There can’t be many expats in Finland quite like Anthony Rice-Perttunen. Not only is the fifty-one year-old an accomplished multi-genre musician . . . he also happens to be Mohawk.
The Native American, who has been living in Oulu for just over a year, met his Finnish wife at traditional ceremony in Montana.
‘It was at a Shoshone celebration,’ Anthony recalls, ‘in September 2007. And my future wife was participating. One of the elders of the tribe regularly travels to Finland teach an alternative spirituality group in southern Finland which my wife was involved with. They were invited to attend and my wife was one of those who did.
The couple began corresponding by email, met up a few times and eventually Anthony ‘felt compelled’ to come to Finland to be with his now wife who lectures Portuguese at Oulu University.
Anthony’s passion is music, ‘Everything from Thrash Metal to avant-garde!’ he laughs.
Surrounded by music in his childhood, (‘there was only ever classical music in our house,’ he reminisces, ‘and my dad played the violin’), the Native American of Anchorage, Alaska studied the subject at the University of Arts in Philadelphia, concentrating on classical guitar.
After university, he did various jobs – including working for IBM - but his passion for music never waned. His concerts have included a performance at the prestigious Smithsonian in Washington DC in 2007 as well as at the US capital’s Museum of the Native American. He also played guitar for a number of groups’ albums. In Oulu, he had what he calls as ‘Post-Modern’ piece of music at Oulu’s ‘Uuden Musiikin Lokakuu Festival,’ which was subsequently broadcast on YLE-1. He’s also about to begin teaching a series of seminars – beginning at the end of January – which aim to help Finnish singer-song-writers who want to write in English. They are on offer through www.rockopolis.fi.
‘Using English is one of the challenges for Finnish musicians,’ he tells me. ‘English is so rich in metaphor . . . it’s so malleable . . . it invites metaphor . . . and these are tools for the lyricist to utilize.’
According to Anthony, these metaphors are far more difficult to use if you are non-native speaker ‘because there are so many layers of meaning. And in the classes, we’ll play songs and discuss what people feel, what touched them and, more importantly, what didn’t.’
The musician has found a wide variety of fellow-lyricists in Oulu interested in such training. ‘From the Open Mic sessions here that’s what I’ve seen,’ he smiles. ‘There’s everything from thrash metal to Blues!’
Anthony thinks long and hard when asked about his own musical influences but when asked to name somebody famous, he has no hesitation: ‘Bach!’ Bach’s music is ‘inspiring’ and Anthony begins to compare it to Mathematics. According ‘Systems Theory’ there are certain ‘truths’ that cannot be ‘proven . . . because the system is self-referential.’ Anthony wonders if Bach’s music is like that and, therefore, ‘impossible to put into words. For example, sometimes you feel inspired. You compose a piece of music and you know that it works but you can’t express how. You just know.’
‘I don’t want to misrepresent myself thought,’ he stresses. ‘Another really important influence has been Pink Floyd! And I don’t want to sound too Romantic . . . but also Wagner.’
Referring to one recent piece as ‘Post-Modern’, Anthony elaborates that, for him, Post-Modern music involves a kind of synthesis of many different styles and genres and this is, sometimes, what he tries to achieve.
Anthony uses the word ‘unique’ a number of times in describing pieces of music. It may well also apply to him, at least in Northern Finland. Not only is he a Mohawk but he tries to follow what he calls Mohawk ‘spirituality.’
‘Mohawks are based in New York State,’ he explains. ‘My grandfather left the reservation in the 1890s and my father was raised completely as an American.’
His mother was what’s called ‘Metis’ which means half Algonquin (a mostly Quebec-based tribe) and half white. Anthony’s father moved to Alaska after World War II in search of work. ‘So all the culture was lost,’ he adds.
‘When I was about five or six I remember that my father asked me to come into his room and said, “You need to learn that you’re a native.” It’s part of your identity.’
‘In my twenties, I started asking who I was and why I’m here. And that’s when I became really interested in my Mohawk heritage.’
Anthony returned to his grandfather’s reservation. ‘They welcomed me. They helped me find my way. It wasn’t like a Western religious conversion. I was simply invited to an informal ceremony (or ‘Longhouse’) for thanking our ancestors.’
In Anthony’s experience, Native American reservations – ‘and certainly the Mohawk’ – are becoming ‘increasingly less Christian.’ They are returning to their traditional ‘spirituality.’
It is a way of living life that has inspired Anthony. He has a tattoo on his arm which he summarises, ‘Dog tags: So the creator knows who I am,’ with reference to the metal ID-tags worn by US soldiers which survive even if their wearer doesn’t. The tattoo is Native American in origin. Anthony also has a ‘traditional Mohawk marking’ on his right ear.
Being a Mohawk is, however, not a matter of rituals or markings but ‘the way you live your life.’ Discovering his ‘Mohawk identity’ is certainly something that has influenced the musician’s struggles with some of life’s most difficult questions.
The fact that it’s minus 27 outside, however, is not a struggle. Many expats complain of the Finnish cold at this time of year, but this is nothing for Alaskan Anthony.
‘When I was at college there, we had periods in winter when it never got above minus 55! You’d come back after the holidays and see that all the cars that had been left outside . . . they’re tyres had shattered!’
