1. The sacredness of the closed

[We are in the highlands, on the top of the steep fells. The shapes of the land are different here. The road is winding, curving around the edges of the desert lakes between the fells. There are still a few hours to go. A Sámi song plays on the radio, the words of which my cousin translates for me.]

Riddu Riđđu Festivála is an international Indigenous festival held annually in Olmmáivággi, a coastal Sea Sámi area in the Norwegian side of Sápmi. The festival’s programme is multi-artistic, including music, performing arts, literature, visual arts, film, panel discussions, and courses.

Each year, the Riddu Riđđu Festivála selects the Northern People of the Year, an Indigenous people from the northern hemisphere to be honoured and highlighted in the programme. This year the highlighted group was Queer Indigenous. The delegation of Queer Indigenous artists included artists from Turtle Island[1], Inuit Nunaat[2], Sápmi, and a Maori artist from Australia who was part of an international performing group.

There is a lot of queerphobia in Sápmi and in the Sámi community, in many ways as a result of colonialism.

Highlighting Indigenous queer people as the Northern People of the Year was an exceptional and wonderful, historic choice. There is a lot of queerphobia in Sápmi and in the Sámi community, in many ways as a result of colonialism, so celebrating queerness for the first time in an event of this scale felt significant. However, the inclusion of queerness in the programme was particularly meaningful because through the international queer delegation, the festival created a meeting place for Indigenous queer people from around the world. The space was special, so sensitive and vital. Just being there made the festival feel very different from previous years.

[The midnight sun is shining diagonally on the meadow as we arrive. In the middle of the meadow, there’s a clustered circle of people gathered around a fire. Someone lifts branches into the flames, the smoke from them enveloping us together.]

The festival begins on Wednesday evening with a welcome ceremony for the queer delegation, with the Sámi tradition of burning juniper. Around the juniper smoke, people gather to cleanse themselves and to pray. Some members of the delegation share details about themselves. I particularly remember one performance that was shared, which I will not go into here in order to honour the privacy of the event. For a moment, the meadow on which we are standing is transformed, and something completely different opens up. Such sacred moments seem impossible to put into words.

The welcome ceremony also felt special in that it was a closed event. We were only with each other, with other Indigenous people. In the words of festival director Sajje Solbakk, Riddu Riđđu is by Indigenous people for Indigenous people, by us for us. This idea does not always come true, as the festival also attracts many people from outside the Indigenous community. Some of these people are our friends and allies who are welcome and invited guests, but unfortunately, every year there are also white people who exoticise and fetishise Indigenous peoples, such as so-called ‘white hippies’, who appropriate and are ‘inspired’ by our culture and steal it.

I have been noticing that otherwise quite conscious anti-racist allies may not really see these white hippies flirting with cultural appropriation and exoticisation as a serious threat, but rather as a harmless nuisance. But the problem is real. For example, in my own (and my close circle’s) experience, the cultural and aesthetic appropriation of white hippies has contributed to the fact that in some situations I find myself questioning whether I dare or want to wear my own cultural clothes or accessories, because I am distressed that people, out of ignorance about Sámi, think I am in fact a white hippie. This has sometimes led to the decision to abandon my own clothes and wear completely Western clothes. The phenomenon of cultural appropriation thus has the concrete effect of fading out the original culture and allowing its aesthetics to be linked to the appropriators in collective social images.

Otherwise quite conscious anti-racist allies may not really see these white hippies flirting with cultural appropriation and exoticisation as a serious threat.

In the context of the festival, and other public and shared spaces, it’s a tricky issue, because at the same time I truly see the importance of being open to outsiders and building networks of solidarity, alliance and love; but sometimes I also wish for closed, Indigenous-only programmes and spaces.

2. The sacredness of the shared

[Lávvu, reindeer, and seal skins are spread out on the floor and on wooden benches (traces of light through water and land in fur). It rains a little outside, drops run down the outer walls of the lávvu, the wind rustles the walls. There’s a fire in the middle. The succulent smell of smoke and tallow relaxes the body. It is warm, small tears bubble in my chest.]

This year’s festival is also special because the festival has put together a working group to plan and perform the first drag performance in Sápmi, as far as we know. I say ‘as far as we know’ because I believe this is not really the first time ever that drag in its many forms and dimensions has been performed here. The activity in question was probably not called ‘drag’ at the time, but something like it has certainly happened many times.

Indigenous Drag Excellence XXL, Aunty Tamara. Photo: Riddu Riđđu Festivála / Ørjan Marakatt Bertelsen

The drag working group Indigenous Drag Excellence XXL is made up of Indigenous performers from around the world. The group includes performers Ritni Ráste Pieski who is Northern Sámi, Aunty Tamara who is Maori, Adrienne Huard and Feather Talia who are Anishinaabe, and the group’s coordinator Sage Broomfield who is Nêhiyaw. The group gathers on Thursday morning to share about their work in a Meet the Drag Group panel discussion.

The group first met in June 2024 in Treaty 1 territory[3] in Winnipeg, Canada, to work together. Aunty Tamara explains how Winnipeg has the highest population of Indigenous people in North America and most of the drag scene is Indigenous. Ritni Ráste Pieski goes on to say how the Treaty 1 drag scene was a “big, welcoming community”. This touches me. It seems incredible to think that somewhere the majority of the drag community is Indigenous, when in the Finnish drag scene Pieski is, as far as I know, the only Sámi person doing drag.

It seems incredible to think that somewhere the majority of the drag community is Indigenous.

Thursday’s Meet the Drag Group discussion seems to be in direct conversation with the following day’s Conversation with the Northern People of the Year discussion. Looking through my notes, it seems as if the two groups in different panel discussions are discussing together, with only a day’s time difference between them. The Conversation with the Northern People of the Year includes Aka Hansen who is Inuk, Jeremy Dutcher who is Wolastoqiyik, Lady Shug who is Diné, Ida Helene Benonisen who is Northern Sámi, and Ceilidh Isadore who is Mi’kmaw. When the drag group coordinator Sage Broomfield, in describing the work of the working group, says there’s something really powerful when we Indigenous artists get to talk about everything together, in the following day’s discussion Jeremy Dutcher says, “when we gather there’s some magic that happens”.

In both discussions, artists tell us about the reasons behind why they make art. Drag artist Feather Talia says her drag is for children who have been in foster care because of colonialism and who therefore don’t know much about, for example, their regalia[4]. Adrienne Huard, or known as Randy River in drag, says their drag relies on hyper-masculinity, in a ‘native uncle’ kind of way. How much has colonisation robbed us of our ideas of gender and fluidity? Huard wonders.

Indigenous Drag Excellence XXL, Ritni Tears (Ritni Ráste Pieski). Photo: Riddu Riđđu Festivála / Sara Aarøen Lien

Ritni Ráste Pieski, known as Ritni Tears in drag, says that at the heart of his drag are alter egos, taking space, and courage. He has found it healing to play with gender roles, and has recently started to create drag queen characters on the side of the drag king characters he has done before. “What is Sámi drag?” he asks, “how do I bring all the parts of my Sámi identity into drag?”

“What is Sámi drag?” he asks, “how do I bring all the parts of my Sámi identity into drag?”

Jeremy Dutcher also describes the difficulties of reconciling queer and Indigenous identities – in his youth he experienced a feeling of having to choose between Indigenous and queer spaces, and not being able to bring his authentic self anywhere.

I identify with the feeling. I find myself thinking about Billy-Ray Belcourt’s poem Sacred which ends with the phrase and even though i know i am too queer to be sacred anymore, i dance that broken circle dance because i am still waiting for hands that want to hold mine too.[5]

i ask myself: how many of them gave up on desire because they loved their kookums[6] more than they loved themselves?⁵

• • •

To be too queer to be sacred anymore?

I don’t want to believe in that.

• • •

On the other hand, sacredness is emphasized at the heart of the two-spirit identity of Indigenous people of fluid gender or sexuality: two-spirit people were respected members of Indigenous communities who were considered sacred. Jeremy Dutcher describes two-spirit people as bridge people, those who stand in between. They were seen as walking between the human world and spirit worlds. However, with colonialism, queerphobia and Western binary gender roles have arrived in Indigenous communities, which is why, in Jeremy Dutcher’s words, “Two-spirit is a dangerous intersection to live at.”

Sacredness is emphasized at the heart of the two-spirit identity of Indigenous people of fluid gender or sexuality.

The artists’ speeches also echo another idea – drag (and art more broadly) as a way to heal from trauma. From personal trauma, collective trauma, the trauma of the land. Drag artist Aunty Tamara, who is Maori but was born and raised in Australia rather than Aotearoa, the traditional land of the Maori, speaks of the grief associated with a lost connection with the land. On the other hand, she also talks about the connection she has experienced with her ancestors, first through traditional cultural performance, and later through drag. “You take all of your ancestors on stage with you.”

Indigenous Drag Excellence XXL, Feather Talia. Photo: Riddu Riđđu Festivála / Ørjan Marakatt Bertelsen

The importance of the older generations is also highlighted. Feather Talia explains how she has learned a lot from queer elders in her community. The idea that there are queer elders in the community at all is touching to me. Jeremy Dutcher also says that his elders have had a big influence on his career. When he was young and asked about the traditional songs of his community, his elder told him: “The old songs live in the museums. You have to go there and get them back”; and so he did. Dutcher says he sees his music as a kind of sonic rematriation – he wants to make traditional music accessible to young people.

I am left thinking about this, the deep sense of loneliness one experiences when being (or imagines being) the only one.

Aunty Tamara says that when she started drag, she was surprised by how people in Sydney were taken aback by it. That’s when she realised she was really the first to do that and people had never seen anything like it – it was a big thing to reflect on. Ritni Ráste Pieski also raises the point that in Sápmi, we don’t have a Sámi drag community, but he hopes that soon we will. I am left thinking about this, the deep sense of loneliness one experiences when being (or imagines being) the only one. How much importance this, them, us, our togetherness has. Drag artist Lady Shug also talks about loneliness and strength, about how because we (as queer Indigenous people) don’t necessarily have that external backbone supporting us, we have to be so strong in ourselves. “But,” she says, “you’re never completely alone because there’s always the land.”

i wince a little because the earth hasn’t held all of me for quite some time now and i am lonely in a way that doesn’t hurt anymore.⁵

There is something magical, something sacred, in the way we open up space for our shared grief.

Someone on the panel says: I think this conversation is a ceremony in itself. Yes. At the end, everyone is crying. Me included. The lávvu fills with tears that flow down to the river that borders the valley, filling it with their soul.

3. The sacredness of healing

[History, archives, research. The skeletons of colonialism sneaking into the seminar rooms.]

I am also left wondering about language. In a discussion on two-spirit identity Jo-Marie Einish, who is Cree and Naskapi, says that there are no gendered words in Indigenous languages and that gendering only comes in when languages are translated into English (in the context of English-speaking countries). In their language, the direct English translation for two-spirit is “a person with two hearts”. The two-spirit identity is interesting because (to my knowledge) there is no similar phenomenon in the history of Sámi culture, although there have certainly been genderfluid and sexually fluid Sámi people throughout history. The same goes for what Jo-Marie Einish says about Indigenous languages – although there are no gendered personal pronouns in Sámi, the language is otherwise rich in gendered words. I think about the historical understanding of gender and queerness in Sápmi, how we have lost so much knowledge of it because of colonialism and Christianity. How much knowledge can we still find and recover?

I think about the historical understanding of gender and queerness in Sápmi, how we have lost so much knowledge of it because of colonialism and Christianity.

With this in mind, I excitedly attend the Queering and Indigenizing knowledge seminar, co-organised by UiT, the Arctic University of Norway, with speakers including queer Indigenous scholars Elisabeth Stubberud and Adrienne Huard, and UiT representative Torjer Olsen among others. The discussion starts promisingly with Olsen talking about something that many queer Sámi know: how one of the most famous artists in the Sámi community, Áillohaš, “was queer, but it is still not talked about”. As an example, Olsen points to the fact that it was not mentioned at all in the new, comprehensive biography about him.

Adrienne Huard also raises some insightful ideas. They are an Anishinaabe doctoral student who is researching two-spirit identity and drag in performance art for their PhD. In a previous discussion, I already drew attention to Huard’s interesting thoughts – among other things, Huard said they were exploring performance as a way of unearthing two-spirit knowledge. In the Queering and Indigenizing knowledge seminar, Huard asks the question, “Why is pow-wow considered ceremonial but drag is not?” They argue that the history of the pow-wow is also quite recent, being introduced about a hundred years ago. Dancing and performing is ceremonial – so why wouldn’t drag be? Huard argues.

“Why is pow-wow considered ceremonial but drag is not?”

What I found anticlimactic about the seminar, however, is that I felt like the conversation stayed quite superficial, not addressing on a deeper level how we could make knowledge production and research more queer and Indigenous. I would’ve liked to have heard the researchers’ thoughts on what different research methods and knowledge production practices we could adopt, and what different conceptions of knowledge we could adopt alongside the academic conception, as I know they would certainly have had many thoughts and insights on the topic. Fortunately, their published articles and other texts are available online.

Also, after another seminar, I was left wondering, who was the seminar really for? On Saturday, I go to see a discussion on Indigenous truth and reconciliation processes with Wolastoqiyik composer, musicologist, and performer Jeremy Dutcher, Northern Sámi filmmaker Suvi West, and Sámi politician Eirik Losnegaard Mevik, moderated by the Canadian Ambassador of Norway, Amy Baker. Amy Baker opens the discussion by telling us about Canada’s truth and reconciliation process, how it began with a commission established back in 2009, which issued a 2015 report that the country is now implementing. Jeremy Dutcher immediately challenges Baker, saying that the government has only implemented a fraction of the recommendations for action in the report. From this Dutcher launches into a long and emotional, heart-wrenching speech starting with the statement: “our books will never be flat”.

The Indigenous sense of time offers much comfort.

Jeremy Dutcher. Photo: Riddu Riđđu Festivála / Ørjan Marakatt Bertelsen

Dutcher goes on to say that he himself does not want to use the term ‘reconciliation’, because it is a banking term for balancing the books, and what we are talking about is something completely different. We can approach ‘reconciliation’ rather through Indigenous concepts of time: it will take lifelines before we are even close to a situation where the ‘books are flat’. Our generation will not see it, we will not get that reward. Nevertheless, Dutcher reminds us, we still have so many reasons to celebrate our resistance and resilience, to center our joy. In this situation, the Indigenous sense of time offers much comfort.

On the other hand, Dutcher also brings up another, more concrete perspective. We would have the opportunity to ‘balance the books’ in a concrete way in the present – our countries could, for example, still hold the churches and congregations that ran residential schools accountable to justice, as the people and institutions that ran residential schools still exist. But we don’t. “Who gets justice in these states?” he asks.

I think about the situation in which Dutcher, the only Indigenous participant from Canada on the panel, has been put. How would it feel to sit on another continent, next to the locals, and listen to the Finnish (or Norwegian or Swedish) ambassador tell me how the country has done so well in the truth and reconciliation process? I admire the way he remains open and emotional, and yet at the same time articulates and argues his case with such complexity and clarity. At the same time I mourn the fact that he has even been put in a situation where he has to do so. He shouldn’t have to, here, of all places. We have to do it enough elsewhere.

I wonder to myself why the discussion is being facilitated by a Canadian ambassador and not by an Indigenous person. I can understand the idea that since the discussion is about the process of reconciliation between Indigenous peoples and their colonisers, it would somehow be ideal that the discussion should also model the processes of reconciliation between these people, but I think it is a poor choice. There are already so many discussions in this setting. Instead, we need discussions where we just gather together members of our own Indigenous communities to think about what we could gain from the reconciliation process, how we could reconcile with the colonising states (if we could), and how we, as a community, could heal.

How we could reconcile with the colonising states (if we could), and how we, as a community, could heal?

I believe that there should be many more such communal discussions closed from the public, and that time and space should be prioritised for them. The Riddu Riđđu Festivála would have been the perfect place for such a discussion. That’s why I was somehow saddened by the outcome. I also feel that by changing the setting we would get much deeper into the topic itself, when the speakers would not have to think about (and please) the Western gaze when they speak, expressing their ideas in a form people from outside the communities can understand.

4. The sacredness of joy

[It’s the final night, the sun gilds the mountains, the precious metal spills onto the stage, makes the performers sparkle. They are holier than gold, silver. Emotion bubbling in the chest.]

The festival culminates on Saturday when the Indigenous Drag Excellence XXL performance opens the night. Although the performance is the first of the evening, the meadow is packed with an expectant audience. We are witnessing something historic.

First to take to the stage is Ritni Tears. He opens the show with a luohti song called Uhccimus searra, yoiking his home lands. He is wearing a gákti crop top designed by Kai Mihkkal Balto, who was named the Young Artist of the Year. The light plays on the bluish purple fabric. The way Ritni Tears combines Sámi tradition with drag is something unprecedented, so traditional and sacred.

Next up on stage is Feather Talia. She gracefully steps in front of us and begins the performance by cleansing the space with smoke. Her movement language combines strength and sensitivity, the performance is so powerful that it is felt in the audience all the way through the body.

After Feather Talia, Randy River runs onto the stage, wowing the audience. The character combines playfulness, humour, and the fun and healing of performing toxic masculinity. My soul laughs when Randy unexpectedly jumps into the splits and twerks for us. The second-hand gender euphoria I get from the performance is palpable. Laughter spills out of the audience. “Laughter is the best medicine you can get, and offer,” said Feather Talia earlier. That’s why drag is healing at its core.

“We are here to push the boundaries of drag and our cultures”. They are really doing that.

Last to arrive is Aunty Tamara with her cousins Moana McLeod and Natalia Tipene. They perform poi, a traditional Maori performing art. I think of Aunty Tamara’s words in an earlier panel discussion – “We are here to push the boundaries of drag and our cultures”. They are really doing that. What also warms me about Aunty Tamara’s performance is that she has decided to bring her cousins with her – that’s the Indigenous way of doing it. Their dynamics are strong and compelling.

Nuorra daiddar / Young Artist of the Year Kai Mihkkal Balto. Photo: Riddu Riđđu Festivála / Ørjan Marakatt Bertelsen

I am delighted by the rich and varied mosaic that emerges from the artists’ collaboration. How luohti, poi, and pop culture blend together on the stage. How Kai Mihkkal Balto’s costumes and Ritni Tears’ performance clearly belong together. I remember being so happy when I heard that Balto was named this year’s Young Artist of the Year. The playfulness, experimentalism, and combination of colours and materials in his duodji handicrafts is something unprecedented. In the second act, Ritni Tears appears in a ‘punk gákti’ designed by Balto, a gákti sewn from black mesh fabric, adorned with black leather and silver spikes.

The Indigenous Drag Excellence XXL performance and the whole festival was truly a queer celebration. The festival was very successful in executing the theme and creating the space for queer Indigenous people. The work done by Riddu Riđđu Festivála to bring indigenous people around the world together to build these vital networks is also evident. The festival is unique and crucial.

The whole festival was truly a queer celebration.

At the same time, you can also hear a concern in the speakers’ speeches about whether bringing queer Indigenous people to the centre is a one-off thing, or whether Riddu Riđđu will continue to work on this important theme. “I hope this is not just a one-year thing for Riddu Riđđu and that we queer Indigenous people will be left out again,” says Ritni Ráste Pieski in a panel discussion. I hear and see that there is a need for continuity and commitment, as well as building trust within the community. Lady Shug also asks an important question in another panel discussion: “Why did it take so long for the festival to celebrate queer and trans and two-spirit Indigenous people?”

I believe and hope that Riddu Riđđu Festivála will continue to work with queer and trans Indigenous people. At least based on the great execution of this year’s festival, we can start to build trust within the community. This year was historic and should be remembered – and in Jeremy Dutcher’s words, we should cherish remembrance as a counterforce to colonisation. I hope this is just the beginning of everything, the future opening up before our eyes.

See you next year. Photo: Riddu Riđđu Festivála / Sara Aarøen Lien

And while I applaud the festival, I want to remember to keep the queer Indigenous artists themselves at the centre. In the Sámi context, Sápmi Pride and the queer Sámi organisation Garmeres that hosts the pride event have also had a significant impact. It’s their hard work and perseverance that has made this possible – things only change by taking action. I wonder if this would have been possible earlier? When does the change happen, what is the right moment? Ritni Ráste Pieski’s interview in the Sámi magazine Ávvir begins with the headline question: Lea go Sápmi gearggus?[7] – is Sápmi ready? Yes it is, Pieski answers.

Writer is a Sámi artist and curator from Dálvadas, Sápmi and Helsinki, Finland. Currently he is dreaming of a free Palestine.

References

^[1] Turtle Island is the name for North America, used by many American Indigenous peoples as well as Indigenous rights activists. The name is based on a creation story common to several Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands of North America.

^[2] Inuit Nunaat refers to the land, water, and ice of the homeland of the Inuit in Canada and Greenland.

^[3] Treaty 1 territory is the ancestral territory of the Anishinaabe, Cree, Dakota, Dené, and Ojibway-Cree, and the traditional homeland of the Métis Nation. Treaty 1 territory includes areas around Lake Manitoba and Winnipeg as well as around the Red River Valley. Treaty 1 is an agreement established on August 3, 1871, between the Crown and the Anishinaabe and Swampy Cree, Canada-based First Nations, where the Indigenous groups were made to “cede, release, surrender and yield up to Her Majesty the Queen and successors forever all the lands” in southern Manitoba. The State of Canada continues to adhere to the position that the land was ceded and surrendered.

^[4] Regalia in Indigenous cultures refers to the traditional and often sacred clothing, accessories, and artifacts.

^[5] Billy-Ray Belcourt, This Wound Is a World, 2017.

^[6] Kookum means grandmother in Cree languages.

^[7] Drag-artista: – Lea go Sápmi gearggus?, Sergey Gavrilov, Ávvir, 15.7.2024.