Little had I known that my search for an item to post on Instagram would lead to the discovery of one of my favorite books at Rauner! Contrary to the imposing vibe that the huge size of this book exudes, the pencil-drawn illustrations inside appear much more approachable, similar to something you would see doodled in the notebook of an elementary school student -- though with much greater precision and detail. After some research, I learned that these were illustrations by Johan Turi, the first Sami author to publish secular works in the Sami language. Turi drew these illustrations to include in his 1931 book titled
Muittalus Samid Bira, also known as
Turi's Book of Lappland to an English-speaking audience.
The Sami are the northernmost indigenous group of people in Europe, residing in parts of Norway, Finland, Sweden and Russia. Turi's depiction of the lives of the Sami people in this book provides insights into the cultural and traditional conventions of Sami society.
Reindeer are the dominant feature in all of Turi's drawings as they play a significant role in the livelihoods of the Sami people.
You will notice that, in this drawing, there are two distinct groups traveling in opposite directions, illustrating the migration patterns for two different seasons. The group above are migrating towards the north, a spring migration pattern, whereas the group below are migrating towards the south, which occurs in autumn. Evidence indicating the coexistence of different time frames in this drawing are the horns of the reindeer. The horns of the reindeer in the bottom group are full-grown, which would have been true in autumn, whereas the horns of the reindeer in spring would not have fully matured yet.
In autumn, when the reindeer are migrating southward, herds get mixed together frequently. To identify their animals, the owners install a stockade where they gather all the reindeer and begin to separate them. Each stockade has the same number of enclosures as there are owners. Then, the owners would use lassos to catch the reindeer to check to whom it belongs and put that animal in the appropriate pen.
Aside from the reindeer herding, Turi introduces other aspects of Sami life such as courting, tent-building, and an annual trip to a church in Jukkäsjarvi, Sweden.
The book we have at Rauner only has illustrations and is without text descriptions. However, Baker-Berry Library has an English-language version of
Turi's Book of Lappland, which includes explanations of each drawing.
If you'd like to see our book with only the illustrations, ask at Rauner for
Stefansson DL 917.L2 T82. To better understand the illustrations, check out
Turi's Book of Lappland from Baker-Berry and bring it over with you.
Wow, what a cool discovery we made this week. For a nineteenth-century British literature class we had out a slew of materials related to Oscar Wilde. Among them was the 1882 printing of Rennell Rodd's Rose Leaf and Apple Leaf with an introduction by Wilde. It is a great example of the aesthetic movement--bound in vellum, printed on a thin vellum paper and interleaved with green paper to give the whole book the air of leaves. That alone was pretty amazing, but then we noticed a faint inscription on the front cover.
Turns out the inscription, mostly worn away, is in Wilde's hand. We got tingles when we realized this was the copy he had given his mother. He would have been 28 years old, and his own first book of poems was selling well. His mother, Jane, had some notoriety at the time as an poet, participant in the Irish nationalist movement, and having just been convicted of libel against a woman her husband had seduced.
