Koryak (2)

Tamara Ivikovna Sajnav (cover image of Sibérie 4)
20 x 16 inches, oil on canvas, 2018

The 'Music du Monde' cd Kamchatka: Tambours de danse de l'extreme-orient Sibérien featuring music by the Koryak continues to be loaded in the cd-drive of my computer. It's becoming a sing-along disc. The language used by Tamara Ivikovna Sajnav on a song about the tundra is Čavčuven, which belongs to the Paleo-Siberian family. Needless to say that I don't know what I'm singing about when I sing along (besides that it's about the tundra). The musicians are not very forthcoming when asked about lyrics, they argue that the meaning of the song is in the timbre, not in their words. I agree. (I never pay attention to the meaning of song lyrics much, never did. When I sing "hop-hop" along with the disc, I think I understand the song.) With song, as with image, a deeper understanding is gained in the process of copying. In copying the cover image of the cd, the photograph of Sajnav (probably taken by Henri Lecomte, who also recorded the music) a level of empathy is established. Tamara Ivikovna Sajnav was born in 1928 in Aklan, her Koryak name is Ejgili, which means small stone. She is a small woman with a big drum (zja zjaj frame drum), 65 years old when the photo was taken. Her face in the painting was done with just a few brush strokes and looks younger than in the photo. I left it that way.