

Sami language Acronyms * SAMI, ''Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange'', a closed-captioning format developed by Microsoft * Saudi Arabian Military Industries, a government-owned defence company * South African Malaria Initiative, a virtual expertise ne ...

. His first book was called ''Muitalus sámiid birra'' (''An Account of the Sami'') and tells about the life of people herding

reindeer The reindeer or caribou (''Rangifer tarandus'') is a species of deer with circumpolar distribution, native to Arctic, subarctic, tundra, taiga, boreal, and mountainous regions of Northern Europe, Siberia, and North America. It is the only re ...

in the

Jukkasjärvi Jukkasjärvi (; Sami: ''Čohkkiras'') is a locality situated in Kiruna Municipality, Norrbotten County, Sweden with 548 inhabitants in 2010. It is situated at 321 meters elevation. The name is of Northern Sami origin, where ''Čohkkirasjávri'' ...

region of northern Sweden at the beginning of the 20th century. An eclectic and nuanced text, ''Muitalus'' includes details on Sami traditions of child rearing, hunting, healing,

yoik A joik or yoik (anglicised, where the latter spelling in English conforms with the pronunciation; also named , , , or in the Sámi languages) is a traditional form of song in Sámi music performed by the Sámi people of Sápmi in Northern Europe ...

, and folklore. At its heart the text aims to draw outsiders' attention to the intrinsic value of Sami culture. Turi was born in

Kautokeino Kautokeino () may refer to: Places *Kautokeino Municipality (also known as: ), a municipality in Finnmark county, Norway *Kautokeino (village) , , or is the administrative centre of Kautokeino Municipality in Finnmark county, Norway. The vill ...

, Norway, but moved with his family to the Talma Sámi community near Jukkasjärvi, Sweden, in the 1880s. In 1904, he met the art student

Emilie Demant Hatt Emilie Demant Hatt (sometimes Emilie Demant-Hatt, or Emilie Demant; née Emilie Demant Hansen) (21 January 1873 – 4 December 1958) was a Danish artist, writer, ethnographer, and folklorist. Her area of interest and expertise was the culture ...

on a train in northern Scandinavia. Through an interpreter, he told her he wanted to write a book about Lapps, while she told him she wanted to be a nomad. Three years later, having learned the Sami language, Demant-Hatt returned to northern Scandinavia and lived with Turi's family. In 1908, Turi and Demant-Hatt lived in a mountain cabin where she assisted him with his manuscript. Turi died in Jukkasjärvi. The book has been translated into some ten languages, including Swedish, Danish, Finnish, English, Norwegian, German, French, Italian, Hungarian and Japanese. In 2011, Nordic Studies Press published an English edition of Turi's ''An Account of the Sami'', translated by

folklorist Folklore studies (also known as folkloristics, tradition studies or folk life studies in the UK) is the academic discipline devoted to the study of folklore. This term, along with its synonyms, gained currency in the 1950s to distinguish the ac ...

and professor of Scandinavian Studies Thomas A. DuBois.

Works

*1910 – ''Muitalus sámiid birra'' *1920 – ''Sámi deavsttat'' (''Texts in Sami'') *1931 – ''Duoddaris'' (''From the Mountain'')

References

Norwegian Sámi-language writers Norwegian Sámi writers Norwegian writers 1854 births 1936 deaths People from Kautokeino {{Norway-writer-stub